Media provision

Ground management is responsible for ensuring the safety and security of all people present at the ground during an event.

This includes press reporters, commentators, presenters, camera operators, photographers and all production personnel working for media companies within the ground.

Management is also responsible for ensuring that the activities of these media personnel don’t:

• interfere with or negate the normal safety operation of the ground; or
• put at risk the safety, security, comfort or viewing standards of spectators.

At the same time, media providers are responsible for the health and safety of their own staff and sub-contractors during an event.

For this reason, the ground management, media providers and, where appropriate, the event organisers, should liaise before events to ensure that, even when no direct contractual agreement exists between the parties, the appropriate risk assessments are developed, and the health and safety duties and responsibilities of each party are clearly defined, documented and communicated to each other.

Planning

During the planning stage, media companies must provide management, in advance, with:

• a risk assessment
• a method statement, outlining the construction processes to be followed for each temporary media installation
• design calculations for each temporary media installation
• a Media Plan, setting out the location of each temporary media installation

In addition, ground management should ensure that all media provision, whether permanent or temporary, is included within its own site specific, or event specific risk assessment.

Also in advance, the management should inform all media companies of the radio frequencies intended for use during an event by the management and other users of radios, in order to avoid interference with ground communication systems.

Media installations

Media installations at sports grounds may include outside broadcast vehicles, studios, stages, display screens, loudspeaker systems and cabling, and also gantries or platforms for cameras and commentators

When planning and inspecting media installations, management should consider issues including:

• The traffic plan to ensure media-related vehicles and installations do not obstruct ingress or egress routes used by spectators or emergency vehicles.
• Cables should not run along or across gangways, or passageways, or otherwise obstruct the movement of spectators or create a trip hazard
• Inspections of all installations to ensure that they are constructed and located as proposed in the planning documentation outlined, and do not block or restrict views in any areas for which tickets have been sold.
• If a public address system is imported for a specific media presentation, both the management and the media provider should ensure that its output does not interfere with the ground’s own public address system or with the radios used by stewards and the emergency services. Provision should also be made – normally in the ground’s safety control point – for an override switch, so that the imported PA system can be interrupted if necessary.

Identification

All media personnel should be provided with specific event day security passes showing those areas which they are permitted to access.

In addition, all roving media personnel should be clearly identified, for example by colour coded tabards bearing the appropriate wording (such as ‘media’, ‘photographer’ or ‘broadcast unit’), in such a way that their clothing cannot be confused with that of the stewards or other safety personnel.