IMG Sports Media Set to Move Premises to Stockley Park

IMG Sports Media, a division of IMG Worldwide, the sports, fashion and media company, is to move its sports production business to business park, Stockley Park, near Heathrow, from July this year.

As a result, mediahouse, the studios and post production arm of IMG Sports Media, is to be rebranded IMG Studios, which will also be the name of the 107,000 sq ft building.

The facilities include four studios – two will be 2,000 sq ft and the other two 1,000 sq ft – as well as 13 production galleries, 72 edit suites, four sound dubbing suites, five radio studios, five transmission suites and a Master Control Room. There will also be dedicated areas for graphics, streaming and encoding.

Graham Fry, global managing director of production, said: “We are all very excited about the move which, for the first time, will see our production and technical operations under the same roof. This has given us a fantastic opportunity to build a facility exactly to our own specifications and requirements to cater for our existing and potential new customers and clients.

“The result is a very modern and efficient state-of-the-art production facility that we will begin using this summer as we migrate the different productions and personnel over the course of this year and through to the beginning of the 2014/2015 football season, when Premier League Productions (PLP) will also have a new home.”

The heart of the building boasts one of the largest data centres built specifically for digital media and broadcast in recent times, containing over 160 racks supported by various redundancy systems. IMG’s private Media Cloud will also be hosted here.

With its own satellite farm and huge redundant connectivity, IMG Studios will become a key focus for sports and entertainment content distribution and will be directly connected to many of the leading sports stadia in this country.

IMG has commissioned broadcast systems experts TSL to handle the technical installation while refurbishment specialists Overbury will complete the offices and furniture fit-out.

Clients/productions that will be housed at Stockley Park include Premier League Productions ‘PLP’, European Tour Productions ‘ETP’, SNTV,  UEFA Champions League Magazine Show, FIFA Football Mundial, BBC Football League Show, Trans World Sport, Origin Digital and Rightster.

The relocation, which will be complete by the middle of next year, was made necessary by the lease on existing buildings at the Hogarth Business Park in Chiswick running out in 2014.

In addition to the global HQ in London, IMG Sports Media also has production centres in New York, Oslo, Singapore, Glasgow, Stockholm and Sydney.