Live From World Athletics Championships: AI Foreign Language News Bulletin Debuts as Proof of Concept to Broadcasters

Live from Budapest: World Athletics Productions brings AI foreign language news bulletin proof of concept to broadcasters By Heather McLean

Friday, August 25, 2023 - 12:07

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World Athletics Productions is providing broadcasters with an AI foreign language bulletin proof of concept at the 2023 Championships

At the World Athletics Championships being held in the historic city of Budapest in Hungary from 19 to 27 August, World Athletics Productions is running a potentially revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) proof of concept that could help expand the sport to new markets globally.

World Athletics Productions - a joint venture between governing body World Athletics and ITN - is experimenting with AI technology to provide an AI generated script and voiceover in seven different languages for broadcasters to access if they so choose.

Expanding markets

Speaking to SVG Europe from the National Athletics Centre stadium on the Pest banks of Budapest overlooking the Danube, director of ITN Sport and managing director of World Athletics Productions, Alastair Waddington, explains: We have an AI experiment running this time, a sort of trial. We do a two minute news bulletin after every session and we are doing that news bulletin via AI. It normally has just got an English voiceover on it, but we are doing seven language versions of that, all of which use four AI tools: a transcription tool, translation tool, voice tool, and edit tool.

The AI technology could open up new markets for World Athletics, says Waddington. It's the same voice speaking seven languages. I think we're doing three or four European languages, Hindi which will be really interesting to see with that because that just opens up a whole new market and others. It allows us to do a two minute news highlight in Hindi, which we couldn't do before; it would just be physically expensive, [whereas] AI [in this trial is] allowing us to do more for less.

Jenny King, head of technical production at ITN, is on the ground in Budapest to look after all engineering on site between World Athletics Productions and its technical partner, NEP. She says: So we've been trialling it's a bit of a proof of concept really for [foreign language commentaries]. Again, as part of the coverage, we produce a newsfeed and that newsfeed is being uploaded by an editor. What he's been trying to do is using AI to create seven different packages of that content in the seven different languages, which will be very useful if it does work out.

It'd be very useful for rights holders to be able to access and it will obviously save them in having to commentate themselves on that package. So we're doing it the news feed just to see if it will work. I's been an interesting proof of concept.

But I think it's just a really interesting, particularly as AI is such a thing at the moment, it's just been quite an interesting bit of work that we've done on the side, she adds.

Jenny King, head of technical production at ITN, is on the ground in Budapest to look after all engineering on site between World Athletics Productions and its technical partner, NEP

Content creation

The content created by AI is being shared with all the rights holding broadcasters via the digital media hub. Says Waddington on how it is being presented to the broadcasters: It is very strictly labelled. The broadcasters know what we're doing and they know what they're seeing; they're seeing a script and voiceover that's been written by AI. If they want to use that, that's up to them. But we've labelled it and said, here you go .

As to where this proof of concept could go next, King says: I think we'd need to have a look and see how successful it's been [here in Budapest]. At the moment it's sitting on the digital media hub. I think we'd need to have a look at it and see.

She adds that the AI tech could be used again at the World Athletics Indoor Championship, being held from the 1 to 3 March 2024 in Glasgow, but is more likely to be used at a larger event such as the next Championships: Yes, possibly Glasgow [could be its next trial]. But it is probably more likely to be if we were to host broadcast another championships because it's really for foreign languages to access that content. So it depends on what rights we've sold to each event as to which broadcasters will take it and which language they'd want it in.

Comments Waddington: One of the things we wanted to do was to test languages and see whether our broadcasters here like it. But actually the feedback so far certainly in some languages is pretty good.

I think it's too soon to tell [where it might be used next] but we wanted to use this opportunity; it's a really good opportunity to try stuff out here, he concludes.

Read more: Live From Budapest

World Athletics Productions head Alistair Waddington talks complexity and collaboration

World Athletics Productions shakes up the 2023 Championships broadcast perspective with directors from outside the sport

World Athletics Championships 2023 picture gallery

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