‘Excellent production values, excellent commentary, great packages - made me love cricket again’
Sky Sports for Sky Sports Cricket
Sky Sports’s Ashes coverage offered “superb, industry-changing combinations of data visualisation, graphics, and presentation to elevate the huge excitement of the Ashes summer”, according to our judges.
A third Broadcast Digital Award for Sky Sports’ coverage, The Ashes greatly impressed the judges this year with its innovative 45-camera coverage of thirty six days of the men’s and women’s cricket.
Every single day of the men’s series bar one peaked at over a million viewers and viewing figures for the women’s series were up by over 200%. In what one judge described as “brilliant drama, brilliantly covered,” the event drew in 900K average viewers despite a per-episode budget nine times smaller.
One judge said: “I was impressed by the tracking technology, spider cams, 3D views – it offered enhanced views and allowed for a better understanding of the game. The coverage is really strong, expansive, immersive. I don’t like cricket and I enjoyed watching it.”
New technology this year included fielder tracking, 3D views, replays, and specially commissioned graphics.
Judges praised the broadcaster’s use of technology to engage fans with the action, with one judge commenting: “You really get a sense of the occasion and scale and excitement that captured the nation last summer. Excellent production values, excellent commentary, great packages - made me love cricket again.”
SHORTLISTED
E1 Series Launch - Jeddah GP
Aurora and Curveball Digital for ITV4
Broadcast by 42 different international broadcasters, the E1 World Electric Powerboat Series had an estimated reach of 1.6bn viewers across more than 200 countries.
On-the-water footage, AR/VR course graphics, simultaneous livestreams, and collaborations with 19 race week team owners helped bring new viewers and audiences to the sporting event from across the globe. Clips and highlights gained 140m views from social media, with Instagram engagement six times the industry average.
Game4Ukraine
Legends for Sky Max
Game4Ukraine was a four-hour live charity football match and music concert to raise money for schools destroyed in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The livestream was distributed to over 140 global broadcasters and networks.
Featuring talent including Tom Grennan, Ukrainian superstar Vakarchuk (Slava), and Mel C, the live studio, stage, match and appeals brought in an average 254K viewers and peaked at 425K viewers. It also featured a personal address from President Zelensky.
MERCURY PRIZE 2023 WITH FREENOW: ALBUM OF THE YEAR
BBC Studios for BBC
Despite running on a limited budget, 2023’s Mercury Prize featured live performances from nine of the twelve shortlisted artists. Cameras accessed the floor, the wings, and the three performances areas of the main stage.
The live event’s shortlisted artists includes both artists with a large mainstream audience and less well-known artists, including Arctic Monkeys, J Hus, Loyle Carner, RAYE, and more.
MotoGP Qatar 2024
North One for TNT Sports 2
This year’s MotoGP Qatar streaming achieved a 20% increase in unique viewers, 30% in minutes consumed and 19% growth in media starts on last year.
A gallery in London produced the programme, which was presented on-site in Qatar, and several operational challenges were overcome to broadcast the event to its dedicated – and new – viewers. The stream was managed by a new distribution deal between ThreeNow, Max, and TruTV.
Tyson Fury vs Francis Ngannou: Battle of the Baddest
Warner Bros. Discovery for TNT Sports Box Office
The Riyadh event, whose attendees included Cristiano Ronaldo and Eminem, reached 1.26m UK viewers, 426.6m views across all TNT Sports platforms, and surpassed its expected pay-per-view buys. The stream also featured on Fight Week on discovery+, bringing in 89K unique viewers.
Cameras, including the first drone used in a broadcast in Saudi Arabia, captured the fight and music performances – the stage for which retracted into the ceiling to make room for the boxing ring.
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