ORF runs full ARRI Alexa 35 Live package on Riedel DIVA+ for Eurovision

For the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, host broadcaster ORF did not sprinkle a few cinema cameras into a conventional multi-camera plant. ARRI Alexa 35 Live cameras formed the complete main camera package - 24 heads across classic positions and specialty rigs - for what the partners call Cinematic Live Production. Riedel Communications supplied the DIVA+ infrastructure that carried data, intercom, video, and audio on one production network, with NEP as OB integration partner. The show reached more than 132 million viewers across more than 35 participating territories under the European Broadcasting Union umbrella.

ORF's brief was explicit: more intimacy and proximity to artists, a more filmic image, without giving up the deterministic behavior of a global live music final. That only works if the cinema camera layer plugs into intercom, tally, returns, and specialty motion systems the same way a classic broadcast package would. Lutz Rathmann, CEO Managed Technology at Riedel Communications, put the requirement in systems language. "Cinematic Live Production only works when creative ambition and technical reliability come together in one integrated ecosystem," Rathmann said. "At the Eurovision Song Contest, DIVA+ provided the foundation that allowed ARRI's cinematic image quality to be used reliably at the scale of a global live event. Together, we proved that a new visual language for live entertainment is production ready."

DIVA+ scale in Vienna

The Vienna DIVA+ build was not a light temporary node. Riedel's figures put the plant at roughly 60 MediorNet frames, more than 80 network switches, and more than 11 kilometers of signal fiber across the venue. Communications rode Artist-1024 intercom nodes with more than 190 Bolero wireless beltpacks, over 120 Smart Panels, and about 650 radios across more than 60 radio channels, four digital base stations, and 16 analogue repeaters. International commentary used about 35 commentary panels and Riedel's Desktop SmartPanel Commentary Panel App. Wireless Easy5G extensions for Virtual SmartPanels added flexibility, with hi human interface used for selected control and orchestration tasks.

MediorNet tied specialty camera systems - cable cams, telescopic cranes, wireless Steadicam rigs, remote dollies - into the same backbone as intercom, tally, and return paths. That is the unglamorous half of "cinematic live": the Alexa 35 Live package only stays production-ready if crane, cable, and Steadicam paths keep lockstep with the main gallery. Claudio Bortoli, Technical Supervisor for Eurovision Song Contest 2026 at ORF, framed the season goal as pushing visual language while holding global-live robustness. "With Riedel, ARRI, NEP, and our wider technology partner network, we turned this ambition into a reliable production model," Bortoli said.

OB integration and the wider ecosystem

NEP's job was to fold ARRI CCUs and base stations into the OB environment without inventing a second signal religion for intercom, tally, returns, and shading. Axel Engström, Sales and Project Manager at NEP, described the work as absorbing complexity so creative teams could stay on the show. "Together with ORF, Riedel and ARRI, we brought new and established technologies into a unified production workflow that delivered a more cinematic viewing experience," Engström said. "As the integration partner, our role was to manage the complexity behind the scenes so the production team could focus on the show with confidence. Every new capability introduces additional technical challenges, and our expertise is in bringing those technologies together into a , reliable operation that enables creative innovation without compromising the resilience live productions demand." Sennheiser contributed wireless audio expertise for artist microphones and in-ear monitoring on the broader ecosystem side.

For readers outside the song-contest bubble, the production model is the news. A full Alexa 35 Live main package at 24 cameras is a different commitment from hybrid plants that keep broadcast cameras on the wide show and borrow cinema bodies for beauty. ORF's choice forces the infrastructure vendors to prove low-latency, multi-kilometer fiber plants and dense wireless intercom at the same time the camera manufacturer proves live CCU behavior. DIVA+'s unified data/intercom/video/audio pitch is aimed exactly at that class of event - where adding a new camera platform cannot mean bolting on a parallel network that fails independently on final night.

Eurovision's audience numbers explain why host broadcasters keep spending at this level. The 2026 Grand Final took a 54.8% viewing share among 15-24-year-olds in measured markets - more than four times the broadcast channels' average for that demo - and official content across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook generated more than 2.75 billion views across the season, with the Grand Final livestream alone drawing 5.43 million unique YouTube viewers. Those figures do not change the engineering bill of materials, but they explain why a 70th-edition host would risk a full cinematic main package only if the intercom, MediorNet, and OB integration layers were already specified for worst-case live failure modes. On that read, Riedel and ARRI's Eurovision credit is less a product demo than a stress test of whether cinema-main-camera live music is ready for multi-territory finals - and ORF's answer, on the night, was yes.

What changes for the next host broadcaster is the bill of materials, not the slogan. A full Alexa 35 Live main package still needs CCU integration, shading discipline, and specialty-motion paths that do not fight the gallery clock. Riedel\'s DIVA+ numbers in Vienna - MediorNet frames, multi-kilometer fiber, Bolero density, commentary-panel count - are the part of the story other finals can copy without copying ORF\'s set design. If cinematic live is going to leave the special-event category, those infrastructure counts have to become boring. Eurovision 2026 made them visible precisely because the camera package finally forced the network layer to prove it could carry cinema-main-camera live music at multi-territory scale without a parallel private plant that fails on its own.

News submitted by: Mark Ops