Virgin Media has signed a new partnership with ShootLive to deliver real-time images from every one of this season’s 380 Premier League football matches. Photos will appear on Virgin’s new sports portal, www.virginmedia.com/sport, almost as soon as the action happens. The ShootLive software delivers ‘real time’ photography from sports, entertainment or news events.

ShootLive Press Release

Virgin Media Kicks Off The Season With Shootlive

Virgin Media has signed a new partnership with ShootLive, ensuring real-time images from every one of this season’s 380 Premier League matches will be streamed to its new sports portal, www.virginmedia.com/sport.

It’s the latest success for ShootLive, the industry-leading digital technology developed by PA Photos to ensure sports fans around the world can watch the action on authorised websites almost as it happens.

Mark Habgood, marketing manager for ShootLive commented: “In developing an original and comprehensive internet-based sports service, Virgin Media has designed a digital platform that demands sports images as soon as the action takes place.

“ShootLive’s automation of the delivery, streamlining the process so that images can be transmitted directly from the camera system carried by the photographer to PA Photo’s operations centre to be selected, edited and captioned.

“Apart from the speed of delivery, one of the other reasons Virgin Media was attracted to our service was the fact that the images are all fully compliant with Level Two picture licences from Football DataCo, the official licensing body for the Premier League.”

ShootLive software was successfully trialled when David Beckham marked his first appearance for LA Galaxy in July and was also used for the recent Community Shield match at the new Wembley between the eventual winners, Manchester United, and Chelsea.

The ShootLive offering from PA Photos is part of a package of services being taken by Virgin Media from the PA Group. PA Sport, the global leader in sports information, will be providing editorial and data content to www.virginmedia.com/sport.

The content partnership is wide ranging, covering a variety of sports and including a large amount of ‘real-time’ score updates together with customised editorial content.

PA Sport will provide editorial and data covering more than 30 sports, ranging from football, cricket and rugby union to equestrian, judo and gymnastics, with the service being rolled-out over the next few months as different areas of the portal are upgraded.

The editorial content from PA Sport will include round-the-clock breaking sports news, match and event previews, reports, big-name interviews and in-depth features, delivered 365 days a year. Some of the editorial content will be bespoke for Virgin Media and written in their own house style.

Chris Bunyan, director of portal at Virgin Media, said: “PA Sport deliver a dynamic service which meets the very high standards we expect and with the added extra of ShootLive, where our customers can view photos within minutes of the action, the package was a must have.  We are committed to providing our customers with exciting content that brings the action to life, and with PA Sport and ShootLive we now have the capacity and flexibility to achieve this.”

About ShootLive
ShootLive is an innovative system that delivers ‘real time’ photography from sports, entertainment or news events for new media applications and to newspaper picture desks within minutes of the action happening.

The pictures are transmitted from the ShootLive system carried by the photographer to PA Photos’ operations centre, where an editor selects, edits and captions the best photos.

ShootLive combines images, commentary and data to deliver multimedia experiences to digital platforms. With this unique platform, PA Photos delivers record numbers of images in real time from major sporting and entertainment events to UK and international customers.

www.shootlive.com

About Virgin Media
Virgin Media is an innovative and pioneering UK entertainment and communications business. For the first time consumers can get everything they need from one company - the UK’s only quad play of TV, broadband, phone and mobile plus the most advanced TV on demand service available, the UK’s first high definition TV service and V+, our high specification personal video recorder. We’re the UK’s most popular residential broadband provider, the largest virtual mobile network operator and the second largest provider of pay TV and home phone.
www.virginmedia.com/sport

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