Pittsburgh Connections: NEP Broadcasting Services

A Pittsburgh company has a lot to do with what you see at the Olympics.

NEP is based in Harmarville. It’s the biggest mobile production company in the world, and is involved in major events like the Oscars, PGA Tour, and Super Bowl. Their biggest job though, is the Olympics.

“The business was founded here and really our first engagement was with NBC,” said Keith Andrews, CEO of NEP Group. “That strong relationship continues today.”

NEP provides all the hardware needed for a mobile broadcast production. That means control rooms, cameras, instant replay machines, and the engineers to make sure it all works.

“We often joke about how much goes on back here in this small area that relates to broadcast all over the world,” said Glen Levine, president of NEP Broadcasting Services.

NEP has been part of every single summer and winter Olympics in the last 28 years.

For Rio, the Pittsburgh office prepped 15 trailers, along with inventory and new equipment. It was all transported by boat and set up outside venues across Rio. The equipment will be used by NBC as well as international broadcasters.

“It's a great event to be involved with, not just for the amount of effort and everything involved, but for our people to get engaged in something that’s simply fantastic and far bigger than anything they deal with on a regular basis,” Andrews said.

About two dozen Pittsburghers made the trip to Rio as engineers. They were joined by others from the company’s 14 offices worldwide.

It will take three weeks to get all of the equipment back to Pittsburgh. Then it’ll be used for football and the PGA Ryder Cup.

Cox Media Group