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Sport slow to exploit smart television
An opportunity for sports and media companies to engage fans and drive revenues by using internet-connected TV sets is currently being missed, writes Frank Dunne, editor of TV Sports Markets
ACCORDING TO ‘Know the Fan — The Global Sports Media Consumption Report 2014’, sports fans using internet- connected television sets believe they have more control over the sport they watch, that a greater range of sport is available to them, and that the sports content available is more personalised to their tastes. Despite the benefits, the number of people accessing sport in this way is still low, given current penetration levels
of ‘smart’ TV sets. A platform which enables big-screen HD coverage to be complemented by on-screen information — offering both a high-quality ‘lean-back’ experience and content for the data-hungry fan — ought to be a game-changer. So far, at least, it has not. As Jörg Daubitzer, managing director of DFL Sports Enterprises, the commercial arm of the German Bundesliga, put it, “I don’t consider smart TV a game-changer, but it is
an opportunity to widen the offerings to the fan.” He said activation was happening slowly because: it takes time
to change consumer behaviour; suitable offerings have yet to be developed; and the infrastructure required to run high-quality broadband services was not universally available. “To make progress in these three areas takes time,” he explained.
Connected TV sets accounted for 39 per cent of the global
market in 2013, according to research firm Futuresource, which estimates that the share will rise to 87 per cent by 2018. Over half of owners of smart TV sets in the US and Western Europe use them to access the internet.
Some industry experts say that one of the main reasons for the relatively slow growth of sport-specific applications for smart TV is that rights- holders have not yet adapted their licensing strategies to take into account the opportunities offered by the medium. In part, this is due to the technology being young and rights often being tied into long cycles that are not responsive enough
to technological change. In some cases, it is also due to confusion about exactly what kinds of rights are at stake: internet or TV?
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp last year rolled out its BallBall service, a free app and website available in local languages in Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam. The service combines short video clips of top football from around the world with editorial content from News Corp-owned newspaper titles, such as The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times.
Fans can access the content on smartphones, tablets and computers but not on connected
www.tvbeurope.com August 2014
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