Sports, universally, are watched live.
Yet, there’s a segment of fans that are dependent on their DVRs, catching up on games later or fast-forwarding them. Power users try to predict which matchups could go to overtime and schedule their systems to record by an extra hour or so. However, oftentimes, these thrilling games tend to go over its programming window longer than expected, both for broadcasters and fans. They might get fortunate enough to capture most of the action, but still miss the game-winning play–resorting to social media feeds later in their timelines, watching the highlights elsewhere, or opening an online pay-TV service.
Just last year, though, one in five MLB Playoff games went into extra innings; and one in three NBA Finals games ended in overtime; and some FIFA World Cup games took more time to conclude. About 46 percent of domestic households have DVRs in 2013, that was a 30 percent uptick from the previous year. For those fans that opt-in to DVRs, it can prove to be a painful experience. The pinnacle example in recent history, certainly, belongs to the epic, six overtime game between Syracuse and UConn in the 2009 Big East Tournament–that’s, seemingly, ages ago based on modern technology introduced since then, albeit.
Sports broadcasters, of course, would rather all fans watch the games live. Advertisers already have a problem with viewers skipping their commercials due to DVRs–not to mention that tracking DVR data tends to be slow. Why even bother to quantify these consumer metrics if it defeats the purpose of advertisers’ spending, especially when complete viewership isn’t captured due to certain limitations?
For one media data-based company, Gracenote, it compels them to provide a solution for broadcasters to preserve the last bit of programming that DVR users would watch its entirety.
Well before debuting its Sports division, they’ve been developing sports data products for their pay-TV operator customers. While they already had a sizeable staff of human editors collecting TV program and schedule data, they didn’t have editors dedicated specifically to sports data. During this process, they worked with SportsDirect to license some of their sports scores and statistics to customers alongside Gracenote TV data.
At the same time, though, Gracenote was cognizant that if they really wanted to penetrate the sports data market, it was critical to have coverage for all of the world’s major professional leagues, both North America and Europe. Thus, Infostrada Sports’ European grasp made for a great complement to SportsDirect’s knowledge in the North American market.
After taken part in two different transactions by large corporations (Sony and then Tribune Media), Gracenote positioned themselves to acquire both of these entities. The combination of Gracenote’s legacy expertise with TV data as well as SportsDirect and Infostrada’s know-how with sports data enables the former to create new offerings that meet the needs of customers spanning entertainment and sports.
With the launch of Gracenote Sports, Rich Cusick, General Manager of Video at Gracenote, mentions to SportTechie that they’re now the only company in the world to deliver the mix of video, music, and sports data.
The collection of these assets grants them a unique advantage versus sports data competitors in a few areas: The knowledge and established relationships with major customers in TV, video, music, and automotive; a global technology platform that supports customers in more than 65 countries; a team of 1,700 that comprises of over 200 technologists and north of 1,000 editorial resources; and an accomplished research and development as well as product development teams.
Accordingly, Gracenote can strategically strike to expand its sports data clientele; many of whom are already their customers, including multichannel video programming distributors, multiple system operators, automakers, and consumer electronics manufacturers. Thus, they intend to drive new experiences for sports fans.
Among cable and satellite operators, Gracenote is developing next generation sports data and stats coupled with on-screen guides and apps to propel tune-in. For consumer electronics companies, statistical overlays of live sports scores and updates on smart TVs and mobile devices to enhance viewing experiences. And as for automakers, Gracenote will supply sports scores and statistics displayed on automobile dashboards and infotainment systems to provide live alerts on the road.
“Together, SportsDirect and Infostrada Sports provide us a solid foundation to enter the market and take an immediate leadership position,” says Cusick.
“By applying Gracenote’s long-standing expertise with metadata creation, standardization, and distribution to our new sports data offerings, we’ll ensure that our customers are getting the highest quality products in the most efficient ways to enhance their users’ experiences around live sports programming,” Cusick added.
Concurrently, though, domestic cable and satellite operators arrange DVR recordings based on scheduled broadcast times. These broadcasters do not distribute a real-time, universal signal to cable and satellite providers to indicate whether a program is “in progress” or “complete.” With Gracenote’s DVR Extend, their latest product, Gracenote will deliver real-time data feeds that show the start and end times of live events, or signal when a program is predicted to into overtime, to automatically adjust the DVR settings.
It’s worth noting that abroad, specifically in Europe, there tends to be a more acute transmission between broadcasters and DVRs, where the data transferred can instantly change the recording. The programming has a unique reference code that helps this system try to ensure the user doesn’t miss the end of a recorded show.
Cusick explains: “Some European countries mandate or encourage that DVRs come equipped with so-called ‘accurate recording’ technology. And some providers have established real-time data feeds directly from the broadcasters that enables status updates throughout the program. These measures can serve to address the issue for some viewers abroad. But the problems of DVRs recordings cutting off the end of games running long still exists there as it does here.”
The worldwide viewership of live tentpole, sporting events goes without saying. Gracenote looks at DVR Extend as a way to help its customers offer a value add to their respective subscribers by eliminating this confliction point around recorded sports programming. They believe a feature like DVR Extend serves as the type of innovation that can differentiate companies from their competitors, driving deeper engagement and loyalty among users.
Thus, DVR Extend represents the first of a series of sports offerings that integrates Gracenote’s comprehensive database of sports schedules, scores, play-by-play stats, as well as team and player information for all of the major pro leagues across the globe, which projects to deliver new experiences for fans across TV, mobile, web, and connected cars.
At its core, DVR Extend uses a combination of predictive analytics based on live game stats, historical sports data, TV schedules, and human editors to automatically adjust the recording of a live game in the event that it goes over the scheduled broadcast time.
First, Gracenote employs a predictive model, which leverages machine learning that analyzes historical data and live game data from SportsDirect and Infostrada to predict whether or not a game may go into overtime. Such procedure allows Gracenote to raise real-time red flags to their cable and satellite TV operators as well as consumer electronic customers when a game may go beyond its scheduled time. They, effectively, warn them 15 minutes in advance of the scheduled end of game recording, so they can make the necessary adjustments and preemptively extend the recording.
Secondly, they deliver game status and score feeds to customers using an over-the-top signal. Besides the feed of schedule and program, Gracenote enlists their human editors, who are already watching the game and generating stats and score for its sports database, to manually send a status of “in progress” or “complete.” Once a game is signaled complete, their customers can “hit the switch” to stop the DVR recording.
“For fans and sports broadcasters, it’s seamless,” says Cusick.
“Gracenote does all of the work and owns the communication with its cable and satellite customers to automatically extend recording time until the game ends. Sports broadcasters will continue to broadcast as they have. But fans will no longer have to worry about padding their DVR recordings with additional time to ensure they don’t miss the end of the game, if it goes into overtime play,” Cusick continued.
Gracenote wouldn’t disclose an initial customer agreement at this time, but believes that there’s definitely demand for this functionality in the marketplace. They’re currently in deep discussions with all of their cable and satellite partners on new, sports-driven offerings and specifically, DVR Extend.
Gracenote’s customers have expressed great interest in mapping data for the world’s most popular sports, to Gracenote’s deep, descriptive metadata and industry standard TMS ID to help viewers find and record programs featuring specific sports, leagues, divisions, teams, and major events. This installation will also help users to link related programs, such as pre- and post-game shows.
Naturally, these same cable and satellite providers are also interested in further personalizing the sports viewing experience by adding play-by-play and player statistics as overlays on the TV (akin to what OneTwoSee and Comcast have partnered for) as well as sending timely push notifications by virtue of mobile apps. Besides helping fans get more “into the game,” Gracenote’s next-generation sports stats and rich game imagery can be presented in different ways in order to try to drive tune-in in real-time.
Based on the solution DVR Extend provides to operators and their end-users, Gracenote expects widespread adoption. If they can help their clientele ensure fans don’t miss overtime in an exciting game, Gracenote projects to build loyalty for their respective services just by liquidating this common omission among DVR systems.
Gracenote’s data guides DVRs to be overtime game proof.