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our core feeds to them, enhancing their programmes, giving them more for the rights money they’re spending.”
But helping to cover live events is only part of ISL Production’s role. They do promotional films, specialist videos, multi-media CD-ROM products and, of course, ongoing television programming.
ISL Productions runs the ATP tennis show for 39 weeks every year (ISL as a whole produces the masters series which are the ten events just beneath the Grand Slam tournaments). They also make the half-hour world football show FIFA TV 52 weeks a year.
Endorsed by FIFA, Davis likes to emphasise that it’s not just about FIFA, it’s about football in general. Covering
everything from the community work in the third world to referee training programmes, it goes out to about 60 countries worldwide.
“We’ve also just started, on the football front, something called The History Of Football. This is something I’ve been trying to get on television for 18 years now. It’s 13 one-hour pro- grammes, but our marketing partner in this case isn’t ISL itself, it’s Pearson Television International.
Shot using widescreen digital film, The History Of Football pro- ject was launched in Cannes in October (“Ronaldo, Eusebio and Di Stefano were there. We had 500 people - non-sports people from the
television industry - turn up
at the reception and they mobbed them for autographs”).
“We did about two to three years of research and it’s been in full pro- duction since April, but we probably won’t start editing a piece of footage until next May,” says Davis.
“It’s very exciting. We’ve already found some footage from around the world that everyone thought was lost - I can’t tell you what yet or other broadcasters will be out there chasing it...” ■ CERI THOMAS
“We now have ten edit suites and 68 people... the entire ISL group only has a staff of around 500, so we’re now one of the biggest component companies.
JOHN DAVIS,
Managing Director of ISL Productions
Photos from top (l-r):
Brian Harris, CEO Pearson TV, Alfredo di Stefano, Eusebio, Ronaldo and John Davis; Joseph S Blatter, FIFA President, Chuck Blazer, Chairman FIFA Media Committee and President CONCACAF, with Davis;
John Davis, Managing Director of ISL Productions