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 The ATP Masters Series is the premier series of tournaments within the ATP calendar where the very best players in the world compete across two continents for the right to play in the end of season grand finale; the Tennis Masters Cup, writes James Rushton, marketing director of digital solutions provider Premium TV.
Under the commercial stewardship of ATP Media (formerly known as Tennis Properties Limited) the ATP Masters Series (pictures right and below courtesy of Getty Images Sport and photographed by Franck Fife and Valery Hache respectively), has gone from strength to strength and now boasts over 60 live broadcast partners broadcasting into over 190 territories.
As the host broadcaster across all 10 events, ATP media has complete control over all elements of the broadcast value chain and produces over 1,300 hours of live content every year.
This, coupled with the fact that ATP Media is wholly owned, by the 10 events, has enabled ATP Media to take a progressive stance in its approach to digital media, developing a platform neutral rights strategy which is underpinned by the simple philosophy that digital platforms are an extension of its broadcast output.
With this philosophy in mind Premium TV was appointed in 2006 to create and manage ATP Masters Series TV (www.atpmastersseries.tv) a subscription-based broadband TV service that was to provide users with a suite of live and VOD based video products.
ATP Masters Series TV was launched in March of 2006 and by the end of the year had taken over 10,000 paying transactions and was generating over 250,000 unique users per month. However, this was just the beginning….. The live challenge……. During the latter part of 2006, Premium TV and ATP Media started to experiment with geo targeted live streaming, the results of which led to a radical change in strategy for 2007:
Against the backdrop of a changing digital landscape in which consumer/industry insight, attitudes and expectations of broadband TV were being shaped by the explosion of the phenomenon that is social networking, Premium TV and ATP Media made the bold move to place a significant amount of VOD content in front of the pay wall.
In doing so ATP Media became one of the first global sports rights holders to make a VOD digital archive freely available and thus pursue a digital strategy focused upon live streaming.
Based on the positive results of 2006, ATP Media worked in conjunction with its TV broadcast partners to ‘free’ up the broadband live streaming rights for the start of the 2007 series.
Due to the excellence of its technology platform and years of practical experience in geo targeted live broadband streaming, Premium TV was able to provide ATP Media the security (both in terms of DRM and geo blocking) and the product quality (stream quality and latency) it needed to be able to release the live streaming rights globally.
As such, for the start of the 2007 season ATP Masters Series TV was re-launched as a pay to view live streaming console in which paying viewers got to enjoy near DVD quality live streaming and VOD match highlights which is supplemented by an extensive free to view VOD archive of both on court action and exclusive player interviews. The numbers The impact of the re-launch has been immediate with traffic for the first three months outstripping 2006 by over 150% and most importantly for ATP Media, the new console has generated more revenue in the first three tournaments of the year than it did for the entire 2006 season.
In addition, the increase in traffic and consumption of free to view video content has enabled Premium TV to consider additional revenue streams such as in stream video advertising, which are to be trialled later in 2007.
As a service provider, Premium TV believes in continuous product evolution and is working with ATP Media to give users of the site more control of their viewing experience through the introduction of multiple streams, plus the ability to view rallies through Hawkeye, the ball tracking technology that was introduced to ATP Masters Series last year. The importance of an end to end service….  Whilst Premium TV’s technology platform has enabled ATP Master Series TV to steam live content into over 150 countries, the technology is only one part of Premium TV’s end–to–end service for ATP Media.
Premium TV’s production facilities and experience have enabled ATP Media to extend its natural capabilities in traditional broadcasting onto digital platforms.
As Host Broadcaster for its own events, ATP Media had the unique ability to expand its onsite production capabilities to create and deliver bespoke content for broadband transmission. A dedicated production team is installed at each event with the sole remit of producing broadband content.
On the other side of the digital value chain is Premium TV’s commercial marketing team who in addition to working with the individual tournaments and ATPtennis.com have created local marketing campaigns across multiple territories and languages.
By combining a comprehensive through the line CRM strategy with a commercially focused acquisition strategy that has included email broadcasting, affiliate marketing, SEM, SEO, and global content aggregation, Premium TV has been able to generate significant site traffic and subsequent revenue.
By working closely with ATP Media and its stakeholders Premium TV has helped create the most comprehensive and technically advanced broadband TV tennis product on the market today.
Premium TV is committed to further developing ATP Masters Series TV across all emerging technologies and looks forward to working with ATP Media on these and other future projects.
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