Red5 Joins the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program with a Focus on Personalization in Live Sports Streaming

Red5 is excited to announce that our proposal, “Real-Time Interactive Streaming (RTIS) Personalizes Live Sports,” has been selected as part of the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme for 2023. We will be working with other stakeholders to address challenges faced by sports broadcast services, specifically around revenue generation and fan engagement.

The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Program facilitates collaboration within the media and entertainment technology sector. Each year the Accelerator brings together industry leaders, who then use their collective talents to solve real problems faced in the broadcast world.

Red5’s proposal was presented at the IBC Accelerator Kickstart Day in February. We were among excellent company, and we were honored to be asked to move forward with the program. Red5 and our partners will work together to further develop these ideas over the next few months. The team will present the results in September at IBC 2023 in Amsterdam.

The Challenge for the Sports Streaming Industry

Live sports streaming represents one of the largest growing segments of Red5 Pro’s customer base. In working with these clients, a concerning pattern started to emerge.  Namely, as traditional linear broadcasts convert to streaming, revenue is lost. New media technologies simply can’t rely on old strategies and see the same success; they have to also innovate and grow. Fortunately, new technologies bring new opportunities, opening some exciting avenues for monetization and engagement.

The basic premise behind the IBC Accelerator project is that live, interactive sports streaming can deliver additional revenue/ROI/market share through personalized viewer engagement. In a nutshell, we propose that personalization = monetization. And, if this is the case, Red5 Pro can best support our clients, and the industry as a whole, by offering innovative approaches to personalization built right into their real-time streaming technology.

Proof of Concept Objectives for the RTIS Personalizes Live Sports Project

The team began with a set of objectives against which to measure final success:

• Create next-generation sports viewing experiences with real-time interactivity.
• Create new interactive use cases such as micro-betting transactions, watch parties, fan walls, and gamification that can be monetized.
• Enable new revenue streams for content providers who hold expensive sports league licenses.
• Create new revenue share models between content providers and 3rd party screen experiences.
• Implement metrics to measure user engagement and ROI.

Proposed Solutions for Sports Broadcasting Using RTIS

The team then offered up some innovative solutions for increasing engagement and personalization for sports streaming customers.

Some of the ideas included:

• Interactive WebRTC Delivery at a scale that cannot be done with CDNs today
• PTZ camera remote control, enabling multiple angles or user control to personalize the event (rent time on the camera)
• Secure content through DRM + WebRTC to eliminate pirating
• Human behavior AI (sentiment analysis/opinion mining, heat maps) to enable targeted advertising
• Use of influencers in live sports broadcasts as an alternative to traditional broadcast models

This is an exciting time in the broadcast industry and Red5 Pro is committed to playing a key role in the revolution. If the notion of personalization via RTIS appeals to your company, we’d love to chat with you. Please drop us a note at info@red5.net, or schedule a call.