A reliability study of commentary systems used at football matches

Abstract

In broadcast commentary there is a small margin of error as coverage is usually to a live audience of millions of sport fanatics entailing micro second delays between the live coverage and what viewers at home see and experience. The purpose of this project is to therefore study the Reliability of the Commentary System and its constituent subsystems that are responsible for broadcasting audio and video signals that viewers see and hear. The scope of this project encompasses a complex commentary system composed of the following three subsystems • The Stadium Subsystem • International Broadcast Centre Subsystem • The Home Country Subsystem The subsystems are in themselves composed of other subsystems which are subsequently composed of various components whose reliabilities are the basic building blocks of the reliability study of the entire commentary system. The study rides on the data collected from commentary systems used at the 2010 Football World Cup and provides an in-depth look at the complex arrangement of constituent components. Human reliability is a key factor for a successful broadcast and owing to a number of key issues addressed in the project the human-machine interfaces at varying levels of the commentary system have not been analyzed separately but instead treated as part of a whole. The practical value of Reliability information includes a positive correlation with cost control, an evaluation of the likelihood of success and improvement opportunities incorporated into the system as a whole.