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Sky takes the best of sport from the field to an app

Sky has extended its offering to its Sky Sport customers, with a Sport Highlights app that allows them to keep up to date with the best of their favourite sport without tuning into the games.

Sky’s director of corporate communications Kirsty Way says the app is a realisation that there’s so much to watch and so little time to do it.

“There are 24 hours in a day, lots of great drama content and lots of good sports to watch and people are living really busy lives. So sometimes they’re not able to watch a game or they make a call to watch two rugby games or something the wife wants to watch,” she says.

“This way you can wake up in the morning and put on the Sky highlights app and bring yourself up to date, feel like a fan and like you’re still connected to the game.”

The content includes pre-match interviews, controversial plays, game highlights and interviews with the losing coach, which Way says is popular viewing.

And while the pre-match interviews will be uploaded to the app quite quickly, it’s designed to be used after the game, with Way saying it’s not a blow-by-blow video blog, rather a summary of what happened the night before or earlier in the day.

It’s a similar service to what news broadcasters, social media and the wider internet offers to sports fans looking for match highlights. However, Way says the app offers longer clips and more content per game.

She adds the Sky Sport team picks the clips according to what’s most interesting to the audience and because Sky owns the rights to the video content, it can stay on the app for longer rather than disappearing after a few hours like the content shared on other platforms.

When the app launched in mid-March, over 8,000 Sky Sport customers downloaded it in the first two weeks, with many now using it to watch multiple clips each time they enter it.

This is not the first time Sky has dabbled in the app space Way says, pointing out the likes of Sky Go. However, the Sky Sport Highlights app is the first time Sky’s in-house team has produced the entire app without assistance from a third party and it’s an example of how the broadcaster is working to maintain its relevance in an ever-expanding media environment.

“Watch this space, we’re looking at what customers need, what happens internationally and trying to fill [customer]needs and what works with their lives and their viewing habits because we certainly appreciate they are changing and evolving,” Way says.

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