The Switch Case Studies - Lanzou Marathon

Lanzhou and Hengshui Lake International Marathons

The Switch Case Studies - Marathons

Going The Distance: The Switch Turns on Chinese Marathons for a Global Audience

Live time

  • Broadcasters, over-the-top (OTT) services and social media platforms in APAC and beyond wanted to capitalize on China’s long distance running boom – the number of races increasing more than tenfold since 2015 – with best-in-class live coverage of two of its fastest growing events in 2019: the Lanzhou International Marathon and the Hengshui Lake International Marathon
  • Looked to The Switch to deliver uninterrupted live linear TV broadcasts and online streaming of the Lanzhou race in June and Hengshui Lake in September, which attracted 40,000 and 20,000 professional athletes and running enthusiasts respectively across the main marathons, half marathons and fun runs

Always there

  • Working in partnership with Chinese media production and content packaging company New Force Media, The Switch leveraged three decades’ experience bringing connectivity to places others can’t and the global reach of its transmission network
  • Set up content license rights for distribution with key international broadcasters and developed a bespoke workflow to deliver live feeds to broadcasters in Asia and to the United States via YouTube
  • Coordinated with broadcasters to provide a highly skilled support team on the ground
  • Managed dedicated OTT channels for the events, handling everything from set-up to inserts from its Los Angeles control room
  • Able to aggregate and downlink content from satellite feeds to its POPS in Sydney and Singapore and in Los Angeles for the livestreams on YouTube

Always on

  • The Switch took a single live stream to seamlessly build out traditional linear and OTT deliverables for each event
  • Ensured the two growing marathons reached long distance running fans keen to follow every second of the two events regardless of device
  • Enabled syndication of live feeds to broadcast rights holders and YouTube to ensure maximum exposure to a global audience
  • Helped boost profile of long distance running in China among marathon enthusiasts in Asia and in markets as far afield as the US

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The Switch Case Studies - Lanzou Marathon