BARNEY FRANCIS – LEADERS IN FOOTBALL CONFERENCE
‘SPORTS BROADCASTING IN THE DIGITAL AGE’
Good afternoon everyone and thank you for inviting me to speak here.
We’re here today after a truly fantastic summer of sport – perhaps the best
ever.
There was the hugely successful Olympics and Paralympics right here in
London. Bradley Wiggins became the first ever British winner of the Tour de
France. Andy Murray the first British male grand slam event winner in 76
years. There was Euro 2012. There was the Ryder Cup. The list goes on.
But it all kicked off back in May with the thrilling end to the domestic and
European club competitions.
Sky Sports was delighted to be there for it – and it did, for me, capture what
we do best at Sky.
Our mission is quite simple. We keep our customers satisfied by doing two
things – providing great TV and offering the best viewing experience.
That approach has driven our growth from a start-up to the company that
Sky is today. And it applies as much to our football coverage as much as any
other part of our business.
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Today, the Premier League is more popular with viewers than ever. Last
season, audiences were up 12 per cent year on year. We also saw three of our
four biggest ever audiences.
That’s great news for us as the broadcaster. And you can imagine how happy
the Premier League was to hear those numbers ahead of its rights auction…
But it’s significant because it means that we’re giving customers the great TV
and viewing experience they want.
I firmly believe we’ve been able to do that because of the strong partnership
we’ve built with football. It’s a long-term partnership, built on mutual
understanding, trust and respect. And we know we have to keep on working
together if we’re to remain successful and help grow the game further.
So I want to set out today how we can do so and also how football coverage
is evolving as we take advantage of new digital opportunities.
A WORLD-CLASS PRODUCT
So, the first part of our mission was to provide great TV. That’s right at the
heart of what we do at Sky. If you’re a customer, the main reason why you join
us is a better choice of TV.
I want to talk about the Chadha family. They’re Sky Sports viewers. In fact,
they’re our closest viewers. They live on the corner of our West London
studios. I drive past their house every day.
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The Chadhas want to be able to watch all the biggest football matches and
see their heroes on TV every week. Watching sport is something they do as a
whole family and it’s a distraction from the stresses and strains of everyday
life. I imagine they’re pretty typical in that respect. It’s customers like the
Chadhas we need to satisfy. If we do, they’ll continue to reward us with their
loyalty.
I believe you face a similar challenge. In face of growing competition for their
time and money, you have to ensure your fans can watch a great product and
are treated with respect. If you do, they’ll reward you with their commitment
and continued support. You don’t need me to tell you that.
In fact, the only difference between us is that the people we call customers,
you call fans. We both have a mutual incentive to listen to them and we both
succeed if we keep them satisfied. Over the years, that’s what we’ve done and
we need to carry on working together if we’re to keep doing so.
What we do
For our part, we work hard to ensure your game gets the breadth and quality
of coverage it deserves.
Today, Sky Sports viewers have never had so much choice of high quality
action. We now schedule around 50,000 hours of sport a year across our six
Sky Sports channels. Over the last 18 months, we’ve also secured no less than
16 new long-term renewals and agreements, covering sports like Formula 1,
English domestic and international cricket, European rugby, European Tour
Golf and the Ryder Cup.
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Of course, it also includes new long-term deals that will mean Sky Sports
remains the home of football, including those for the Premier League, UEFA
Champions League, Scottish Premier League, Football League and La Liga.
We already offer unrivalled choice. This season, we’ll show over 500 live
international, European and domestic matches. Last weekend alone, the
most dedicated football fans could have watched nine live matches on Sky
Sports – starting with a schoolboy international on Friday night before
moving on to three Premier League fixtures, three from La Liga including El
Clasico, one from the Championship and one from the Scottish Premier
League. That’s just a typical weekend for us.
Once we’ve invested in rights, we give your game the full Sky Sports
treatment. Before, during and after a match, we aim to offer brilliant analysis.
That’s because punditry is an art form and we use respected ex-pros and
managers to tell viewers what they don’t see or know.
Anyone who’s seen Gary Neville dissect a performance during Monday Night
Football will know what I mean. But believe me, he works hard to look that
good. He’s always in by 9 o’clock on a Monday morning to review tapes of the
weekend’s matches and prepare for Monday Night Football. He even gets the
coffees in – at least, that’s what I’m told. I do know the summer before he
started working for us, he had the full Monday Night Football set-up installed
at his house so he could master it. It drove Mrs Neville mad. But it clearly
worked. The FA was so impressed they offered him a job with the England
team…
As well as our coverage of live matches, we surround your sport with a
fantastic range of support programming. There’s the new Footballers’
Football Show on Thursday; the Fantasy Football Club on Friday; Soccer A.M,
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Soccer Saturday and Football First all on Saturday; and the Sunday
Supplement and Goals on Sunday.
On top of that, there’s Sky Sports News, which is a great example of how we
can build excitement around your sport. Who could forget Transfer Deadline
Day? I’m sure it’s stressful for you. It’s quite an operation for us too as we’ve
no idea where the stories will be – especially now that Harry’s not doing his incar press conferences. But fans love it and don’t miss a thing on Sky.
And if you had any doubts about the influence of Sky Sports News, you just
had to be at the new national football centre at St George’s Park yesterday,
where every screen was tuned to it.
So, we offer unrivalled choice, analysis and support programming, which all
help football fans live and breathe the game they love. But we need your help
too.
What we need you to do
It’s only by working together that we can ensure fans continue to get a truly
world-class spectacle.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the football we watch has been
transformed over the last 20 years at all levels. The skill of the players; the
excitement of the matches; the passion of the fans; the whole package is
light years ahead of where it was. That’s largely down to your investment on
the pitch and hard work off it.
Another area where you’ve made huge progress is improving the fan
experience. It’s simply unrecognisable from what it was 15 or 20 years ago.
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Since the start of the Premier League, no fewer than 30 new stadia have
been built in England. The resulting improvements to safety, views and
comfort all make for a better day out for fans and have helped make football
more accessible to families.
Our relationship with over 10 million homes enables your sport to reach an
even wider range of fans at home. As well as seeing great action, they want to
hear from players and managers. That’s why we interview them, so please – as
clubs, sponsors or management – carry on working with us to help tell those
stories to your fans.
In helping you do so, we never underestimate the power of sport to inspire.
I want to talk about Tom Harrison. He’s the club secretary at Hindley Juniors
Football Club in Wigan – a rugby league heartland with very few football clubs
nearby.
When he set it up, Hindley Juniors was a summer coaching scheme for 8 local
boys. The same time Tom was starting out, Sky Sports began beaming live
football into homes around the country.
Today, Hindley Juniors operates all year round and has 500 players. Tom says
the reason is the boys wanted to learn to play and be like their new heroes.
He also firmly believes they’re improving by trying out the skills they see
players like Bale, Rooney and Hazard doing over and over again on Sky Sports.
We need you – as the guardians of the game – to ensure that football
remains an attractive product.
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And like all good partners, we’re committed and loyal. We’ve now worked with
the Premier League for over 20 years. We’ve worked with The Football League
for almost as long. We’ve been working with UEFA for just under a decade.
And we’ve also supported Scottish football since we began.
We recently renewed our deal with the SPL; they needed that commitment,
we were happy to oblige.
All these long-standing relationships demonstrate our commitment to you.
And by working together, we’ve been a force for good in your sport.
Having that great product was the first part of our mission. We also need to
provide the best viewing experience and digital technology offers us new
opportunities to connect with fans.
TAKING FOOTBALL INTO THE DIGITAL AGE
Over the past 20 years, we’ve always looked to keep pushing forward with our
football coverage, to lead the way. Our aim is to be better this season than
last – and better next season than now.
From innovations like the match clock and score at the top of the screen to
red button interactivity and going from fewer than 5 cameras at games to
over 30, those were all Sky Sports firsts.
The quality of broadcasts has moved to widescreen, to High Definition, to 3D.
Today, all the key moments are seen, replayed and scrutinised in remarkable
detail and these new standards have been adopted around the world.
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But perhaps the biggest changes are happening right now so we’re moving
ahead once again.
A complete service
In the digital age, the key word for customers is flexibility. If fans want to be
able to watch nine matches a weekend and immerse themselves in your
sport, we need to offer them a service that quenches their thirst. Equally, if
they only have time to watch some highlights or read a report, we have to be
able to cater for them too.
To do so, we offer what I describe as a complete sports service.
When fans watch at home, they get the big TV experience with the
remarkable clarity of HD; the immersive experience of 3D; the chance to see
stats and a choice of matches through the red button; and the ability to
record programmes on Sky+.
Our website – skysports.com – is now used by over a million people every day.
When fans are out and about, they can watch Sky Sports on their laptop,
smartphone or tablet on Sky Go. It gets over 10 million live views a week, the
vast majority of which are accounted for by sport.
And at home, they use Sky Go as a companion to the coverage or as a second
screen in the same room. You watch El Clasico, while the family watch the XFactor.
To give you an idea of how that affects a big match, the most watched
Premier League game on record, the Manchester derby in April, saw 4 million
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people watch the match on TV at home; pubs had to shut their doors they
were so full; and a further quarter of a million enjoy it via Sky Go.
So while watching live sport used to mean remaining rooted to your sofa –
and the only alternative was recording the action, trying to get home before
anyone could tell you the score and still knowing it had already happened –
fans no longer need to accept the trade-off between enjoying live sport and
getting on with their busy lives.
Instead, they can choose which of our options best suits them.
Before I wrap up, I want to talk in more detail about how tablets fit into our
service.
The tablet
We know there are around 6 million tablets in the UK. We also know a quarter
of Sky Sports subscribers now have one. It’s a great opportunity for us and
for our viewers.
Our Sky Sports app is the single most complete football service yet. As well as
watching all six Sky Sports channels live, there’s all the latest news, views and
videos.
Customers can also use it as a second screen to enhance their viewing of Sky
Sports live coverage. For example, our UEFA Champions League Event Centre
allows fans to watch up to 8 live Sky Sports matches – including more than
one at any one time.
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Alongside that, our Barclays Premier League Match Centre also features
OPTA player data and means fans can access virtually the same information
that Gary Neville has sitting in the Sky Sports studio.
Our Sky Sports app is already being used by around 10 per cent of our
audience to follow the game. What’s more, that’s an additional 10 per cent of
viewers who aren’t watching on their main TVs. So it’s not just an opportunity
to connect with more fans with your sport but also with your sponsorships
and with other marketing opportunities.
If you don’t have it yet, it’s really easy to get. Just go to the app store or go to
our web site.
It’s a good example of how we’re taking your game into the digital age.
And it’s just the latest example of how we’re developing our coverage and
connecting with your fans.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion then, over the past 20 years, we’ve built a winning partnership.
The reason why is that we’ve built it on solid foundations – we have a mutual
understanding of what each other is trying to do, we trust each other to fulfil
our roles and we respect each other in the way we work together.
We’re not going to tell you how to run your sport. You’re the experts.
But we do want to help your sport move forward by telling your stories to our
customers, to your fans.
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And we will do so by continuing to offer the combination of a great game and
the best viewing experience.
Some broadcasters might run hot and cold on football. Not us.
We’ve been a partner to football for over 20 years.
We want you and our customers to see us as the home of football for the
next 20 years too.
By working together, we can collectively remain a force for good.
Thank you.
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