CROSS-PLATFORM AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT WITH LIVE CONTENT Liz McParland, commercial director for contribution and global coordination, Globecast
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t’s becoming a cliché: live content will be the saviour of linear television, continuing to garner huge audiences, gathered around a main TV set – particularly with live sports. Inevitably, the picture (no pun intended) is somewhat more complex. Without doubt, events like 2018’s Royal Wedding and the 2018 FIFA World Cup drew massive linear TV audiences. And looking at figures from Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice’s 2018 Predictions Report (published in Jan 2018) it says, “Live broadcast and events will continue to thrive in a digital world, generating £400 billion globally, and £24 billion in the UK in 2018. Globally, live TV and radio broadcasting is expected to generate 72 per cent of all live revenues in 2018, with the largest component being broadcast TV, with £265 billion from advertising and
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subscriptions.” This reflects our experience across the year. But at the same time, Kevin Westcott, vice chairman, US Telco, Media, and Entertainment Lead at Deloitte, made a wider point in a 2018 Media and Entertainment Industry Outlook - Reaching new heights through personalisation and mobility consultation: “A challenge for media companies is figuring out how to create an experience that each consumer feels is tailored specifically for her or him.” In terms of the live sports broadcasting market, there’s the additional, and very significant, rising cost of rights as another key factor. For example, according to FT Research (2017), the rights for NFL 2015-2021 were $4.95 billion – an increase of 60 per cent over the previous period (CBS, NBC, ESPN, Fox). For NBA rights for 2016- 2019 it was $2.6 billion, an increase of 180 per cent