WHO MOVED THE GOALPOSTS?

Transcription

1 WHO MOVED THE GOALPOSTS? CAPITALISING ON CHANGING VIEWING HABITS AND THE FUTURE OF SPORTS MEDIA DISTRIBUTION A REPORT BY IMAGEN

2 INTRODUCTION MANY sports clubs, federations and associations have had it pretty good out of the content they own over the last 20 or 30 years. Opportunities on TV channels and online have exploded. Deals have come in, and rights-managed content has driven revenue. Equally, niche sports that aren t making the big rights deals have had a great opportunity to grow their fan base and commercial presence online. But now what? Things are changing dramatically. As we identified in our recent Beyond Live research, sports organisations face a huge threat from both legal and pirated content that s taking eyeballs away from them. This is severely impacting their ability to sell merchandise, tickets or content from their sponsors on their own online platforms. To keep those eyeballs where they want them, content owners must act now to find new ways to distribute content and engage fans. If they don t, they risk letting significant revenues leak elsewhere. This focused guide distils the exact nature of the challenge that content owners face. And more importantly, the technology they will need to overcome it. Specifically, we cover: THE DECLINE OF TV AS A DESTINATION FOR WATCHING SPORT THE IMPACT OF NEW ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA VIEWING HABITS WHY IT S NOT JUST ABOUT MILLENNIALS FINDING NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE 5 PREREQUISITES FOR PROTECTING BRAND AND REVENUE IN THE MODERN ERA 02

3 who moved THE GREAT TV Turnoff tv viewing FIGures for sport are down, triggering alarms across the industry. In many ways, 2017 was a watermark year for sport on TV. During the 2016/17 season, average viewership for live Premier League matches across all of Sky Sports channels slumped to a seven-year low. That s a punishing drop of 14 per cent. In the US, the National Football League (NFL) is experiencing similar challenges. Last year the NFL, for which broadcasters and cable carriers have paid more than $50bn for rights into the early 2020s, saw a 12 per cent decrease in the number of average minutes viewed versus the previous year. Arresting figures suggesting a decline in early season ratings have prompted an outbreak of soul searching at those broadcasters and head scratching among analysts. Early season ratings for live Premier League matches on Sky Sports are down by a fifth. On one particular Tuesday, BT Sport s Champions League figures were down by 40%. Could the unthinkable be happening? Could fans FINALLY be turning off? The Guardian There s little doubt: the way fans interact with sports content is changing for good. And it s causing a good deal of debate throughout the industry. 04

4 WHO MOVED THE GOALPOSTS? the problem with new viewing habits While live TV audiences drop, online viewing is increasing but many new viewing habits are not healthy for brands and their potential new revenue streams. Despite the decline in TV viewing, credible evidence suggests that the appetite for sports content continues unabated. According to Nielsen, which now monitors total audience figures across every device, overall sports media consumption actually grew 13 per cent in 2016 because of content viewed online. Sky Sports, for its part, has said the drop in live TV audiences it experienced for its Premier League coverage in 2016/17 has been offset by a big uplift in its digital viewing figures. Over the same period, it registered a 31% increase in viewers for football on its Sky Go and Now TV services. Yet while these are positive signs, the problem that content owners face is that not all new viewing habits at least as far they are concerned are very healthy at all. rise in piracy The fact is, fans today want access to content as quickly as possible. And their desire for immediacy is as important, if not more so, than quality. This has led to a huge rise in the availability of illegally streamed content that is finding a ready audience. In turn, this is taking viewers from content owners and into a world where they are more likely to be pushed towards gambling, malicious ads and other illicit content. A recent survey of 1,000 UK football fans by the BBC, for example, found that nearly half of fans say they have streamed a match online through an unofficial provider. Just over a third do so at least once a month, and about one in five at least once a week. All this is despite a ruling by the European Court of Justice that put pirated streams on the same legal footing as copyright-infringing downloads, making it illegal to watch. 06

5 who moved Demand for a near-live experience These changes in viewer behaviour have meant that the type of content being consumed digitally is evolving too. While for most fans traditional live TV broadcasts remain the most prevalent method for watching sport, there has also been a surge in the popularity of near-live content generally defined as programming that is broadcast less than 24 hours after recording, and which also includes video highlights and clips delivered on social media within moments or minutes of the action occurring. This is an area that content holders should really be trying to own but the competition for attention can be stiff The CONTINUED growth in fan TV and user posted highlights Along with piracy, there is also a continuing rise in fan generated content that is pulling eyeballs away from official programming produced by clubs and content owners. These shows are now well established. In English football, some have been around as the Premier League itself. They are growing all the time and boast hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Arsenal Fan TV, for example, now has over 350,000 on YouTube alone, a group that could fill Arsenal s Emirates stadium more than five times over. The attraction is speed, availability and a place to connect. Football fans will often create their own, or share (often low quality) videos of goals or serious incidents in games. Sports brands need to be able to manage this by getting the content there first. impact on revenue Ultimately, the upshot of this changing viewer behaviour is that audiences are too frequently engaged elsewhere and not with the official brand taking valuable revenue opportunities away from the content owner. For example, content owners have less opportunity to: Sell merchandising via their sites and social communities Upsell tickets, hospitality and subscription packages Promote services and content from sponsors that support them (which may mean they have less chance of securing lucrative sponsorship deals in the future) If they want to reverse this trend and put themselves back in control, content owners need to act now before it s too late. During the past few years, as the cost of TV rights for sporting events has escalated apparently without limit, so has the ease by which conventional broadcast methods can be circumvented. Despite the best efforts of global authorities, including the City of London Police s Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), the proliferation, accessibility and reliability of sport streaming sites have only increased. The Guardian 08

6 who moved IT S NOT JUST ABOUT MILLENNIALS Changes in viewing are being LED by the young, but they ARE NOT ALONE. We have to talk about Millennials. It s become accepted wisdom that Millennials (those born between the early 80s to mid-90s) are the driving force behind the changes in behaviour we ve described - and sometimes with good reason. A recent report by OFCOM in the UK, for example, found that young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are now watching a third less television through traditional broadcasters than they did in But they re not alone. There s plenty of evidence to suggest that sports fans of all ages are radically changing their habits. A survey by McKinsey, for example found that while 60 percent of Millennial fans check scores and sports news on social media, 40 percent of older generations do as well. In summary, people from all age groups are now consuming content in different ways. They love following sport on social media because it delivers short blasts of the best content from their favourite teams. This suits the way they wish to consume content, how they interact with their sports communities and friends, and shows their commitment in a vocally social way Research by the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications backs this up, suggesting that fans of all ages and genders (including parents for example, who are timepoor) no longer set aside a time to consume sports content. Instead, they snack on it throughout the day using social media updates and push notifications. Rather than spending hours watching an entire game or event on TV, more and more viewers would rather access highlights or near-live coverage through a digital platform, such as an app, an OTT streaming service, an illegal stream, or social media. The question is can content owners to find ways of distributing licensed content quickly and securely to meet this demand? If they don t, there could be a big impact on both brand and revenue. As sports marketers develop new digital products including services for live-streamed events, highlights, fan commentary, news, and analysis they should design for new, digital behaviours that cut across generations. McKinsey 10

7 who moved Finding new ways to engage Content owners know they need to work differently, but technical barriers have set them off to a false start. There s little or no doubt that content owners need to find new ways to engage their audience. Research shows that nearly half of all football fans in the UK say they ve streamed a match online through an unofficial provider. Across the board, sporting clubs and bodies need to meet these new appetites and stave off external threats to revenue. The problem is that so far this is something they have struggled to do mainly for technical reasons. For example, most of the incumbent media management platforms they use are not geared up for delivering quality highlights and near-live content packages at the pace today s consumers demand. This could be because: Those systems are install systems (i.e. not cloud based), so they can t be used anywhere (they have to be used in a studio/editing suite or office, so immediacy and speed is an issue) They allow editing, logging or distribution, so the content owner can t move video content from one system to another easily to enable rapid production and distribution They are not able to store large volumes of video so they can t easily combine new clips or footage from immediate footage with their unique archive footage into a compelling package that helps to differentiate from competitors 12

8 beyond live BUILDING BETTER VIDEO DISTRIBUTION FOR A CHANGING AUDIENCE Recently, we investigated the impact of this technical shortfall through a joint survey of sports industry professionals with SportsPro. 70% rate competition for demand as the most significant barrier to growing news/clips/highlights audiences Few are confident that their output can be optimised more for social than for live online audiences Most content owners rate demand for content on social as highly as for live content, but not many are confident in their levels of supply in social as they are for live content Almost twice as many believe supply of their content does not meet demand (44.29%) as believe that supply of content exceeds demand (22.86%) DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF THE EXCLUSIVE INDUSTRY SURVEY A majority of respondents (54%) believe that they are not making optimal use of their archive content news outlets (59%), sponsors (59%), VOD (61%) and social (57%) What these findings demonstrate beyond doubt is that when it comes to the distribution of highlights and/or near-live video content to social and online platforms, most content owners and specifically their technology are just not yet hitting the mark. 14

9 who moved Concluding thoughts: 5 prerequisites for protecting brand and revenue in the modern era If content owners want to move forward, they need to focus on key areas where technical capability needs to improve. Clearly, there is a need for content owners to take back control and deliver content in the places and formats their customers want to consume it. The audience is still there. In fact, it has the potential to grow. But a new approach is needed if content owners want to make sure that consumers stay loyal to their brands and protect their revenue. The key to this new approach needs to be based on delivering standards of service and an experience that consumers simply won t be able to get from illegal or fan-based unofficial sources. Specifically, this means delivering: Speed - ensuring owners are first to market with content Quality - delivering high definition crisp quality that others can t match Reliability - providing a continuous service and with no ads for disreputable services or products New production capability the ability to create engaging and exclusive wraparound content such as interviews, highlights and commentary New technical capability the ability to distribute content, or snippets of content, or archive footage to key social channels as soon as the action happens Throughout this report, we have provided clear evidence that changing viewing behaviour has critical implications for content owners. If consumers are moving away from traditional media outlets, they need to deliver on these five key requirements to be ready to capture their eyeballs on other online channels. Because if they don t, the level of threat to their continued stability and growth could be severe. Generation X wanted its MTV. Millennials have fear of missing out. Both generations are consuming digital sports voraciously, at the expense of traditional TV viewing. Sports marketers who target the right digital products to take advantage of them will build stronger fan bases than ever before. Mckinsey 16

10 about imagen At Imagen, we set ourselves apart from other media management platforms by providing a flexible cloudbased system that enables content owners to work on highlights and near-live content. You can work from anywhere, you don t have to be in a studio, and you can store huge volumes of content and distribute it rapidly and reliably to any platform in the world. Perfectly tuned for the needs of social and online delivery, our platform also offers a host of features that enable content owners to work quickly, efficiently and provide high quality near- live content that helps them to ensure viewers stay loyal to their brand. Imagen clients include the Premier League, Women s Tennis Association, Asian Football Confederation, World Curling Federation and IMG. about imagen Premium content management and distribution for sports who moved Preview and edit Easy online playback & clip creation for rapid near-live content delivery to allow users to download the master content they need. Accelerated file transfers Delivery of broadcast-ready files in multiple formats to partners including news agencies, broadcast partners, OTT platforms, sponsors, or social media platforms at blistering speed (up to 120Mbits/sec). Powerful searching The ability to find key archive footage to support new content in seconds via high-quality discoverability. Rapid onboarding Management of content quickly with one-click uploading and near-instant cataloguing of large volumes of media. To see what you could achieve, find out more information at 18

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