Feature: On-screen graphics in brand-building - a source of conflict or collaboration?  

One of the most contentious issues for broadcasters at major sporting events is the design of the on-screen graphics and the level of freedom rights holders are given to personalise their graphics or to have access to a 'clean feed' of the event. Paul Bristow, managing director of deltatre Media, takes up the story...

Multi Remote Graphics

On-screen graphics provide a powerful branding tool. However, the vexed question is whether this tool should be used to build the brand of the event or the brand of the broadcaster? Until now, the final decision has been dependent on the relative strength of the property and the broadcaster, with the dominant party winning out. However, in the future, new technology may offer a solution that will transform the use of graphics from a potential source of conflict to one of collaboration between rights owners and their media partners.

There are currently two different standpoints:

1. In an increasingly competitive media landscape, broadcasters wish to personalise their coverage and differentiate their presentation of an event from their competitors. The broadcaster's brand is important and it would like to develop a consistent look and feel to all the graphics and broadcast design elements on a particular channel. As a minimum, broadcasters expect to include their station idents and often supplement the international graphics with a permanent on-screen clock and score in their own house style. If permitted, they will dominate the whole coverage of an event with their own graphic design: Sky, BBC, Eurosport all do this very effectively at present.
2. The rights owners on the other hand see the opportunity to build their event brands through the on-screen graphics and the strength of this approach has been clearly demonstrated by the UEFA Champions League, where there has been a consistent design across all broadcasters in every territory of the world. In addition, rights owners are reluctant to provide opportunities for personalisation of graphics style or access to the clean feed when they have contractual obligations to provide on-screen credits to their sponsors.

However, Remote Graphics Insertion Technology developed by deltatre for the 2002 World Cup in Japan/Korea may provide a new opportunity for rights holders and broadcasters to balance their respective branding objectives around a major event.

Multi Remote Graphics

The BBC experience

For its World Cup coverage, the BBC was able to use remote graphics insertion technology to receive match graphics simultaneously with the world feed graphics, but in the BBC's house style. This was important for the BBC to differentiate its match coverage from rival free-to-air broadcaster ITV's, where the world feed graphics were used.
The technology used a single graphics operation at each venue to produce graphics for the world feed plus a graphics server located at the IBC in Seoul. Taking a GPI signal from the host broadcaster (to know when the HB director has inserted a graphic) plus the data from the graphics supplier (for the content of the captions) via an ISDN line into a graphics server at the IBC, the BBC was able to mix a clean signal from the venue with a graphics feed to produce their final output in their own design.
As the feed was driven from the central graphics production produced by deltatre on behalf of HBS and FIFA - all the sponsor credits were controlled and delivered consistently with the rest of the world, ensuring full contractual fulfilment. Whilst HBS and FIFA retained full control over the content and delivery of the on-screen graphics, this technology provided the BBC with sufficient editorial freedom in the design, which was able to combine and appropriate balance between the event design and the BBC's house style.

Speaking in tongues?

Another advantage of the technology is that it can be used to produce simultaneous language feeds. In countries where the mother tongue is not English, it may not be appropriate to impose an English language international feed. At the FIFA World Cup 2002, the remote graphics insertion was used for Direct TV's coverage in Latin America to produce a Spanish language feed in the same style as the international graphics.
Whilst simultaneous language feeds have been common for a while, it has been necessary for broadcasters to have a full unilateral production on-site for each match and a unilateral satellite feed back to the studio - all additional expense. The advantage of the new technology is that the graphics can be inserted back at the TV studio on a remote basis from a clean feed and a graphics signal. Receiving a clean feed to the studio also provides the broadcasters with invaluable material for post production and highlights editing.
So perhaps this technology provides a blueprint for the future, whereby federations can take control of the on-screen branding of their events, but at the same time offer the possibility to individual broadcast partners to personalise their graphics style and language. Perhaps there is a way that the various needs of the broadcaster, the event and the technical sponsors can be balanced and harmonised.

Contact: Paul.Bristow@deltatre.com; www.deltatre.com; tel. +44 20 8879 9690

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