Recent disruptions in our community have reminded us how important external government communications are for building unity and keeping constituencies informed. At home and across the globe, communities have experienced challenges that require fast and ongoing support from government, so it is crucial that our communications instill confidence and trust.
Citizen demand for timely public sector messages has led to a significant increase in the use of video. Livestreaming and video on demand have both been used by government communications to share important information with the community at large. Eliminating the need to drip feed information down through internal departments, video allows government teams to deliver a consistent message directly to citizens, particularly in situations that require frequent updates.
For the NSW (New South Wales) Department of Education in Australia, video played an increasingly critical role in their communications strategy in 2020. Using video to livestream important messages to 2,200 schools and the wider school community to keep them up to date, the department was able to deliver information to all staff, parents, and students quickly and accurately.
And for schools across NSW, the “Schools Video” initiative has made video a central component of how they tell their own stories and those of their students. Leveraging user-generated content created by students and staff, schools across the state can tell authentic stories and share experiences by creating video content and distributing it via their website, social, and internal channels.
Other government agencies are using video to create greater transparency for official activities, with many local, state, and federal departments livestreaming meetings, posting video on their social media channels, and relying on it for community outreach.
With the future of government focused on putting constituents first and delivering services that are easily accessible across all the platforms in common use, now is the time for public sector agencies to embrace video as a cornerstone of effective communications with the people they serve.
Ready to learn more about video solutions for government communications? Click here.

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Traditional televised sports are facing some pretty tough times. Of course, we’ve all seen the empty ballparks and stadiums that have symbolized the challenges of the past year. It gets worse when you look at the changing habits of viewers, with more than 6 million cable subscribers cutting the cord with their provider each year.
Over-the-top (OTT) streaming has stepped into this void and is delivering powerful results. Even the mighty Super Bowl, compared to years past, saw streaming viewership increase by 67%.
Brightcove’s recent Virtual Panel Discussion, “Changing The Game: Why Sports Streaming Is On The Rise,” explores the many ways that OTT is impacting the sports industry and how teams and organizations are tapping into its vast potential.
Our panelists for this discussion included:

Kassidi Gilgenast, Chief Marketing Officer, USA Volleyball
Kris Knief, Director of Business Intelligence, Black Knight Sports & Entertainment
Amanda Weiner, Senior Director of Digital Media & Ticketing, US Golf Association

Here are some of the highlights from our roundtable that focused on the strengths of OTT.
MEETING PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE
As the world continues to evolve beyond traditional viewing of sports, teams, leagues and organizations are using OTT to stay relevant and remain accessible to their audiences.

Up to 66% of all video views start on mobile devices, creating opportunities for OTT to strengthen brand awareness while increasing viewership.
OTT accessibility on smart TVs provides viewers the big-screen experience they crave, while streaming through gaming consoles helps capture the attention of a younger demographic.
Social channels can also include links to events or content powered by OTT, creating an immediate connection that converts a follower into a viewer.

DELIVERING MORE THAN JUST THE GAME
Most games are finished in just a few hours. But OTT extends the fan experience, offering content that keeps eager fans engaged.

With content available before, during and after the game, fans have more of an opportunity to stay connected with their favorite athletes and teams.
Shoulder content, like athlete interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, analysis, and pre-recorded extras keep fans watching between games and even seasons.
OTT gives teams and organizations a whole new opportunity to create original content. Archival footage, for example, can be refreshed and reformatted to appeal to new audiences.

SCALING TO AUDIENCES, RELIABLY
With audience numbers fluctuating at different moments throughout a match or game, it’s crucial that an OTT solution remains scalable. Plus, there’s never room for error or downtime, especially when it comes to high-profile playoffs and championships.

Certain athletes have a larger fan following than others. When an A-list athlete is on camera, stream traffic spikes, and that surge in viewership must be handled.
Also, with so many sporting events taking place outdoors, the variables of weather further emphasize the need for reliable streaming.
Many events, like golf tournaments, also take place at different locations and venues each year, highlighting the need for a consistent OTT solution to handle those variances.

The world loves sports – there’s no denying that. And as we slowly emerge from this pandemic, the energy and excitement of the games we love will surely be in demand like never before. OTT will play a major role in meeting that demand, and Brightcove’s award-winning technology will push OTT faster and further.

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There’s a special connection between performers and their audience, an almost electric energy that flows between them. An audience’s enthusiasm pushes performers to new heights, which only intensifies the audience’s reaction. So what happens when that connection is broken? Can it be made in other ways?
Answering those questions takes creativity, which, fortunately, performing arts organizations have an abundance of. Take the Metropolitan Opera. For the Met, rising to the challenge of the past year has meant using video to unlock new ways to engage fans, monetize content, and grow its audience, even with its entire performance season cancelled.
“The combination of the arts and technology is pretty powerful. It has completely expanded our audience in such wonderful and exciting ways. It’s changed the game in some sense for us,” says Mia Bongiovanni, Assistant General Manager of Media at the Metropolitan Opera. “What we want more than anything, and I think our audience wants more than anything, is that we return to performing on our stage, hopefully as quickly as we can. But we have the opportunity now to welcome in everyone who has reached out to us in this time and think about creative ways to keep engaged.”
A TREASURE TROVE OF ARCHIVAL CONTENT
The Met Opera has always embraced technology and had already laid the groundwork to reach its audience on mobile, web, and TV before 2020. “When we started ‘Met Opera on Demand,’ that technology was our bridge to the audience. We made sure that we had a platform in place to reach them wherever it was convenient,” says Bongiovanni. “Thankfully we were able to put our rich catalog into play very quickly and start connecting with people. We’re fortunate to have extensive programming going back to when we started broadcasting in the 1970s, our radio broadcasts going back to the 1930s, and our ‘Live in HD’ series.” At the very start of the pandemic, the Met started streaming “encore” performances nightly from its extensive library. As a result, these streams garnered more than 408 million total viewing minutes, and the number of Met Opera on Demand paid subscribers more than doubled.
CREATING NEW CONTENT FROM HOME
The Metropolitan Opera’s “At Home Gala,” proudly streamed by Brightcove, was a virtual event featuring more than 40 artists performing for an audience of more than 750,000 people from 150 countries. “It was one of the greatest projects I’ve ever worked on. And it was an emotional experience,” says Bongiovanni. Making use of whatever technology artists had available at home, new performance content came together with some masterful orchestration. “It was wonderful to see our artists figure out how to bring their creativity to life within the confines of their home, and into people’s homes,” says Bongiovanni. “If we needed more light, they’d grab an old lamp. If we needed to change the camera angle, they’d prop their laptop up on a ladder or an ironing board, whatever. It was very homemade, and therefore very human.” The Gala also featured prerecorded segments showcasing the extraordinary Met Orchestra and Chorus.
REACHING NEW AUDIENCES AND DEMOCRATIZING THE ARTS
With people having more time at home to explore the arts, opera seems to be having a moment. “We have all of these new people out there who are discovering that opera is a wonderful art form. They may never have listened to an opera before or thought they would enjoy it, but they’re discovering it. And for us, of course, it’s the silver lining, and it’s thrilling.” For those who may not have been able to travel to New York to attend the opera, video has also opened up access. “Honestly, it speaks to the power of the art form, the power of the creative community to bring solace and comfort in difficult times,” says Bongiovanni. “It really shows the power of technology to connect on a human level.”
Brightcove is incredibly proud to partner with the Met Opera to continue to connect with and grow its audiences everywhere through the powerful combination of music and video.
Click here for the latest information on how you too can enjoy everything the Met Opera has to offer.
Nick Iuliano is Brightcove’s Senior Director of Content, helping to tell our best brand, product, customer, and partner stories across global marketing channels.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Doug Mitchell has been working at the San Francisco Opera for nearly two decades. As the Opera’s Master Audio & Video Engineer, he’s encountered some interesting challenges during his tenure, but nothing like what he overcame in 2020.
“It was a huge challenge just taking everything from an internal facility and moving everything remotely,” says Mitchell. “We have a full control room, video and audio posts, and mixdown. We have 10 PTZ cameras in our theater, a whole infrastructure between our multiple facilities. We’ve been just really trying to figure out how we can efficiently continue producing content.”
A DECADE’S WORTH OF CONTENT AT THE READY
When the SF Opera closed its doors last year, they were able to quickly respond and accelerate their digital presence by leveraging their archival content. “We were lucky. We’ve been preparing for years,” says Mitchell. “We have so much content that we’ve had stockpiled for the last 10 years, we’ve been able to very quickly and easily provide weekly streaming. I think it has shown just how important it is just to have that content.” The production team has also been able to incorporate some new content of singers, pianists, and orchestra members recording from home. As a result, the SF Opera has seen website traffic and weekly donations increase. “We’re definitely getting a lot of great information, seeing lots of trends. We’re getting the time now to really concentrate on the analytics and how we can use that going forward.”
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT FOR THEIR MOST ARDENT FANS
While the SF Opera offers some of its content for free, including free weekend opera streams and brand new programs such as the In Song series, content is also monetized by being made available exclusively to donors. “Being so donor driven and with so much of our budget coming from donors, we’ve always had the ability to provide them special access to content,” Mitchell explains. “For subscribers or donors of $75 or more, we offer a library just for them where only they can access certain performances.” Similarly, patrons of the opera house typically had the opportunity to attend a lecture about the performance 30 minutes before curtain. “It’s part of your ticket price and you can come in early and get to see that,” says Mitchell. Now, the SF Opera’s Department of Diversity, Equity and Community (DEC) still offers these lectures, but through the power of video streaming. “Opera Aficionado , our interactive lectures series, gives opera-goers around the world a front-row seat to scholarly talks, allowing attendees to dialogue with fellow opera lovers, experts, and special guests.”
THE OPERA HOUSE AT HOME: PLANNING FOR HYBRID PERFORMANCES
When it comes to the future of the SF Opera, the team is still considering all possibilities. According to Mitchell, “We have fingers crossed, high hopes, but we’re also figuring out whatever we have to do to continue to pivot, whether that’s no audience, full audience, and anywhere in between, with people also watching at home.” When performances were happening inside the Opera House, Mitchell and the team produced “Opera Vision,” which was essentially image magnification for the upper balcony during the show. “We’ve looked into how that could be moved into an at-home version. Even if we have a small, socially-distanced audience in the theater, we could also stream it to people at home,” says Mitchell. “I definitely think video streaming is still going to have a place for us going forward.”
DELIVERING GREAT VIDEO SHOULDN’T BE A BIG PRODUCTION
With all of its video content on Brightcove, “it’s just a matter of some mouse clicks to get things online,” says Mitchell. “Providing a seamless user experience is of the utmost importance. Brightcove has continued to add so many new additional features. I think just knowing that and knowing that we can pivot and change and add different things fairly quickly has been very helpful.”
Visit the San Francisco Opera page to catch a performance at from home, proudly streamed by Brightcove.
Nick Iuliano is Brightcove’s Senior Director of Content, helping to tell our best brand, product, customer, and partner stories across global marketing channels.

To view our Partner blog, click here

As the pandemic brought a sudden and dramatic change to the sports world last spring, one thing that remained was the loyalty of fans who still craved the action and connection to their favorite teams and players. Video broadened its role in filling that void, uniting teams and fans like never before with experiences that could often rival the plays on the field or in an arena.
In a recent Brandweek Sports Marketing Summit, I talked with Stephanie Paterik, Executive Editor of Adweek, about what we’re seeing at the fascinating intersection of sports and video.
The trends and examples in our conversation coalesced around three themes.
#CREATIVITY WITH SHOULDER CONTENT
Leading teams, leagues, broadcasters, and publishers find new and unique ways to tap into the power of video to stay connected with their audiences.

The LPGA streamed virtual World Golf Tour (WGT) matches with some of its leading players, engaging fans with a new level of access that included some friendly trash talk.
Manchester City, in the English Premier League, offered their “Cityzens” online lessons and training for kids when matches weren’t being played and video diaries of their players helping in the community. They also made their City+ OTT service free for during the pandemic, with archived games available for rewatching.
The Golden State Warriors created Dubs Draft Room, delivering a video-heavy second screen experience for fans (and revenue for the club, as it was sponsored by Chase).
One Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts leader in Asia, created and streamed their version of The Apprentice reality show competition featuring athletes, celebrities and corporate sponsors.

#DELIVERING UNIQUE FAN EXPERIENCES
While nothing compares to the sights and sounds of a live event, video opens up a whole new world that lets passionate fans experience the game in their own way.

Fans may get the opportunity to isolate certain players or moments from a game or leverage interactive layers and scrolling timelines.
For fans into stats and metrics, teams can assemble video archives that track players’ careers and records, often scaling content creation with AI-based solutions
Some teams or leagues have their own editors assemble thematic clip packages for fans, creating editorial around them with articles, commentary and social engagement. GolfTV’s “2000s Week” and “Power Week” were themes designed to get fans through the initial pause in the action last spring.
“Watch with” functionality enables fans using services like BT Sport to co-view games from different locations with their video experiences in sync – sometimes privately amongst friends and sometimes in different public forums featuring special sport celebrity guest participation.

#EMBRACING EACH SPORT’S PERSONALITY
What does your sport have that no other sport offers? By focusing on a unique trait or aspect, leaders create ownable, differentiated video experiences that fans will enjoy:

The England and Wales Cricket Board developed the interactive video experience “Out, Not Out,” letting online fans play the role of online umpire reviewing and ruling on video clips.
Polls, quizzes and virtual chats focused on specific trends, rules or historical moments of a sport engage fans during the season and off-season.
For hardcore golf fans, the infinite “shelf space” of the internet lets the PGA Tour stream every shot from every player in certain tournaments. This investment adds up to tens of thousands of individual video moments and greater engagement and monetization opportunities.
Relatedly, with golf and tennis tournaments featuring players from multiple countries, rights holders now enable loyal fans to cue-up performances from hometown favorites even when they are not atop the leaderboard or on Centre Court.

#A WINNING FUTURE
Even as in-person events slowly resume, the innovation across the sports landscape over the past year has produced video experiences which will persist.
Fans will continue to demand a rich, engaging viewing environment for their favorite team or sport, but while errors or fouls are part of the games they watch, they will not abide the same in terms of skipping, lagging, or poor-quality video.
This is why sports organizations across the globe count on Brightcove to deliver a quality, broadcast-grade viewing experience that is highly scalable, highly redundant and global. For us, the game is never a game.
If you would like to discuss how Brightcove can work for you, please get in touch with us. We’d love to help.

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Verification is vital for brands to establish the true return on investment from advertising campaigns. Traditionally, ad viewability is tracked using technology limited to desktop environments, offering limited access to measurement data on other endpoints.
As the media landscape rapidly changes, advertisers are increasingly looking for solutions to measure viewability and validity, specifically where ads are being placed and who is viewing them.
TVNZ, New Zealand’s state-owned, commercially funded broadcaster, is all about sharing the moments that matter – whether it’s breaking news, following adventures, sharing stories, or putting smiles on faces. Each day, TVNZ reaches more than 2 million New Zealanders through channels TVNZ 1, 2, DUKE and online platform, TVNZ OnDemand. Leading news site 1news.co.nz and socially-driven online news brand Re: connect Kiwis to the important issues throughout the day, however they choose to engage.
Supported by Brightcove’s SSAI technology, TVNZ became the first broadcaster certified by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) for Open Measurement support in the APAC region, with the ability to measure viewability and invalid traffic with third-party verification on TVNZ OnDemand mobile apps.
“With our audiences increasingly using mobile devices to view content, we sought to address the need to report on this segment with integrity. Brightcove SSAI makes it easy for us to deliver ad-supported video to all devices – including mobile – without having to build and maintain integrations for every device to report against KPIs,” says Jodi O’Donnell, Commercial Director at TVNZ. “TVNZ OnDemand provides a bot-free, geofenced, brand-safe, and full-screen viewing environment that our users and advertisers trust, thereby with Open Measurement support, we’re able to better verify this.”
Brightcove technology exposes the verification data in the ad response so it can be passed to the new Open Measurement Software Development Kit (SDK). This makes ad metrics more visible and accessible to advertisers, increasing the value of inventory and boosting CPMs. By enabling better report viewability metrics, Brightcove not only simplifies the analysis of ad performance, but boosts the viewing experience for the audiences the ads are intended for.
Brightcove also solves for other challenges many broadcasters face today, such as preventing ad blockers from detecting ads, eliminating buffering, and preserving revenue while boosting audiences’ viewing experience by serving ads as one continuous stream.
As analytics become increasingly important and drive business decisions, broadcasters need to invest in Open Measurement to measure viewability and ensure they are getting the whole picture.
Our work with TVNZ marks a first for Brightcove SSAI, and we look forward to helping other broadcasters streamline their advertising operations.

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