A changing landscape: Rights owners and broadcasters debate sports TV issues and innovation By David Fox Monday, February 17, 2020 - 17:07
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Sports broadcasting is going through a period of intense change and innovation with the rise of streaming services, new technologies and new business models, giving rise to an interesting debate in London last week (11 February 2020) at the Westminster Media Forum policy conference.
Innovation can be risky, and Premier League executive director William Bush recommends taking it slowly, especially in a sport with such vociferous fans as football, who, as the introduction of VAR has shown can get quite upset with changes. Besides, however much AI gets exciting, we are not going to break away from the viscerality, humanity and physicality of the real thing, he said.
Another reason for innovating with care is we are truly a global competition, and you don't want to alienate any markets. However, the Premier League does have a massive wrap-around of digital, which is where most key innovation is happening, and this has made a difference in increasing popularity in some overseas markets.
L/R: William Bush, Baroness Taylor of Bolton (panel chair), Rufus Hack, Jamie Hindhaugh and John Gleasure
The current business model for sports broadcasting has worked very well for both rights holders, who have got more money year on year , and broadcasters who gained high average revenue per user and low churn , while fans have got a much better product year on year, according to Rufus Hack, chief content officer, PGA European Tour and Ryder Cup.
However, as we move from a purely pay TV environment, the business is changing. In the US, pay TV has seen 16 successive quarter-on-quarter declines in subscriber numbers. Other regions are similarly soft, while in the UK, PGA's partner, Sky Sports, is promoting its OTT platform (Now TV) to stay relevant. This leads to a state of flux that is tough to manage for rights holders, because we are effectively going after different audiences, said Hack. The over-55s still prefer linear TV, but the under-25s view very little pay TV. They only want to pay for the content they are consuming. They don't want to pay this big subscription.
Jamie Hindhaugh, chief operating officer, BT Sport, believes that content exclusivity is key, regardless of the platform you are on. It shares the Premier League with Sky and Amazon, but has the Champion's League exclusively. Owning it all is fantastic, but you still want people to engage with the product, which is why BT Sport put the Champion's League Final free on YouTube to drive awareness and engagement and showcase what we can do as a brand.
Working with YouTube is one example of the types of partnership enters into, which now includes rivals like Sky and Amazon - in fact, BT Sport (with Sunset+Vine) delivered the Prime Premier League coverage at Christmas. We were really pleased with how it all went. Indeed, the first night I was worried it was too successful .
BT Sport has also done the Scottish Cup for Premier Sport, and sold the Amazon matches in to pubs and clubs. I want my people working on the best events that are out there. How do we enable that? By working with partners, said Hindhaugh.
Going OTT: Big challenges ahead for rights holders
The PGA's 60 broadcast partners are its main income stream, and it hopes to retain that value. But, it realises that in future it needs to work harder, and be more sophisticated and nuanced to create revenue from clips, social media and even free-to-air.
Some rights holders are trying to insulate themselves by moving into OTT themselves, but it is very hard to make the economics work for a rights holder, particularly one in a niche sport like golf, where you are sub-scale, because the costs of running and doing a production is high and the cost of recruiting customers is high, said Hack.
Hindhaugh doesn't see OTT as a separate medium. The new OTT providers are just broadcasters delivering over a different pipe. He sees it as a fantastic opportunity, and something BT has been doing for five years, while Sky has had Now TV for eight years.
It's just another mechanism that allows you reach a wider audience. However, what excites him most about IP delivery is that it allows you move away from the one-to-many to one-to-one, as it is now beginning to really enable personalisation, and to play with formats and innovate around what we do.
BT Sport COO Jamie Hindhaugh speaking at the Westminster Media Forum policy conference
Indeed, OTT was how BT Sport launched its UHD channel five years ago, and allowed it to introduce object-based broadcasting in 2017 with the world's first Dolby Atmos sports coverage. While 360 may detract from the shared viewing experience most sports fans want, it also enables a high degree of personalisation, allowing viewers replay action from any viewpoint.
Picture quality in sport is really important, he added. If you are not at the live event, you want to feel as if you are, and this drives innovation at BT Sport, such as its Ultimate service (UHD, Dolby Atmos, HDR, HD and SD - and 8K when it comes), which selects the best quality for whatever platform it is viewed on, and places the emphasis back on the content rather than the format.
Hindhaugh predicts that object-based broadcasting will be the next key innovation, allowing users to see exactly the graphics they want, suited to their level of knowledge and interest in the event. You can choose the commentary level you want, you can choose the camera angles you want within that live feed.
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