WHITEPAPERBEYOND LIVE: building better video distribution for a changing audience

that live audiences are generally well catered for but rights holders could be doing more to exploit the value of their near-live and archived media – to service a new generation of fans keen to catch up on the latest action or delve into classic content around the clock.

For 18 to 34-year-olds, watching sport is now more about snacking than settling in front of a TV to watch a game from beginning to end. This survey suggests that sports brands have work to do, with the majority saying they were unable to meet demand across social media and satisfy a younger demographic that now consume more media on mobile than TV.

What does this mean for content owners? The majority of respondents felt their supply of

For anyone involved in the business of connecting sports with a global audience of passionate fans, these are exciting times. Advances in technology and connectivity mean there’s never been a better time to be a sports fan and for forward-thinking rights holders, there are now countless ways to engage with an audience – before and after the main event.

That’s why we’re delighted to have this opportunity to sponsor this SportsPro study, which looks at how rights holders and media managers are dealing with increased demand for content, changes in consumption habits and ferocious competition for audience share.

Incorporating the experiences of 70 leading industry professionals, the responses to our survey show

legacy media will find that they have a rich source of content to exploit. With consumer expectations rising all the time, there’s never been a greater opportunity for rights holders to fully exploit the commercial value of all their media assets – to monetise their content more effectively and increase emotional engagement and brand value through social media.

Research shows that the audience expects to be able to interact more with mobile and social media, to be able to see highlights and to be able to share them with friends, and our survey clearly demonstrates that organisations are seeing that demand. Rights holders need to ensure that both mobile and social are an integral and seamless part of their overall broadcast and distribution

content was inadequate – and it’s easy to see how technology has enabled demand to outstrip supply. However, technology is the enabler to increase revenue and engage audiences more effectively.

Cloud-based technology now makes storage, access and delivery affordable for any size organisation – making it possible for rights holders to easily manage and repurpose content for TV, mobile and social across both mainstream and niche sports.

The survey showed that the supply of content needs to be increased and with this comes increased ROI through improved distribution. It is now vital that new and legacy content is properly annotated with rich metadata. As machine learning improves, rights holders who have already digitised their

strategy – and many of those we asked want to better optimise their output for both.

However, increasing supply, making best use of archive content and incorporating mobile and social can only happen when the media is stored centrally. Tools for generating metadata make content easy to find, and can be combined with high-speed networks to deliver to broadcast partners and with easy syndication to social media and other online platforms.

With that in place, you can go beyond live and join your fans where they are today, to their benefit and yours. We wish you and your business every success and hope you find this survey useful.

Charlie Horrell, CEO, Imagen

TECHNOLOGY IS THE ENABLER TO INCREASE REVENUE AND ENGAGE

AUDIENCES MORE EFFECTIVELY. FOREWORD

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dropping an estimated 14 per cent. Over in the US, meanwhile, similar ratings challenges have been experienced by the National Football League (NFL), which saw a 12 per cent decrease in the number of average minutes viewed in 2016 versus the previous year.

Yet according to Nielsen, which now monitors total audience figures across every device,

Across the globe, the continuing migration of viewers towards digital platforms, coupled with a worldwide rise in smartphone use and the concurrent proliferation of social media, has fostered a decline in linear TV audiences. In the UK, for example, average viewership for live Premier League matches across all of Sky Sports’ channels slumped to a seven-year low during the 2016/17 season,

SHIFTING CONSUMPTION TOWARDS DIGITAL AND MOBILE PLATFORMS IS FUELLING DEMAND FOR NEW FORMS OF VIDEO CONTENT.

THE SHIFTING NATURE OF MEDIA CONSUMPTION HAS BEEN ONE OF THE STANDOUT INFLUENCES ON THE EVOLUTION OF SPORTS BROADCASTING IN RECENT YEARS. IN AN INCREASINGLY DIVERSE AND FRAGMENTED MEDIA LANDSCAPE, THE NEW WAYS IN WHICH SPORTS FANS ARE CONSUMING CONTENT ARE FORCING RIGHTS HOLDERS, BROADCASTERS AND OTHER CONTENT OWNERS TO ADAPT THEIR APPROACHES TO CONTENT DELIVERY.

overall sports media consumption actually grew 13 per cent in 2016. It is equally telling that while Sky Sports has seen a drop in linear TV audience for its Premier League coverage, the pay-TV broadcaster reported a marked uplift in its digital viewing figures for the same period, with its Sky Go streaming service and NowTV, its over-the-top ‘skinny bundle’, registering a 31 per cent increase when combined.

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Some research suggests that these shifts in consumption are largely generational. A recent report by OFCOM in the UK, for example, found that young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are now watching a third less television through traditional broadcasters than they did in 2010. Meanwhile Nielsen’s Year in Sports Media 2016 Report found that while the time spent watching live television is down across every demographic except the over-50s, time spent on other devices such as PCs, tablets

From Nielsen’s Year in Sports Media 2016 Report on US viewer behaviour

Time spent watching live TV is down across every demographic except the over-50s

Overall sports media consumption grew 13 per cent in 2016

30 per cent of US consumers now use mobile devices while watching TV

Among 18 to 34-year-olds, media consumption on mobile devices surpassed

TV for the first time in 2016

18-34

and smartphones has increased substantially, growing by some 45 per cent. Notably, Nielsen’s report also found that , for the first time, consumption on mobile devices surpassed TV for 18 to 34-year-olds – that all-important demographic.

While watching live sport, fans of all ages are absorbing additional information and debating the action on social media via their phones or tablets, with Nielsen reporting that 30 per cent of US consumers now use mobile devices while watching TV.

+13% 30%50+

CONTENT OWNERS RECOGNISE THE NEED TO TAILOR THEIR DIGITAL STRATEGY AROUND SHORT-FORM, ‘NEAR-LIVE’ VIDEO.

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such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat, to discover scores and results. Rather than spending hours watching an entire game or event on TV, more and more viewers would rather access highlights through a digital platform, such as an app, an OTT streaming service, or social media.

Another factor driving the consumption of near-live clips is that fans want access to content as quickly as possible. In the eyes of many fans, immediacy is as important, if not more so, than quality. The rise of illegally streamed content and user-posted highlights on social media speaks to the growing impatience for sports updates among expectant fans, underlining the importance for rights holders and content owners to find ways of distributing licensed content quickly and securely.

When it comes to the distribution and consumption of this sought-after, near-live video content, evidence suggests that the current level of demand

Over time, these changes in viewer behaviour have meant that the type of content being consumed digitally is evolving, too. While, for the vast majority of fans, traditional live TV broadcasts remain the most prevalent method for watching sport, there has also been a surge in the popularity of ‘near-live’ content – generally defined as programming that is broadcast less than 24 hours after recording, and which also includes video highlights and clips delivered within moments or minutes of the action occurring.

Research by the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications suggests that fans no longer set aside a time to consume sports content; instead, they ‘snack’ on it throughout the day using social media updates and push notifications. Across mainstream sports, fans who do not want to watch or do not have access to a full live broadcast are increasingly relying on near-live highlights, particularly those posted on social media platforms

THE AGE OF ‘NEAR-LIVE’

WHEN CONSIDERING ALL OF YOUR DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS, WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ARE TRUE FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Our supply of content exceeds consumer demand (23%)

Supply and demand for content are evenly matched (36%)

Consumer demand for content exceeds our ability to supply (44%)

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greatly outstrips supply. In a recent survey of sports industry professionals conducted by SportsPro and Imagen, the leading media management and distribution company, almost twice as many respondents suggested that supply of their content does not currently meet demand (44 per cent) as that supply of content exceeds demand (23 per cent). Most respondents rate their demand for content on social as highly as their demand for live content, but fewer are as confident in their levels of supply in social as they are of their pipeline to traditional broadcasters.

While 96 per cent of respondents in the Imagen/SportsPro study indicate a desire to improve their supply of video in some way, a majority of respondents rate production costs or scale of online distribution networks as the most significant limiting factors to doing so. Meanwhile, some 70 per cent of respondents rate competition for audience attention (eg other sports or entertainment) as the most significant barrier to growing

their near-live clips, highlights and news output among those fans already aware of their product.

Cloud-based media asset management and distribution platforms like Imagen enable content owners to create and deliver highlights to the intended platforms efficiently whilst simultaneously cataloguing and archiving content – even that which does not make it into the linear broadcast – for later use.

It is clear, then, that sports organisations, rights holders and content owners recognise the need to tailor their digital strategies around short-form, near-live video as well as live programming. Many respondents in the Imagen/SportsPro study acknowledge the brand-building and financial benefits inherent in creating more compelling video content and securing better distribution, with the majority seeing the latter as a path to bigger revenues. The challenge, however, is in finding the right media management solution.

ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10, HOW DO YOU RATE YOUR AUDIENCE DEMAND ACROSS:

(1 LOW, 10 HIGH)

Live broadcast

Live online Broadcast highlights

News coverage

Social media (clips and highlights)

0

4

10

2

6

8

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The proliferation, connectivity and portability of mobile devices have played a central role in disrupting today’s media landscape, becoming a powerful influence on how today’s sports fans engage with video content. Nowadays, there are

PUTTING VIDEO AT THE HEART OF YOUR BUSINESS – WHY IT MATTERS

A majority of respondents (54%) believe that they are making

optimal use of archive content with linear outlets, but not with news outlets (59%), sponsors

(59%), VOD (61%) and social (57%)

For a majority of respondents, better video distribution is seen

as a path to bigger revenues

96% of respondents want to improve their supply of video;

34% to broadcast partners as a highest priority, 39% to live online

audiences and 20% to social

On the supply side, a majority of respondents rate production

costs or scale of online distribution networks as the most

significant limiting factors

70% of respondents rate competition for demand as the

most significant barrier to growing news/clips/highlights audiences

Most respondents rate demand for content on social as highly as for live content, but fewer are as confident in their levels of supply

in social as they are for live content

Almost twice as many respondents believe supply of

their content does not meet demand (44.29%) as believe

that supply of content exceeds demand (22.86%)

Fewer respondents are confident that their output is optimised for

social than for broadcast partners or live online audiences

SPORTSPRO/IMAGEN STUDY - KEY TAKEAWAYS

Based on a survey of sports broadcast industry professionals conducted in September 2017. 70 respondents from a wider group of recipients participated on a voluntary and anonymised basis.

virtually no boundaries regarding how, when and where people can interact with video content across digital, social and mobile platforms. Whether fans are watching sporting events live at a venue or via a traditional live TV broadcast, they

are taking advantage of the wealth of information that is now available at their fingertips.

For rights holders and content owners in sport, it is crucial to respond to this growing trend or

risk being left behind. Fans no longer want to wait until they get home to review a contentious incident from a game, nor are they happy allowing a broadcaster to dictate when they can catch up on the action. It is this consumer

demand that is fuelling the escalating consumption of bite-size, shareable social content, and it is down to the content owner to satisfy that demand through the provision of near-live video highlights.

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As the demand for short-form, quickly accessible video increases, publishers and rights holders are recognising an opportunity to strengthen emotional connections with their fans through near-live content. By putting video at the heart of their digital strategies, they are able to foster greater brand affinity whilst driving engagement with an increasingly disparate, hard-to-reach fanbase.

But near-live video is not only shareable – it also has a lengthy lifecycle. Whereas live TV relies, by definition, on viewers tuning in at a specific moment in time, content such as highlights clips often circulates well after an event has ended. User engagement periods tend to be longer than for other forms of content, while rights holders are able to archive content and, if required, repurpose it at a later date.

Videos are made to be shared online. In fact, it is estimated that 92 per cent of people who consume mobile videos share them with other people. Sometimes this content is shared thousands or hundreds of thousands of times.

This can sometimes give near-live video the power to attain a level of reach not always achievable through traditional live TV. A recent report by Grabyo, for example, highlighted that while the most watched game of the 2016/17 Premier League season – between arch rivals Manchester United and Liverpool – was watched by 2.8 million people in the UK on Sky Sports, a 30-second video shared by West Ham United of their forward Andy Carroll scoring an overhead kick generated 6.8 million views in less than 14 days.

BENEFITS OF NEAR-LIVE VIDEO FOR BUILDING PROFILE AND BRAND REACH

VIDEO HELPS DRIVE ENGAGEMENT, STRENGTHENING TIES BETWEEN CONTENT OWNERS AND THEIR AUDIENCES.

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consumer output, too. In the lead-up to Usain Bolt’s farewell appearance at the World Athletics Championships in London in August, for example, hours of repurposed video clips and highlights documenting the Jamaican sprint star’s record-breaking Olympic triumphs were used by athletics bodies and broadcasters to create an abundance of social content.

As well as retrospective pieces that leveraged interest in the 31-year-old’s impending retirement, these included an explainer delivered by Eurosport that delved into the science behind Bolt’s world record 100m run in 2009 – generating attention for both the broadcaster and the event, and also helping fans to better understand and appreciate the sport.

Beyond those editorial opportunities, content

Repurposing archive footage of iconic moments from throughout history is nothing new. Packaged video and supplementary highlights have been used to provide context or build narrative around live events or landmark occasions for many years. Indeed, sports organisations have long recognised the extent to which archive content can help enhance brand perception, preserve a sporting legacy and, perhaps most importantly, inspire the next generation of fans.

Generally speaking, packaged video is supplied to broadcast partners and commercial affiliates for distribution, or bundled into broader rights agreements to generate incremental value. But, since more and more fans are consuming sport through social media, library content has become an increasingly important part of a content owner’s direct-to-

CONVERTING ARCHIVE CONTENT INTO COMPELLING PROGRAMMING

ARE YOU MAKING OPTIMAL USE OF YOUR ARCHIVE CONTENT ACROSS:

Supply/availability for broadcast partners

Supply/availability for news outlets

Supply/availability for sponsors

Direct to consumer VOD

Social channels

YES 54%

NO 46%

YES 41%

NO 59%

YES 41%

NO 59%

YES 39%

NO 61%

YES 43%

NO 57%

0% 20% 50%10% 30% 40% 60%

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owners are using archive content delivered via social platforms as an opportunity for sponsor integration, thereby opening up new commercial revenue streams. The Olympic Channel, the International Olympic Committee’s new OTT offering which launched in August 2016, is a case in point. That service draws heavily upon decades of Olympic-related archive material to produce original shows and auxiliary programming, much of which is sponsored by IOC partners such as Bridgestone.

Yet organisations across sport are still to fully capitalise on their video archives. While many recognise the commercial value inherent in library content, fewer respondents in the SportsPro/Imagen study expressed confidence that their video output is optimised for social than for broadcast partners or live online audiences. What’s more, while a majority of respondents (54 per cent) believe that they are making optimal use of archive content with linear outlets, a majority believe they are not making optimal use of archive

content to news outlets (59 per cent), sponsors (59 per cent), VOD (61 per cent) and social (57 per cent).

These figures suggest that there remains untapped growth potential when it comes to distributing library content, but they also highlight the wider opportunities inherent in today’s multi-platform media landscape.

In this golden age for the sports documentary, archive footage can be a powerful storytelling tool and a way to reach new audiences, including those not typically interested in sport per se. As demonstrated by acclaimed series such as ESPN Films’ 30 for 30, including the Oscar-winning OJ: Made In America, or cinematic releases like Senna, the British-made film depicting the life and death of Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, library content can be used to dramatic effect in longer formats. Shorter-form content can have a similar impact, reinforcing brand perception and spotlighting the rich history of a given sport.

IN A MULTI-PLATFORM MEDIA LANDSCAPE, LIBRARY CONTENT IS A VALUABLE BRAND-BUILDING TOOL WHEN FULLY OPTIMISED.

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any screen, as fast as possible. It is therefore vital, particularly in a fast-paced live production environment, to ensure that every piece of content is tagged and easily searchable.

To meet this demand, cloud-based Media Asset Management (MAM) solutions and tools have evolved that facilitate the entire production and delivery process in a manner that is both efficient and cost-effective. Through solutions like Imagen’s Sports Video Platform, rights holders are able to capture and store their content in a central, easily accessible location, and to make better use of that content by making it available to anybody who needs it.

Fans in the digital age generally value speed of access to video as highly as the actual quality of the content they are consuming. When supply fails to meet demand, however, fans have shown themselves to be impatient, abandoning legitimately licensed or paid-for content in favour of illegal streams and user-posted highlights on social media.

When it comes to satisfying an increasingly impatient audience – whether that applies to end consumers or commercial partners and other B2B clients who require access to content – the challenge for rights holders is to make their content available on all media platforms and on

SPEED TO MARKET, CHOICE AND EASE OF ACCESS ARE CRUCIAL

FANS WANT ACCESS TO CONTENT ON ALL PLATFORMS AND ON ANY SCREEN, AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.

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is therefore vulnerable to piracy. Bespoke video platforms, on the other hand, offer enhanced security, with advanced encryption and access controls dictating who can access content and what they can do with it.

Another benefit of secure video platforms is that they can be branded in such a way as to showcase the content owner,

While there are numerous platforms available for housing video content online, the most obvious partner isn’t always the right one. Open sites like YouTube, the world’s number one free video hosting platform, are accessible and familiar to many users but also employ progressive downloads, which means video content is downloaded to a local cache and

SECURE VIDEO PLATFORMS ARE BETTER FOR HOUSING CONTENT THAN OPEN HOSTS

rather than the host portal. Whereas visitors to open sites engage, first and foremost, with that particular brand, a standalone, customised platform ensures that a user’s attention never strays from the bespoke branded environment.

Additionally, secure platforms generally offer a more user-friendly experience. While open hosts are often accompanied by

adverts from third parties – some of which may throw up rival brands or negative content – and also do not store original or high-resolution files, secure platforms can be offered clean and ad-free, with video stored in its original or desired format, including broadcast resolution masters.

The ability to ensure that content is easily discoverable within

an easily navigable platform is also a key differentiator. Given that speed to market and ease of access are vital when storing and distributing near-live content, effective media management, complex metadata schemas and advanced cataloguing tools are required to ensure the ingesting and transcoding of multiple files in the shortest time possible.

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For rights holders big and small, the process of producing, cataloguing and distributing video content is a sizeable, costly and often resource-intensive undertaking. With hours of live video feeds to manage and persistent consumer demand for immediate gratification, rising to the challenge is no mean feat – and nowhere is this challenge greater than at the highest levels of sport.

WHAT’S NEXT: ADVANCED VIDEO CATALOGUING AND AUTOMATION

PREMIER LEAGUE ARCHIVE BY IMAGENThe Premier League Archive is an enhanced self-serve content portal used to distribute the latest matchday action as well as providing access to over 5,000 matches – all through one highly secure, elegant web platform.

Powerful searches, online clipping and hassle free credit-based consumption allow the Premier League’s clients to quickly locate the content they need from a large library of exclusive content. Individual players, greatest goals and matchday interviews can all be located in seconds thanks to Imagen’s ability to synchronise detailed shot list data with video playback.

With demand increasing, the Premier League enlisted Imagen to provide a cutting-edge platform that would not only be the single point of distribution for its customers to retrieve the latest games, but could also make full use of its vast library of content from previous seasons. All of this takes place through a highly secure, automated, self-serve content portal, elegantly designed to maintain engagement with the brand.

With half a petabyte of premium content to choose from, the Premier League now offers its global broadcast partners a superior service; customers can quickly search, clip and download broadcast quality video, with rich, descriptive metadata – available throughout the archive – helping them to find the content they need with ease.

The result is a premium platform for premium content – optimised to facilitate discovery, offer enhanced choice and deliver broadcast ready video assets at blistering speeds to a global customer base.

THE PREMIER LEAGUE ARCHIVE OFFERS IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO MORE THAN 5,000 MATCHES – OVER HALF A PETABYTE OF BROADCAST QUALITY CONTENT AVAILABLE VIA AN ONLINE PORTAL.

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Given the laborious nature of the clips editing process, it is anticipated that the next evolution in near-live content distribution will come through automation and machine learning, which together are set to streamline and reduce the cost of cataloguing and distribution, decreasing the manpower required while accelerating the process of ingesting and transcoding multiple files simultaneously.

In fact, the early iterations of automated video production and distribution technology are already finding meaningful applications within a real-life sporting context. Premium events such as the US Open tennis tournament are now utilising machine learning technology to automatically produce highlight packages for distribution across digital and social channels.

Besides being faster and more cost-effective than manual editing, creating clips automatically enables content owners to quickly scale their near-live output, which is especially important during large-scale events. Automation also facilitates intuitive search functions and better content discovery, enabling rights holders to increase operational efficiency, fulfil consumer demand and ultimately generate higher advertising revenues. A further benefit of automation is in improving the speed and accuracy of closed captioning and translation services, both of which are crucial and yet often expensive and error-prone.

As consumers continue to migrate towards digital platforms, ditching traditional TV in favour of viewing more

THE RISE OF MACHINE LEARNING

AUTOMATION IS THE NEXT EVOLUTION OF VIDEO DISTRIBUTION.

video content by way of their mobile devices and social media, it will become increasingly important for sports content owners to put video at the heart of their businesses and to adapt their distribution processes accordingly. For rights holders across sport, that will mean tailoring digital strategies around short-form, near-live content and archive footage as well as live programming.

To ensure quality and speed to market, and to make sure they are satisfying the growing demand for video among both fans and commercial clients, it is crucial for content owners to deploy a cloud-based media asset management solution that is technologically robust and operationally efficient, but also user-friendly, scaleable and secure.

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ABOUT IMAGEN

Imagen helps sports organisations and media companies to manage and distribute their ever growing media libraries – enabling fast, easy, secure and controlled access to content through a highly customisable content portal.

Speed to market, greater choice and ease of access are critical to maximising the value of sports content. Imagen allows rights holders to monetise near-live video assets more effectively via a premium content distribution portal. Offering pin-point time-based video searching, instant playback, online editing and high-speed file transfers Imagen

ABOUT SPORTSPRO

SportsPro is the world’s leading international media company for the sports industry in print, digital and events. Focused on the commercial, political, and operational aspects of sport, the flagship magazine is complemented by manifold sector-specific publications, a comprehensive sports industry

also unlocks the full commercial potential in your archive.

With customers including the Premier League, IMG, ATP Media, Champions Hockey League, WTA and many more, Imagen implements a unique set of processes and technical expertise to ensure that video is managed in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. As the sheer amount of video data grows throughout the world, Imagen strives to create a platform that can generate more revenue from legacy and near-live video – as well as preserving priceless sporting archives for the next generation of fans.

website, news app, and a growing portfolio of global events.

Offering top-level, behind the scenes insight and in-depth profiling of the industry’s leading figures, SportsPro is an essential tool for executives and investors across every sport and on every continent.

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