Customisation and localisation: Setting up for success in the era of global reach
By Colin Moran, VP, production products, LTN
There is no doubt that live sports coverage has grown rapidly in recent years, establishing itself as one of the media industry’s most valuable forms of content. With the value of broadcast rights soaring, advertisers fighting for space at live sports events and programming, and audiences tuning in from around the globe, ensuring that media companies can gain and retain subscribers is challenging.
Today, simply owning top sports rights and following traditional distribution models isn’t enough to capitalise on the money-maker that is live media content. To drive platform loyalty while maximising monetisation at scale, rights holders need to find ways to engage diverse global audiences with customised and localised streams, delivering tailored viewing experiences across new platforms and geographies.
Those who can seamlessly spiderweb their live sports coverage to meet every audience on any screen will find their way to the front in the race for eyeballs and revenues. Therefore, having the right solution in place is crucial to ensure that they can simplify live event versioning at scale for digital audiences, enabling rights holders to repurpose and decorate centralised feeds into customised streams for global cross-platform distribution.
How customisation is changing the game
The value of live sports hasn’t gone unnoticed and has undergone considerable changes. The old model of delivering one form of content to a mass audience is arguably a thing of the past because there are now increased global demands on content consumption and an explosion of distribution channels, digital platforms and viewing devices. As a result, media companies need to integrate mass customisation with their strategies to stay ahead of the curve.
This can be achieved through a mechanism to brand, monetise and distribute content in a scalable and tailored fashion, meeting today’s diverse platform requirements and driving viewer engagement with the culturally appropriate coverage.
Content distribution is evolving fast and becoming more complex. Sports viewers want to feel as close to the action as possible, and content owners must tailor their audiences’ experiences with an authentic and customer-centric approach. To make this possible, they must ensure they have the right technology solution that enables media owners to harness remote announcers or voice-overs in the local language and custom graphics, active video clipping, highlights and decorated event recording to create customised viewing experiences both internationally and on any platform.
Why the right media partner is important
One of the major pain points for many organisations is having the investment to boast the technological capabilities of ingesting live content at scale. This requires the solution to centralise feeds, decorate content and deliver customised streams of every live event to any screen — something only advanced software infrastructure can provide.
Partnering with the right managed service provider can bring many benefits. Media companies will access state-of-the-art infrastructure, deep expertise and 24/7 dedicated support that will make it more efficient to handle large-scale, complex live event versioning, saving precious time and keeping costs down.
Enabling efficient scale in the digital landscape is challenging and can be a springboard for success. Shifting from capex-based models to opex-favoured approaches with continually evolving technology empowers companies to scale up smarter, spinning out services to meet fluctuating live event demand while driving business agility. Having that flexibility on hand is essential for today’s market, and embracing this now will help media companies meet their commercial objectives.
Maximising the potential of global reach and fan engagement
With the marketability of live sports unlocking opportunities and established superstars and teams commanding cult-like fanbases, the sporting ecosystem boasts unlimited potential. So, how can media companies transport live sports content across continents and cultures to capitalise on a golden opportunity?
Through the right media partner and solution, sports leagues and organisations, OTT platforms and broadcasters will reap the rewards of getting their content worldwide, tapping into new markets, engaging growing audiences and driving additional revenue streams. Across Europe, footballing bodies like UEFA, the Premier League, or the Bundesliga are looking to efficiently export their live coverage to more markets and expand their international footprints to fuel brand growth. This is not just done via broadcasting live matches, but also through engaging local audiences with tailored content feeds.
Exporting premium, customised live sports content requires an element of translation — from both a literal and a technological standpoint. Aside from enabling effective regionalisation through local language commentary or graphics, a North American broadcaster looking to reach European viewers would need to rely on a partner that can deliver live content to meet different and exacting video frame rates or bitrates across multiple markets.
Final thoughts
There has never been a more exciting time for the industry to experiment and identify new ways to engage audiences — wherever they are watching. This doesn’t need to be complex or costly when the right strategy has been integrated. The importance of sports rights continues to explode. Content owners must offer customised experiences that make the most of every second of live sports coverage for media companies to thrive.
With your finger on the pulse, the market will become much easier to navigate and pave the way for long-term success in today’s sports broadcasting landscape.