By SVG Contributor
Monday, December 30, 2024 – 08:26
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By Michele Gosetti Di Sturmeck, head of sports & events at SES
When it comes to sports broadcasting, more people are watching more content, more often on an ever-increasing number of devices. The recent Paris 2024 Summer Games are a good example of this. Not only were viewing figures up across the board compared to previous Games, but 11,000 hours of content was produced by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS). That’s around 688 hours of content for each day that the Games were on.
The sports media industry has evolved at a rapid rate over recent years. Not only is it bigger business than ever, with huge growth in both content and audiences, but the way that audiences consume an ever-increasing range of sports content and a multitude of devices along with the way that sports broadcasting is produced and delivered has fundamentally changed.
The old models have been thrown out the window. Audiences are as likely to be watching even big games on a mobile in their hand as on a large screen television in their home (or both simultaneously); and audiences are actively seeking to be further engaged. Sports broadcast production and distribution has also dramatically altered with the adoption of lightweight, cost effective and environmentally sustainable methods like internet delivery and remote production.
Sports fans don’t just want to watch the match or the race anymore. They want pre-event build-up, they want post-event analysis and reaction, they want highlights, they want data on second screens, and more. And, as well as an expansion of existing content, there is an influx of new women’s leagues, niche sports, and lower tier/local teams that are taking advantage of decreased production and distribution costs to enter the market and help satisfy the growing demand for live sports and events content.
It is worth pointing out the speed with which these changes have happened. The first seeds of all this were sown roughly a decade ago, and while we may have expected a gradual shift to new models, some aspects such as remote production were hugely accelerated by the pandemic. What was expected to take five years took under five months, leaving the industry having to navigate multiple changes in a truncated timeframe.
Behind the headlines
What has not changed is the importance of satellite in all this. While there have been plenty of easy headlines regarding a pivot to streaming over the past decade or so, what they have tended to ignore is that the largest audiences are still on linear television. Yes, other forms of content distribution have evolved to become viable options for media companies in a hybrid distribution model, but satellite still maintains its dominant position as the most effective and reliable method for distributing live, high-quality content and at low latency to the largest possible audience.
Time and time again we still see the largest sporting organisations in the world, the ones that mount global race series and stage multi-week tournaments, turn to satellite to ensure that all aspects of their business, from contribution to distribution, are reliably and securely delivered at broadcast-standard SLAs.
Satellite is at the centre of the ideal hybrid delivery ecosystem for sports and live events that is required for today and beyond. Determining the appropriate combination of satellite, fibre, IP and cellular on a case-by-case basis in a hybrid global network allows broadcasters and rights holders to find their fans wherever they are, regardless of ground infrastructure or geography. Approximately one-third of the world’s population remains offline [ITU, 2023], including significant rural audiences even in the developed world, and many more have slower connections that do not allow for high-quality video. Satellite’s unique reach ensures that broadcasters and rights holders never leave potential audiences on the table.
Next generation technology
What’s more, it is technology that is constantly evolving too. Some of the latest generation satellites that are soon to be launched will utilise all digital technology to bring unprecedented new capabilities to DTH, IP and more. Software-defined satellites enable powerful new features such as satellite geo-fencing, the ability to cope with intentional and unintentional interference to ensure full continuity of service, and advanced regionalisation capabilities.
These will feed into a ground-based infrastructure that has been specifically optimised for live sports. As the demand for content has climbed so the investment required to unlock the capacity required to match it has increased as well. Rather than relying on the open internet with all the issues that can create, sports content can pass through ground facilities with master control rooms and downlink/uplink capability on a worldwide basis.
The demand for live sports and events content continues to rise. The broadcast industry has changed enormously since the first broadcast satellites were launched, but arguably sports is still at the centre of the linear broadcasting industry and delivers massive audiences at a scale nothing else can match. For that to continue into the next decades broadcasters need to make sure they can continue to reach an ever-widening fanbase with the highest quality feeds by any means. Satellite will continue to play a critical part in the hybrid distribution networks that will enable that, ensuring increasing numbers of fans can access and engage with their favourite sports wherever they are and that the track of continual growth can be maintained.
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