BT beefs up digital video offering

The fledging broadcaster has tied with the web giant to introduce dynamic ad insertion into live streams - a feature that will allow it to serve adverts which are relevant for subscribers accessing the channel via its website and app.

BT will have the ability to serve the targeted ads across its sports coverage which includes UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, European Rugby Champions Cup, MotoGP, and UFC.

The Google-powered solution will work in step with the linear broadcast schedule, enabling the clickable, dynamic online ads to mirror the broadcast advert breaks.

Logged-in viewers watching on laptop, desktop, mobile and tablet will have a more personal ad experience with clickable ads.

Benjamin Faes, managing director, Global Partnerships, EMEA Google said that the service increased the value of the broadcaster’s inventory.

“It exemplifies the incredible opportunities that lie ahead of a broadcaster as more and more of their viewership comes from online sources.”

BT director of business Tony Singh added: “More and more people are enjoying BT Sport via our best-in-class app and online player and we are always looking at ways in which we can innovate to deliver a better offering for our advertisers as well as our users.”

Accenture agreement

Separately BT has expanded an existing BT Sport partnership with Accenture to enable it to tweak its digital video offering.

The pay tv platform will work with Accenture to beef up its OTT service to allow it to launch a more personalised service, built on real time data based on anonymised individual user profiles.

Sef Tuma, chief strategy officer, Accenture Digital Video said: “To be at the heart of the BT TV architecture is exciting for us, and we look forward to helping them continue to deliver some of the world’s most exciting services and programming in this next phase of our relationship.”