November 26, 2025

Virtual Production at the BBC: The Future of TV & Live Broadcasts

24 minutes

BBC Sport’s Design Director John Murphy on game engines, virtual studios, and why the next generation might watch sports inside immersive worlds.

In this Episode of the New Realities Podcast we sit down with John Murphy, Design Director at BBC Sport, to explore how virtual production is reshaping the future of television.

Recorded at Medientage München 2025, this conversation dives deep into how modern game engines, mixed-reality sets, AR graphics, and LED volumes have transformed the BBC’s sports coverage—from Match of the Day to soccer worldcups and Olympic broadcasts. John explains how virtual studios allow the BBC to “broadcast from Tokyo” without ever leaving Manchester, why keying and camera tracking have finally become reliable, and what’s next as LED volumes become mainstream.

He also talks about:

The evolution of virtual production over the last 15 years

How Unreal Engine increased realism and made virtual sets viable

The editorial value of AR: from live data overlays to immersive analysis

Building entire worlds for the Olympics, Euros, and Winter Games

Why virtual production is increasingly a sustainability and budget solution

How immersive technologies could help reach younger audiences

The role AI will play in speeding up 3D and XR production pipelines

When VR/AR headsets will ever become meaningful platforms for live sports

Links to videos that show the BBC's virtual production in action:

The secrets of BBC's Tokyo 2020 studio

BBC UEFA Womens Euros 2025 Virtual Set Design

...more

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By XR HUB Bavaria und 1E9