Coventry Blaze TV Influences
The Coventry Blaze TV channel which I mentioned as one of my earlier ideas as a final year project is in full swing. Working successfully and with a large audience and following. The Coventry Blaze management is very happy with the set up and very excited by the concept and new ideas we may have and get. We are almost in full creative command of the Channel with full support from the club.
Each week is a learning curve in some way, and each week we become more productively sufficient. At the current stage our main elements to the channel involve highlights of each home match, and interviews with the head coach after each game. In the new year of 2009 we plan to take this to new levels following players on their daily lives and showing what happens behind the scenes at Coventry Blaze Ice Hockey team. We also want to get more interactive with the fan as that is what the Channel is for.
My main influences in to how this channel should work and look was based on research of other sport teams personal channels and especially other ice hockey teams. In England the best teams belong to the bmi Baby Elite league. Ice hockey is still fairly small in this country, even at the top level and therefore teams have very little money. When I started my research in the summer, I found no official team channels. Only a few amateur ones set up by fans, with poorly filmed simple uploaded clips. So there was clearly a market for this type of channel. As I already knew that the sport is far bigger in the USA with the NHL (National Hockey League), so this seemed and obvious place to go next. The first team I looked at was the Toronto Maple Leafs and surely enough they had an online channel, all the NHL teams had an online channel. Maple Leafs TV was a channel and part of their own website which clearly had a great deal of funding. Clearly professionally made, with a huge amount of footage, different shows and a team of reporters. It is a very well established team, clearly relative to their success and money.
Now what Maple Leafs TV is something which was not to ridiculous to re-create. Their programming included many simple shows such as, press conference recordings, interviews with celebrity fans, interviews with players and managers. These are all ideas which we can use for our channel, and these are things which are obviously interesting and important to the fans.
Now the maple leafs channel is on their own website. Coventry Blaze do not have the time or money to look into something like this, but they have a page with links to their you tube channel. This is what we have to use. The disadvantages of this compared to the Maple leaf channel are a reduction in quality, and arguably the ease to find. Youtube is considered an amateur “broadcast service” to many cluttered to the brim with video blogs of people opinions and people re-creating “jackass”. So having your channel on a private site especially linked onto the main teams website means people will easily be able to find the channel. Those of an older age especially who do not feel comfortable with the internet and youtube will find it easier to google, Maple Leafs, and click on the homepage link where the channel link will be easily found in the more traditional web styled site.
However there are many advantages to the youtube channel which we feel can benefit us, as a small production team.
- There are the simple things such as the channel which is like a private site which we can style, and the unlimited space to upload videos. Youtube allows us to simply and quickly upload videos after editing, distributed to a wide network immediately.
- We get all the demographics and viewing figures we need, most likely similar to what a private site would have as well but it is easy to use and already set up on youtube.
- There is no webmaster to talk to, just us and our youtube account.
- It is a widely used website, which shows recommendations to their users, we can get accidental audiences rather than just people who know where they are going to watch.
- Audiences can embed the video files in to their own websites quickly spreading the distribution.
- Most important its free.
So the content on Maple leafs TV is something which we felt simple enough to move forward with which is something I feel we have, and which we can expand into.
http://mapleleafs.nhl.com/leafstv/index.htm
From starting the channel though we have seen some interesting developments in the form of Vipers TV and Bisons TV. These are two other British Elite league ice hockey teams, which have also set up their own online channels this 08/09 season
Vipers TV
This channel we discovered when in pos-production of our first Coventry Blaze vs Newcastle Vipers game. It takes on more of a traditional TV channel style play. You turn it on and watch the show. This tends to be based around the highlights of the last recorded match. This system is however not what the advantages of the internet is about. There is now way to view archive footage or look back at the season. This may have something to do with DVD sales or something along those lines. It is a paid contractor who runs this channel so they should have a more professional production than us however this does not seem the case. The only advantage they have over our work and our channel is the commentary over the match (which at the moment we have decided against due to time issues) however the editing and camera work is questionable and turns the game boring. The graphics are simple and similar or worse than ours which seems poor for a paid production team. This was our first example of competition in this ice hockey league which left us feeling confident.
Bisons TV
The Basingstoke Bisons seem to have very recently set up their own online channel as well. Within the last month in October. This may be a response to the success of our channel, or the team has simply realised the market for the channel. It similarly uses Youtube as its base. However it does not seem to be an officially supported channel, there are no links from the team website, and on the channel there are no links back. It seems to be possibly an amateur making the highlights clips. This channel does not have interview with players or managers but purely shows highlights of the games played. It is visible that the creator has not thought about how youtube is watched by its audience, and the graphics are fairly simple. There is commentary on the highlights and it works well for what it is. It is an improvement on the Vipers TV channel, and its use of youtube seems to be important for it.
http://uk.youtube.com/user/WINOLBISON
Recently we have noticed some other channels pop up which I felt I should add. Sheffield Steelers TV and Coors Belfast Giants.
These are both you tube channels but are embedded into their clubs own site.
The Coors Belfast Giants giants site does not have match highlights, but is purely a behind the scenes show, with interviews, but it lacks graphics and looks very basic , however it does have a live feel. Sheffield Steelers TV
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5wl-re85-6E&feature=channel_page
Sheffield Steelers TV is slightly similar to ours, it has some match highlights and interviews with players and managers. However it seems to be more of a money making skeem as the clips mention extras available on the DVD. They are not giving fans the whole package and it needs a lot of development. Generally the footage is bad quality and badly edited. It is clear the fans are not pleased as theire are very few views. I also feel this channel is a response from the success our channel has had as it is only a week old.
http://uk.youtube.com/user/sheffieldsteelerstv
