| Having
a well presented preview function with sample content and offering occasional
free video samples to get customer more used to watching video online is essential
for successful subscriber recruitment. Investing heavily in customer services
and technical support is also key to keeping online subscribers. There
is also a need to understand the time-starved individual who lives in an ‘information
overload’ society. The sports industry must react strongly to this. The sports
industry is in the entertainment business and must compete for the customer’s
attention in a very busy market dominated by MTV, iPods, PSPs, television soaps,
the cinema, pubs and PCs. It
was pointed out that the ‘Placeshifting’ phenomenon is growing. This
means having content anytime, any place. In the US, this is reflected in the Slingbox
which enables users to watch their TV programming from wherever they are by turning
virtually any Internet-connected PC into a personal TV. In
the US, it is selling three times as fast as Tivo did.This phenonmenon is reflecting
the needs and demands of time starved, busy individuals who want sports information
anytime, anywhere. One potential problem for broadcasters in this scenario is
that national territorial rights deals could get eroded. Streaming
services are now succeeding because the delay on the television picture is cut
down to seven seconds. More users now understand the relationship between PC Spec,
Connection Speed and picture quality and broadband penetration is growing rapidly.
Further improvements are taking place in terms of the quality of the stream, reductions
in the delay as well as enhancements to the free and archive video services. There
is also a huge potential in the online gambling space and the opportunities to
integrate broadband video with a ‘Bet & Watch’ facility.
Vodafone media head Kieran Mahon sees sport as the most compelling content to
distribute over mobile. He described the importance of the fourth screen –
the mobile screen. He outlined that recent developments in mobile data delivery
means that mobile sports content can be consumed easily, adding, “Personalisation
of mobile content has improved usability by learning about users’ mobile
content preferences, dynamically building the user a personalised menu and reducing
the time and clicks to services.” For
a sports fan using their mobile to access sports content, this means the link
to their favourite sports content will be top of the menu on their mobile phone.
Kieran also emphasised that an understanding of personalisation, automatic content
recommendation and mobile search in a wireless environment is key to enabling
the success of mobile portal content propositions. Online
sports ad agency, Aura Sports MD Paul Wright offered insight into the best ways
to develop an advertising revenue stream from digital sports properties. He stated
that sponsorship and advertising was equally important and beneficial online as
on TV and that the interactivity that can be achieved through online advertising
is extremely valuable. | 
