Audiences continue their migration to mobile screens, streaming, and social platforms for entertainment consumption. So broadcasters around the world are changing their mindsets. Sports leagues and broadcast rights holders have a mountain of short-form media that can help. But, short-form videos and photos are so different from linear broadcasts in both size and scale. Right holders have found it difficult to distribute short-form media to broadcasters through traditional technologies.
This is true even though broadcasters really want it to support their growing digital and streaming operations.
Media rights holders have long relied on MAMs, or media asset management systems, to help manage and distribute content to broadcasters. Yet the workflows designed to fill broadcast feeds with full-length linear media vary from short-form media content workflows in so many ways.
Instead of two to 12 feeds, short-form media involves literally thousands of anonymously named files. And instead of recording content on two to 12 cameras during the live event, anyone with a mobile phone can capture it any time — before, after or during the game.
Today, MAMs are simply not enough.
Sports leagues and event rights holders can deliver short-form content to broadcasters, but they’ve sourced other non-MAM technology. They’re thinking about their short-form asset inventory differently than the long-form linear libraries housed in these monolithic systems. Distributing short-form media to broadcasters is a completely different animal than sharing the huge high-quality files needed for production broadcast.
They also understand that their broadcast partners need a better, faster way to push out bite-sized videos and images to audiences. The immediacy of a game-changing play is the same on TV or Instagram or a streaming app.
Mobile- and social-first fans are watching and expecting fresh, exclusive content — and content they can’t find on TV. And they expect to see it 24/7, on their terms, far beyond the traditional broadcast schedule.
Connecting fans to short-form media “in the moment” means more opportunities for media rights holders to monetize all those media assets. They’re doing this with premium broadcast packages that include digital media rights in addition to broadcast rights.
There’s a modern way to approach media distribution beyond the world of MAMs. One built specifically for the snackable nuggets fans are waiting for you to serve up.
The Problem With Using MAMs for Short-Form Digital Media Distribution
MAMs were not designed for social media distribution. And they’re not well-suited for short-form digital media.
Further, MAMs are expensive and complex. They require broadcasters to encode content into multiple formats before distributing it on social media. This process is time-consuming and often results in low-quality social video.
MAMs also do not allow broadcasters to track or monetize content on social media easily. As a result, broadcasters are missing out on valuable data about audiences and potential revenue.
MAMs Handle Bulky Files, Not Short-form Assets
MAMs were designed to handle large, unruly files. They’re great for long-form content but not short-form content, which is what people consume on social media. Short-form content is typically under two minutes long and often broken up into smaller clips. Files don’t have intelligible names, and all of this makes it difficult for MAMs to manage and organize.
So, when people worldwide are looking for a short, 10-second clip of a buzzer-beater or a single photo of a player and her dog on a server loaded with literally millions of files, there’s a problem. MAMs simply can’t get the job done.
Sure, a MAM will manage the complete broadcast of a game on a particular date. But without the ability to tag photos using descriptors and keywords, workflows get stuck. MAMs can’t easily locate a specific player hitting a home run from that same game footage.
MAMs Lack Real-time Engagement Opportunities
Another problem with using MAMs for social media distribution is that they lack real-time engagement capabilities. Social media is all about connecting with your audience in the moment, but MAMs make it difficult to do so.
MAMs are designed for batch processing. This means that rights-holders must wait to encode a large number of videos before distributing them to broadcasters. This process can take hours, which is too long for most social media users. The real-time moment is over in 5 minutes, but a day is fine for post-game highlight videos. Social media is all about NOW.
In today’s social media-connected world of instant clips and live streaming, processes must change. Broadcasters need an accessible, user-friendly solution to distribute short-form digital media. One that’s designed for social media distribution and offers real-time engagement opportunities. Unfortunately, MAMs aren’t it.
MAMs Focus On One-to-Many Distribution
MAMs are also designed for one-to-many distribution, which doesn’t scale in today’s world of many-to-many. With social media, users expect to be able to share content with their friends and followers.
When a rights-holder uses a MAM to distribute video to broadcast partners, only those who are watching the broadcast will be able to see it. And when they share short-form clips with a MAM, those snippets are usually edited directly from the feed as edited highlights. That’s not what social media audiences are seeking. They want different content insights — the views behind the scenes, from the stands, in the locker room, and from the sidelines. None of these moments are part of the broadcast feed.
Conversely, many-to-many distribution platforms allow users to share content with anyone. Anyone can upload content, and anyone can also access it from wherever they are. Social media is a hugely effective way to reach a larger audience of like-minded fans.
Traditional broadcasts are only one-way. Today fans expect two-way conversations and interactions. They can’t submit content to their TV, and “social” media vs. broadcast media really includes fans in the conversation. TV broadcast is one-way, and increasingly dissatisfying for younger fans because of its push-only directionality.
Rights holders need a better way to share short-form content with their broadcasters. This helps both partners amplify their regional social reach, drive tune-in and engage with more fans.
How Greenfly Solves the Many-to-Many Equation for Media Rights Holders
New technology is born every day, and it’s hard to tell what’s going to work until you see it work. Vetting a company based on its customer base is a great way to proceed. You can tell if a solution is going to be around for the long term and can manage the real demands of sports and entertainment organizations.
Greenfly is not a MAM. And although it has similarities with a DAM in that it can store media, it’s designed for immediate and comprehensive media distribution. Greenfly is cloud-based SaaS software. It’s the leading short-form digital content distribution platform for rights holders. Seven of the eight biggest sports leagues in the world currently use the platform.
It also helps TV networks, broadcasters and sports news channels (like ESPN and Canal+ Sport) attract and retain their audiences through social media. The company works with some of the world’s largest broadcast networks and services, helping them reach and engage their audiences.
The platform provides many-to-many digital media distribution, making it easy for broadcasters to share content with fans and followers. 1,000 assets created by 1,000 videographers can be organized automatically for real-time distribution to hundreds of broadcasters. From the field to any social platform in seconds.
Centralized and Automated Short-Form Media Distribution
Greenfly empowers sports leagues and rights holders to capture content directly for the purpose of sharing it on social media. This short-form content can be sourced by staff photographers, social creators, freelancers and even directly from licensed media services like Getty Images. When a user receives content captured specifically for social media and digital platforms, it’s different. We call this “All-Access Content“. It’s direct, raw, more engaging, emotional and personal. It makes fans feel like they’re in the stands, not just watching the heads of players on TV.
The league’s broadcast team can easily manage and distribute content across all of their owned social media channels. They can share it with dozens or hundreds of broadcasters, teams and players, and even corporate sponsors in real-time.
Greenfly offers real-time engagement opportunities so broadcasters can interact with audiences equally in the moment. It also makes it easy for fans to submit content, so broadcast teams can find new and exciting content to share.
And the Greenfly platform gives broadcasters the ability to monetize this content on social media with sponsors. This helps drive more value and revenue with those partnerships. The platform has a number of advantages over traditional MAMs in getting short-form media where — and when — it needs to go.
Optimized for Short-Form Content
Greenfly was designed specifically for distributing media that people want to share on social media platforms. This includes short videos of five to 120 seconds. And it includes photos with vertical, square or horizontal orientation from pro cameras or mobile phones. It’s simply built for short-form content. Greenfly makes it easy for rights holders to share content with internal teams and external partners, so they can help the rights holder reach a larger audience and engage with fans in real time.
And Greenfly was built to handle thousands of files, unlike MAMs’ “full game footage of Game 3″. So sports organizations and their broadcast partners have a wealth of freedom and flexibility at their fingertips.
Leagues and sporting events rights holders will find that distributing short-form media to broadcasters using a media asset management system is a futile exercise. It will lead to frustration, rather than success.
Real-time Digital Content Feed
Deploying Greenfly makes it core infrastructure on event day. Many leagues refer to it as their real-time digital content feed. This continuous feed of short-form media enables broadcasters to receive media while a live event is in progress. And it allows them to share those photos and videos with audiences immediately. This capability is particularly vital for sports and event broadcasts.
Using MAMs, there’s no such thing as a real-time digital content feed. This missing element makes it difficult for broadcast teams to know what moments are resonating with audiences and what content they should be sharing on the fly.
With Greenfly, administrators and contributors use direct upload, bulk media upload, cloud file storage collection, and more. Greenfly uses all these available resources to collect media from multiple sources. This ensures broadcasters always have a wealth of content at the ready and in real time.
For example, over 50 broadcast TV rights holders receive media every match day from DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), which manages media for Germany’s top football leagues Bundesliga 1 and 2. DFL’s Social Media Match Day Feed leverages content captured by social media creators in every stadium on match day. This media takes under a minute to travel from the creators’ mobile phone to each broadcast rights holder. Each of them then uses it during matches to keep audiences engaged on two screens — in their languages and geographies. The Social Media Match Day Feed has expanded to deliver media directly to Bundesliga clubs for their official social channels. And it goes to broadcast commentators and sports personalities for show promotion.
Automated Categorization With Tags and Metadata
Efficiency and speed are vital to short-form media accessibility. Greenfly’s automated tagging and routing system helps rights holders and broadcasters save a ton of effort.
The platform can automatically add tags to videos by reading native metadata from the source system. It carries that information from capture all the way through publishing. Tags make it easy for broadcasters and their production partners to find the right content immediately with simple keyword searches. And, distribute media automatically using tags. So Broadcaster A will get “any media from Game 2012B9” and Broadcaster B will get “all media from Game 302B18”.
MAMs, on the other hand, require a real person to label and categorize every single asset manually. This is fine for a dozen files per event. But it becomes a time-consuming chore and error-prone process when dealing with tens of thousands of files.
Artificial intelligence (AI) powers Greenfly’s automated categorization system, which means that it gets smarter and more accurate over time. So broadcasters can spend less time managing content and more time engaging with audiences.
Controlled Access for All Content Creators
One of the drawbacks to MAMs are their limited access to users. Specifically, MAMs can support only a handful of users looking for media, owing again to the limitations of one-to-many distribution.
But with Greenfly’s many-to-many platform, you get much more. Hundreds or even thousands of users can enjoy secure and functional access while searching for the files they need. This versatility also allows for fan participation, who can upload their own content — something MAMs are sorely lacking.
Intuitive, Specific Search
There is a profound difference between searching for a handful of large, linear files and thousands of small files. And as discussed above, Greenfly’s expansive search capabilities ensure broadcasters have access to intuitive, specific search parameters.
This enhanced searchability is a crucial time-saver that MAMs cannot match. When it comes to content distribution, broadcasters need a platform designed for social media that offers real-time engagement opportunities. Greenfly provides these things and much more, ensuring broadcasters have everything they need to succeed in the social media age.
The Best Way To Distribute Short-Form Video to Broadcasters
In the rapidly changing world of digital media, one company is leading the charge in helping rights holders adapt and distribute photos and videos to broadcasters during live events: Greenfly.
Greenfly’s platform allows sports rightsholders to quickly and easily distribute short-form media content to athletes, fans, sponsors and broadcast and SVOD parters. In this way, broadcasters can keep up with the changing landscape of digital media consumption and reach more viewers. So if you’re looking the proven and trusted system to distribute short-form digital media assets at scale in real time, look no further than Greenfly.
Want to learn more? Let’s setup a software demo for you today. See how we can help you engage a larger audience and adapt to the changing landscape of digital media.
