CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) INFORMATION

The COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented global impact on all industries. Sports events across the world have been cancelled or postponed, which has a direct consequence for the broadcast and media industries, and thus affects Eurovision Services. Our priority at this challenging time is to put people’s safety first, for our employees, contractors and customers, while ensuring business continuity and service delivery. 

The following Q&A is intended to provide information on our response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the measures we have put in place to ensure business continuity and our contingency planning. 

To date, there has been no impact on our ability to deliver any of our contracted services or respond to new requests from our customers. We understand the impact that the situation is having on so many of our customers and partners and we want to reassure them that we are available to help in any way we can.   

What are you doing to ensure business continuity? 

With the exception of essential operational personnel, all staff were asked to work from home until further notice from the beginning of March 2020.  

We have further protected our customers and suppliers by stopping, as early as the end of February 2020, all professional travel by Eurovision Services staff and freelancers to areas blacklisted or considered at risk by the World Health Organisation. From the beginning of March, Eurovision Services staff members were also advised not to travel to such areas for private reasons. 

We have created remote operations workstations that can be used to operate our network from any remote facility. These workstations have been tested from various locations and allow all operational staff to operate our network remotely with the highest level of security and reliability.  

Should we expect any issues or downtime on the Eurovision Global Network because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic? 

Since the first cases of coronavirus were reported, our Eurovision Global Network has continued to operate 24/7 without incident. As a result of the above-mentioned action, we do not foresee any issues related to the provision of contracted services on our network. Equally, our customer service and transmission booking systems have not been affected and continue to operate as normal. 

How are you protecting employees from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19)? 

Since 11 May 2020, a very limited number of non-essential staff have been allowed to return to the office on a voluntary basis. The following enhanced health and safety measures have been introduced to facilitate this gradual, cautious return to the workplace: 

• Masks will be distributed to all staff upon their arrival at the office.
• Hygiene and social distancing (2m minimum) measures remain in force.
• Temperature checks on entering the site will be carried out either by a thermal camera or electric thermometer.
• A revised electronic entrance protocol has been put in place to detect people at risk or with symptoms.
• Our cafeteria is closed to reduce any possible risks. Increased cleaning for meeting rooms, lifts and kitchen areas.
• The ban on all visitors or contractors entering the site remains in place, unless for mission critical support and/or maintenance.

We continue to filter access to our premises in Singapore, Washington DC, Madrid, Dubai, New York and Beijing.

What is your policy on travel and meetings?

We have a total restriction on international business travel in place until at least 30 June 2020. Even if the restrictions on international business travel are eased, Eurovision Services meetings in Geneva with more than ten participants will not be permitted before 1 September 2020.

What contingency plans do you have in place? 

We operate a separate Disaster Recovery Site in Switzerland. This secured site is fully integrated within the Eurovision Global Network and can take over the role of main network monitoring and control centre, if necessary.  

We have already successfully tested the forwarding of our Level 1 support and monitoring to our Washington Technical Operations Centre (TOC) and conducted a test of a “Disaster Recovery shift” procedure, proving our ability to operate our network without our main control centres, using remote staff, equipment and facilities. We are ready to deploy this solution in any of our facilities worldwide if required.