Scaling up for DTC: SVG Europe Audio online discussion highlights importance of maintaining quality sound

The public’s appetite for direct-to-consumer sports not only provides more content for sports fans, but an opportunity to reinvent what sports broadcasters can deliver and February’s SVG Europe Audio session on ‘Scaling up for DTC’ was as much about audio quality as it was about scale.

In 2023 the number of US sports fans watching live sports content on digital streaming channels surpassed traditional over-the-air broadcasting for the first time, and the divide has been widening ever since. Today, the adoption of direct-to-consumer (DTC) models is putting even more pressure on the big networks. While giving niche sports leagues and individual teams a greater ability to develop engagement and get in front of fans, it is challenging broadcasters to look at more creative ways to generate content to win the battle for eyes and ears, feeding a wider range of channels and delivering more niche sports to more people.

February’s Scaling up for DTC (direct to consumer) online session from SVG Europe Audio dug into these challenges, with a panel of audio specialists dedicated to scaling up their content in a responsible way; but what came through the loudest wasn’t necessarily about scale, but about how to maintain – and even surpass – audio quality.

Some, like Anthony Sachot, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, senior director of audio technology, Pete Mercer, Warner Bros. Discovery, director of live production, Karl Malone, NBC Sports and Olympics, senior director of audio engineering and Michael Lindermeir, NEP Germany, head of audio are already way past the early adoption phase, while Salsa Sound co-founder and CEO Rob Oldfield issued a challenge for the industry to push the envelope of what is achievable.

“There’s a lot of potential to generate content, but when people start talking about doing this at scale, we have to remain part of the conversation to maintain audio quality.”

The success of platforms like NBC’s Peacock is already feeding a growing requirement for additional content, and with the likes of Amazon, Netflix and Apple edging their way into more live sports coverage, consumers’ demand for OTT content is clear. According to NBC’s Malone, Peacock already has around 800,000 hours of on demand content and in January it reached 36 million subscribers.

“We introduced 5.1 to Peacock back in 2023 and Dolby Atmos last year and it’s all about maintaining audio quality,” said NBC Sports and Olympics’ Karl Malone (pictured below) in his opening statement. “There’s a lot of potential to generate content, but when people start talking about doing this at scale, we have to remain part of the conversation to maintain audio quality, whether that’s immersive or just the amount of microphones we use. We have to strive to maintain quality across the whole platform.”

Starting from scratch

It’s something that NEP Germany has been doing for Germany’s Dyn Media since 2023. Now in its second full year, Dyn Media delivers over 700 live games to 17 million German sports fans across multiple sports. Covering handball, basketball, volleyball, table tennis and hockey, NEP Germany took the opportunity to define its entire workflow from scratch, with a scalable distributed production model combining automated production techniques and portable venue kits.

“The audio was a headache for us in the beginning because we had to find ways to make the monitor mix on site,” says NEP Germany’s Lindermeir. “We quickly figured out that we needed a way to do the monitor and ambience mix on site and generate the full transmission mix at our central hub, so we designed a platform where we have different DSP capacities in the venues and in the hub.

“When you start talking about volume, handling a lot of concurrent events in multiple languages, you can’t rely on manual mixers.”

“Our setup uses pre-configured snapshot scenes to give us control over the monitor mix and transmission mix so that we don’t necessarily need an audio engineer to mix it. These scenes can be triggered by the director, the producer, or the commentator, and it gives us a consistent quality across a huge range of content.”

Automation

Like NEP Germany’s approach for Dyn, Eurosport is no stranger to using automation to scale up content. During the Olympics, Eurosport utilised LAMA automix feeds for its international commentary, making use of around 300 central automixers to cover 19 languages across 47 international markets.

“When you start talking about volume, handling a lot of concurrent events in multiple languages, you can’t rely on manual mixers with one operator in front each of them,” said Sachot. “So, like Michael (Lindermeir) found, we had to move to this automation system where then the role of the audio operators is essentially doing the routings. Using an automatic software platform allows the operators to manage up to 15 concurrent events in each language.”

Cutting costs

NBC Sports already has years of experience working with remote production hubs to produce more content more cost-effectively, and Malone went into detail about the challenges covering golf at scale, but without any of the cost implications of travel and accommodation.

Meanwhile, others are already using AI as well as distributed and cloud workflows to scale content. Elements of cloud and production hubbing are already commonplace where it is appropriate to do so, and getting the mix of tools right to provide a consistent output across a portfolio of products is a puzzle in itself.

“If the production and the budget require it, and you’ve got all the right elements, then this is suitable for cloud,” said Discovery’s Mercer (pictured, above), who started migrating workload to AWS way back in 2016. “Long term I think the solutions will look the same, with servers in bays and running on software, but right now we’re looking at what is suitable in our portfolio. It’s a bit of a journey; we have done it, but not at large scale in terms of cloud production. It’s a case of looking at that strategically and looking at where we can make those moves to develop it. But we can’t risk our current portfolios. It has to be done the right way.”

“If the source and the international sound is produced in the cloud, then the audio mix will be in the cloud, because you need to stick to the video to remain in sync.”

Sachot added: “You have to check when it makes sense to move to cloud and you need a cloud model which can be deployed at the scale that you need. For audio, we are always driven by the production and essentially the video where the source always comes with its international sound; if the source and the international sound is produced in the cloud, then the audio mix will be in the cloud, because you need to stick to the video to remain in sync. If the video is processed on prem, then remain on prem. That’s the key point on this and it really depends on the use case.”

Using the right tool for the right job is paramount, and it will always depend on budget, and having a suite of solutions that can be applied in different ways will always change depending on the content. But eventually, it was said, the cloud is likely to pick up more of the slack when it comes to scaling up. As Malone pointed out, “I think you will eventually run out of production space if we keep generating more content. I mean, it’s only so many control rooms, and somebody will make a decision, and it’ll move to the cloud. And off we go.”

New opportunities

However it is done, and with whatever tools are at broadcasters’ disposal, DTC remains an opportunity both in terms of how content is generated as well as how it is delivered, and it makes maintaining quality even more of a focus.

Salsa Sound’s Oldfield (pictured, above) noted, as is often lamented in audio circles, that QC is more often than not focussed on video in traditional broadcast infrastructures. As content scales and with less people managing it, automating the audio QC as adoption develops is not only practical, but essential. And with new European accessibility regulations due to be enforced later this year, Oldfield sees it as an opportunity to up the game.

“We’ve all seen banks of video monitors in MCR facilities, but there is very little going on in terms of audio QC, and whatever automated processes are in place are often limited to mute detection, loudness, or bitstream elements. Going down the DTC route give us more control over the delivery platform and there’s a bit more flexibility to force the industry on a bit further.

“Going down the DTC route gives us more control over the delivery platform and there’s a bit more flexibility to force the industry on a bit further.”

“I think we should be aiming to deliver everything in immersive, but as leaders in the audio industry, I think we should be pushing that further. I’m not saying it’s doable today necessarily, but why can’t we leverage software tools and immersive microphones and aim a bit higher? DTC is a great test bed for that and one of the beauties for me about DTC is that you can start to explore some of these more personalised experiences and give a bit of control back to the consumer.”

Still in transition

SVG Europe Audio Chair Roger Charlesworth noted that we’re still in a transition; while DTC does give us more control over delivery, and the opportunity to create more personalised, more accessible audio content for a much wider range of viewers, there are still linear platforms that content providers have to support as well.
But the desire to push the envelope is there.

“The volume dialogue level is key, and I think the solutions are there, especially in DTC on a digital platform,” said Mercer. “It comes down to that application and willingness to implement them.”

Malone: “We were doing that kind of personalisation for video; for Peacock, we have a multiview for the Olympics with options of what you want to look at, so it seems to make sense to also change your audio mix. I think that the push is from us to remind production that while we’re giving all these video options, we need to give some audio options.”

Watch a recording of the full discussion on demand here: https://sferainteractive.wufoo.com/forms/svg-europe-audio-scaling-up-for-dtc-on-demand/. Viewing is free but registration is required