PROVYS Gives You Better Than A Sporting Chance

In the world of broadcasting, in the muddy field of sports coverage, it is all too easy to score an expensive own-goal. Help is at hand, however, in that there are professional tools available on the market to help broadcasters avoid many of these risks.

One of the famous names in this business is Provys whose software solutions were chosen by Panorama, the exclusive sports content provider for the whole of the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.

Sports broadcasting, being mainly live, demands the highest reliability and professionalism from both the multitude of people and the plethora of equipment required at such events. Media seniors will recall a hard-hitting advertisement from a famous name, some years ago, pointing out that an event of this nature is not a rehearsal. In a nutshell, you have one chance to get it right.

The principal tasks in this process are the back-office administrative operations in which all the essential aspects of the broadcast have to be identified, consulted, scheduled, resourced, controlled, communicated and finally, monetised. In order to properly manage all of these tasks, appropriate and reliable software must be on hand to cover three different aspects of these operations: broadcast scheduling, production management and advertisement sales.

Sports broadcast scheduling is a particularly difficult challenge owing to the unpredictable flexibility of events which can be changed, and changed again at very short notice on account of a wide variety of factors ranging from cancellations or extra-time requirements through health and injury issues to the weather. To meet these requirements, Provys have developed a portfolio of software solutions specifically able to respond, change and manage these events as they evolve. As an example of Provys' skills, one need look no further than IMG (originally known as the International Management Group, a global sports, events and talent management company based in the USA), who use Provys for their scheduling requirements for Premier League programme distribution.

Production management covers many sins: capacity planning; resource scheduling, including time, human, physical and financial resources; and general project management for each and every single event. Producers are usually interested in budgets and expected production costs allowing flexible costing and cancellation models. On occasions, not all resources are available in-house, and producers must resort to hiring external resources to cover short-term needs. As with Sochi, Provys are delighted to supply one of the globally most comprehensive production management projects in Europe's favourite marathon, the programme production requirements of the European Parliament's Audiovisual centre in Brussels.

From the viewers' point of view, sport is almost certainly the most popular form of entertainment and this justifies the sheer volume of sports programmes available through all media channels. Access to this content for broadcasters is expensive; for example, in 2010, the revenues earned by sports bodies for media rights amounted to $29 billion, and this figure is expected to double by 2020. Fortunately, from the broadcasters' point of view, sport represents a major opportunity for revenues on account of the large audience viewing statistics. The task is to efficiently seek, contract and deliver appropriate advertising to the sporting audience at a profit for the broadcaster. Among the broadcasters who have discovered the power of Provys' advertising tools are, for example, Norwegian TV 2 and Polish Polsat, both being the leading privately owned broadcasters in their respective countries.

At this year's NAB, Provys will be presenting their sports solutions among their many other software innovations for broadcasters. You can visit Provys on Stand N5316 in the North Hall of Las Vegas Convention Center during the exhibition.

Image: PROVYS Traffic System for Sports Channels.

www.provys.com

This article is also available to read at BFV online here, page 30.

(JP/LM)