We live in an on-demand society, any parent will tell you that.
As a father of two young children, I see up close every day that hope has now been replaced by expectation in the desire for information and entertainment to be delivered instinctively.
Whether it is via iPad, smartphone, Alexa, YouTube, Netflix or Google (voice search, of course, because to a six-year-old typing just takes way too long), among others, access to content is now ubiquitous and each interaction is expected to provide almost instant gratification.
It is a trend that has fundamentally changed the landscape for media companies in the last decade or so, and with the proliferation of ultra-fast broadband and now 5G on the horizon, it is almost guaranteed to continue gathering pace.
In addition to speed, another factor has also emerged in tandem as one of the biggest headaches now facing media owners, broadcasters, news agencies and digital publishers: the demand not just for content right now, in the moment, but content that is personalised to each user.
The rapid rise of OTT platforms – note the recent growth of DAZN and Eleven Sports – the proliferation of paywall models, the emergence of niche subscription services such as The Athletic and even more intriguing attempts at crowd-funded journalism like the US expansion of Dutch start-up The Correspondent has seen users increasingly seek out an experience that speaks directly to them and that is accessible completely on their terms.
An appointment to view, or read, is no longer just about function but is expected to deliver immersion – and all the evidence suggests that, if the proposition is right, consumers are willing to pay for it.
The growth of Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube etc has had a huge effect on the basic way in which journalism works. Whereas once the big media outlets were the first port of call for breaking a story, news, in the traditional sense, is now disseminated via social media long before publishers even get to it.
In newsrooms all over the world, TweetDeck has replaced the telephone as the primary way of keeping up with the news agenda; the job of a journalist is now just as much about curation – filtering the noise, if you will – as it is about creation.
That has also changed the way in which B2B media outlets have had to approach monetisation. The days of ‘placeholder’ video and editorial to bulk out a content offering are long gone.
Many traditional news agencies still struggle with that conundrum – sales conversations that were once dominated by volume are now driven by likely engagement value. Broadcasters and digital publishers, working with real-time analytics at their fingertips, demand tangible returns on every single article, live stream, video or piece of content they outsource.
At Stats Perform, that is something that our editors and producers working on our Omnisport product discuss minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour. Our content plan – delivering over 100,000 pieces of sports video and editorial content annually across 18 different languages – is moulded towards the big teams and big players. We focus on the sporting personalities and events that are guaranteed to generate interaction, underpinned by a ‘snackable’ and ‘shareable’ ethos.
An article or live commentary does not get written nor a video or piece of social content produced unless we are 100 per cent confident that someone will read, watch or interact with it.
In order to thrive, though, a new breed of content providers like us have been required to go even further.
A generic, one-size-fits-all approach to the content creation process may have been fine in years gone by, but now clients, and their users, are unwilling to part with cash for anything that does not feel unique – a challenge Omnisport has met with our branded data videos, tailored live blogs or our Clean Ready service, offering fully edited, short-form sports VOD content free of graphics, to which brands can add their own look and feel.
Telling the story beyond the story – in our case using data from the rest of Stats Perform – adds further insight and that is something that will only continue to develop with the march of AI, which is already automating nuggets of information powered by data feeds to allow our journalists to delve even deeper into specific topics.
The good news is that the possibilities for creating great content are now more diverse than ever. Yet for editors, not least those who work in a B2B environment, it is a challenge that keeps us up at night: how to meet the demands of producing low-cost, quick-fire storytelling that gives clients the depth they need and the engagement they want.
And all in a way that means they can provide end users with a content experience they now simply demand.
Pete Marshall
We live in an on-demand society, any parent will tell you that.
As a father of two young children, I see up close every day that hope has now been replaced by expectation in the desire for information and entertainment to be delivered instinctively.
Whether it is via iPad, smartphone, Alexa, YouTube, Netflix or Google (voice search, of course, because to a six-year-old typing just takes way too long), among others, access to content is now ubiquitous and each interaction is expected to provide almost instant gratification.
It is a trend that has fundamentally changed the landscape for media companies in the last decade or so, and with the proliferation of ultra-fast broadband and now 5G on the horizon, it is almost guaranteed to continue gathering pace.
In addition to speed, another factor has also emerged in tandem as one of the biggest headaches now facing media owners, broadcasters, news agencies and digital publishers: the demand not just for content right now, in the moment, but content that is personalised to each user.
The rapid rise of OTT platforms – note the recent growth of DAZN and Eleven Sports – the proliferation of paywall models, the emergence of niche subscription services such as The Athletic and even more intriguing attempts at crowd-funded journalism like the US expansion of Dutch start-up The Correspondent has seen users increasingly seek out an experience that speaks directly to them and that is accessible completely on their terms.
An appointment to view, or read, is no longer just about function but is expected to deliver immersion – and all the evidence suggests that, if the proposition is right, consumers are willing to pay for it.
The growth of Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube etc. has had a huge effect on the basic way in which journalism works. Whereas once the big media outlets were the first port of call for breaking a story, now news, in the traditional sense, is disseminated via social media long before publishers even get to it.
In newsrooms all over the world, TweetDeck has replaced the telephone as the primary way of keeping up with the news agenda; the job of a journalist is now just as much about curation – filtering the noise, if you will – as it is about creation.
That has also changed the way in which B2B media outlets have had to approach monetisation. The days of ‘placeholder’ video and editorial to bulk out a content offering are long gone.
Many traditional news agencies still struggle with that conundrum – sales conversations that were once dominated by volume are now driven by likely engagement value. Broadcasters and digital publishers, working with real-time analytics at their fingertips, demand tangible returns on every single article, live stream, video or piece of content they outsource.
At Stats Perform, that is something that our Editors and Producers working on our Omnisport product discuss minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour. Our content plan – delivering over 100,000 pieces of sports video and editorial content annually across 18 different languages – is moulded towards the big teams and big players. We focus on the sporting personalities and events that are guaranteed to generate interaction, underpinned by a ‘snackable’ and ‘shareable’ ethos.
An article or live commentary does not get written nor a video or piece of social content produced unless we are 100 per cent confident that someone will read, watch or interact with it.
In order to thrive, though, a new breed of content providers like us have been required to go even further.
A generic, one-size-fits-all approach to the content creation process may have been fine in years gone by but now clients, and their users, are unwilling to part with cash for anything that does not feel unique – a challenge Omnisport has met with our branded data videos, tailored live blogs or our Clean Ready service, offering fully edited, short-form sports VOD content free of graphics, to which brands can add their own look and feel.
Telling the story beyond the story, in our case using data from the rest of Stats Perform, adds further insight and that is something that will only continue to develop with the march of AI, which is already automating nuggets of information powered by data feeds to allow our journalists to delve even deeper into specific topics.
The good news is that the possibilities for creating great content are now more diverse than ever. Yet for editors, not least those who work in a B2B environment, it is a challenge that keeps us up at night: how to meet the demands of producing low-cost, quick-fire storytelling that gives clients the depth they need and the engagement they want.
And all in a way that means they can provide end users with a content experience they now simply demand.
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