17 YOUR TAKE Live OTT
LISTENING TO FANS Sports federations and content owners have begun listening to fans who have said they want to be closer to the action, the stats and the track experience. When content owners such as Liberty Media have announced their new direct-to-consumer strategy, they have expressed that they will not only use OTT distribution for providing a more agile way of watching TV everywhere but also use it to offer a new, more engaging, social and immersive user experience. OTT provides the possibility to offer new types of content, such as driver and pit lane cams, different audio, new camera angles and much more user interactivity and statistics. This transforms the live sport experience from a lean-back, passive spectator activity to a lean-in, engaged experience. The viewer thus becomes the producer, choosing to follow their favourite athletes, choosing their camera angles. However, live OTT video has been challenged with both scalability issues
and the need to solve the delay and sync problems in live OTT distribution platforms. Especially for sports, OTT delays of 20- 45 seconds behind the live action have created a problem – no one wants to hear their neighbours scream or receive a text message about a goal before they see it on their own screen. In addition to potential spoiler effects, OTT delay also prevents user interactivity. This has been hindering progress, and ultimately the monetisation, of new live OTT content. However, there are now new live OTT video solutions on the market addressing these issues and enabling the enhanced live viewing experience can be provided. Live OTT technologies also open up opportunities for content owners and rights holders to monetise more of their existing content, by complementing the broadcast experience with a live second screen experience. Excellent examples are driver/ player cams, 360° camera viewing, or just the ability to follow a favourite athlete or
team during the Olympics, all in sync with the normal broadcast. This content thus complements the lean-back experience on the big screen. FINDING REVENUE The big live events generate huge amounts of TV ad revenue. NBC revealed that the Superbowl alone generated close to half a billion dollars in ad revenue. This ad revenue has not been easily transferred to online and OTT streaming, even though it holds the promise of personalised advertisement. Due to immaturity in monitoring tools and challenges with visibility and ad blocking, OTT is still struggling with ad monetisation. New server-side ad insertion technology, coupled with better and reliable visibility and monitoring tools, will start to change this. In addition, the live second screen experience opens up a secondary path of monetisation both from subscription and new ad channels. There are also enhancements to dynamic product placement and new interactive sponsor opportunities in the second screen. This year is likely to be seen as the time when these new user experiences and business models started to finally take hold in the market, but this is still only the beginning of a larger transformation.
COMBINING LIVE SPORTS AND SOCIAL INTERACTION MAKES A LOT OF SENSE
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