Sports OTT Forum: How Traditional Broadcasters Thrive in a Streaming World Adjustments need to be made to satisfy both modes of consumption By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Monday, August 12, 2019 - 10:12 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Throughout the years of any form of production, content has been and always will be king. The saying still holds true in today's society, but now, the question is how viewers are consuming it. At last month's Sports OTT Forum, executives who are immersed in the decision-making process for the major television networks discussed their methods of adapting to an audience that sees digital as the go-to option.
Shaka Arnon, Eric Black, Stephanie Lone, and Steven Thorpe discuss the linear-digital relationship at the SVG Sports OTT Forum.
Being in the Know: Keeping Fans Updated to Drive Social Commentary
In an age of instant gratification, the average fan wants to be up-to-speed on the latest news, scoring plays, and action throughout the day. As fans sit down on their living room couches to enjoy a broadcast, they want to be involved with the material that they're ingesting. Shaka Arnon, head of U.S. operations, WSC Sports, has created a tool that allows fans to sift through the data and select footage that they want to interact with.
There is so much content, and so many people to deliver that content to. Everyone has their own separate preferences. Our platform analyzes and identifies everything that happens, so there is this firehose [of content] that is made into little glasses of water for everyone to drink, he says. A lot of fans right now are not enjoying being a passive viewer for a three-hour game. They're trying to tune-in at the right moment, share that great play that just happened, and have conversations about these things that are trending.
For example, streaming services are developing a queuing system that prioritizes critical plays into a comprehensive list for fans that may have missed the start of the game.
Imagine this scenario: you had a long day at work, you just came home, and it's the third quarter of your favorite team's game, but you want to see what happened before to catch up, he continues. On YouTube TV, and hopefully soon to be launched with other partners, you have all the key plays that you are interested in as a list and you can choose what you want to see. Every two minutes during March Madness, we created a game recap [of the events that happened].
Old Dog Learns New Tricks: Tinkering the Approach With New Ideas
The OTT community is beginning to adopt practices seen in other sectors of the industry. As considerable strides are made with artificial intelligence in media management and storage, the streaming community is embarking on their own quest to use machine-learning as well to enhance their product.
These are areas that we're really interested in exploring, says Steven Thorpe, VP, video platforms, Fox (Sports, News, & Entertainment). If you're at the very early days at what we're going to do with machine-learning and the cloud, it's really going to be about how you provide that customized user-experience for the teams that you're a fan of or the sports that you're really engaged with. [It's about] how you encapsulate those best moments, so whether its personalized highlight reels, or through push notifications. I don't think we have it anywhere close to solved, but it's one of those things that is really exciting.
Despite the development of new tactics, the age-old battle against piracy still rages on. For all three participating networks, it still seems like an uphill battle with an uncertain result.
We have a long way to go, especially in the United States because if you look internationally, we're seeing a lot more content protection in Europe and Asia, says Eric Black, CTO, NBC Sports Digital. What we need to start doing immediately as an industry is [using] studio-grade DRM [digital rights management]. Going beyond that towards the next step is section-based watermarking, so as we start getting into subscription-based services, I can now tell the source of the pirated content.
Two is Better Than One: Digital and Linear Teams Unite
In some cases, many bystanders may believe that the battle of people's attention is cut in dry between choosing television or mobile viewing. Rather than placing the two entities as combatants against each other, networks ought to use each platform's strength as a tag team to sweeten the pot for the modern-day sports fan. For Stephanie Lone, SVP, engineering, CBS Sports Digital, she used her network's teamwork during Super Bowl LIII as a real-life example.
I think one of the things that we're probably the proudest of was the collaboration between our broadcast and OTT team, she says. Either the traditional or classic broadcast network and their digital teams are typically separated in their day-to-day [operations] and their workflow, but this was one of the opportunities where we could bring the teams together.
Whether it's on television or the small device that fits in the palm of your hand, the content will continue to remain on the throne if the product is available to as many eyes as possible.
If you're able to hook [viewers] on some portion of the story, they will want more. If there's a close match that is about to end in just 10 minutes, they're [also] tuning into the next game as well, says Arnon. Sometimes the time zones [of events] make a difference. During work hours, that OTT or mobile experiences really connects you that time, and then when you're home, you have leeway to watch it on a big screen.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
Sports OTT Forum: How Traditional Broadcasters Thrive in a Streaming World Adjustments need to be made to satisfy both modes of consumption By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
