Across world streams, national broadcasts, and local productions our friends across sports, news, and entertainment connected with their audiences in new ways this year. Producers flexed their creative abilities and pulled out all the stops to engage the most distracted audience we’ve ever seen. Audiences responded by consuming more content than ever before, to the tune of 20 billion video views per month. Grab a glass of your favorite liquid and let’s look back, forecast ahead, and sprinkle in memes for some fun along the way.
Looking back on 2022
22K+
Graphics created in Tagboard by production teams across sports, news, and entertainment.
480M+
Posts discovered in 2022 by Tagboard users across the richest sources of real-time content.
24B+
Viewers connected with in 2022 by productions that are powered by Tagboard interactive features.
Across more than 500 sports, news, and entertainment properties Tagboard producers created ten’s of thousands of graphics, filtered through millions of posts across the richest sources of real-time content, and connected with billions of eyeballs around the world. Throughout all of those productions we noticed a few common themes: authentic engagement with a distracted audience, the desire to create more content with existing resources, and multi-streaming across a wide range of platforms to meet your community wherever, whenever, and however you could.
Interactive Broadcasts – Engage your distracted audience
Broadcasters understand that audiences have one eye on their content and the other on a second device. The data tells us that 84% of adults have a second device in hand while watching TV, and that more than half of them aren’t naturally engaging with your program. It’s the norm these days and Tagboard partners responded by finding ways to engage their audiences in meaningful ways through daily interactive polls, audience participation on social media, and QR codes that provided audiences with additional information.
“2022 showed us that QR codes aren’t going anywhere. We saw broadcasters further understand the power of using QR to drive to their owned and operated websites,” said Kristen Rodgers, Lead Client Success Manager at Tagboard. “It’s the quickest way to bring your audience into your production and give them a voice on the broadcast. We saw our industry partners lean into QR codes to drive daily polling, allow viewers to engage in editorial decisions, and increase valuable site visits gaining first party data and higher sponsor cpm.”
A few of Kristen’s favorite examples from the year:
- News: Sinclair used QR codes to drive engagement on their daily interactive polls
- Sports: Riot Games used QR codes to send their audience to Twitter Polls for real-time interactivity
- Entertainment: Met Gala brought in real-time questions from their audience to ask celebrities fan questions on the red carpet
- Event: Essence Fest highlighted social content from guests in attendance at the festival and used QR codes to drive app downloads and power a gamified experience
Cloud Production – Create more content with existing resources
More than 80% of production teams are being asked to create more content with resources that aren’t growing at the same rate. To keep up with demand we saw workflows transition from complicated and costly systems to cloud production. This change generated more efficient production workflows, more engagement on the broadcast, and drove higher viewership totals than in previous years.
“Content teams across the professional and collegiate sports industry are lean but mighty,” said Daniel Braun, Sr. Account Manager at Tagboard. “Oftentimes the headcount in these buildings is only a couple of people, but it doesn’t hold them back from creating award-winning productions on a weekly basis, at a quality that matches the big time media networks. 2022 saw teams across the country take ownership of their content, launch additional livestreams, and get creative with ways to engage their global fanbase.”
A few of Daniel’s favorite examples from the year:
- Pro Sports: Washington Commanders used Tagboard interactive graphics to power multiple livestreams per-week that are chalked full of QR codes, interactive elements, and feature sponsor logos
- College Sports: The University of Alabama used Tagboard graphics to bring in real-time fan questions from their website during their weekly Coach’s Show.
- Digital Media: Just Women’s Sports used Tagboard for all lower third graphics, fullscreen graphics, fullscreen social, and fullscreen interactive Twitter polls
- Podcast: NFL Network converted all their podcasts to video and incorporated Tagboard graphics as it airs on digital and linear platforms
Cross-channel Production – Whenever, wherever, however
With so much content being produced on a daily basis, it’s harder for broadcasters to cut through the noise. When going live on linear or digital platforms there is no guarantee that even your most loyal audience will be there to watch. Increased distractions and a change in viewing habits forced the hand of content creators to take one piece of content and try to get it onto as many channels as possible in as many forms as possible.
“Interests and the ways in which fans can consume content are so diversified,” said Michael Bucklin, Senior Vice President, Digital, FOX Sports. “Fans have the option to consume whenever, wherever, and however they prefer to consume content.”
Forecasting into 2023
The main themes from 2022 built a strong foundation for where things will be heading in 2023. We checked in with some team members to get their take on what we might see in the next year, and tease out some Tagboard product updates you’ll be seeing in early 2023.
“2023 is trending to be the year of personalized productions,” said Christine Chalk, SVP of Strategy at Tagboard. “Millions and millions of people can watch the same live sports event, concert, or news feed, but that doesn’t mean the experience needs to be the same for everyone. Using a primary broadcast as the foundation there will be an impetus on companies to spin up several streams of differing styles appealing to a wide range of audiences and passing more control of the experience into the hands of the viewer- all creating net-new sponsorship opportunities.”
Where will Tagboard fit into these trends? Well we can’t reveal our 2023 roadmap just yet, but our VP of Product was willing to offer up a high level tease of what you will see over the next several months.
“We’ll continue to look at building production efficiencies and introduce ways for our partners to directly connect with their audience to amplify their storytelling,” said Austen DeWolf, VP of Product at Tagboard. “Content demands aren’t shrinking, so producers need new ways to shave hours, minutes or even seconds off their daily workflows. Improved automations and enhanced customizations are areas you’ll see Tagboard releases working to solve those challenges and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve got in store.”
We get to work in partnership with the best companies in the world every single day, and we appreciate each and every one of you for trusting in Tagboard to deliver as you produce award-winning content. We can’t wait to continue pushing the cloud production industry forward in 2023, but we know there is still work to do in 2022 with plenty of New Year’s Eve broadcasts and Bowl Games to cover. Sending good vibes and good luck to your next production. We’ll be watching.
