With the 2024 Paralympic Games drawing to a close, we look back twelve years to when Corporation Pop worked with Channel 4 to support their coverage of the 2012 games through connected TV.
These were the early days of sports coverage meeting internet-streamed content. It was our job to design and develop a framework to deliver four concurrent live video feeds.
We included a facility to access catch-up video, view profiles of athletes and presenters, and find information about upcoming events. We made background information on all the sports disciplines available and also gave access to medals table results all through the user’s TV.
A ‘ticker-tape’ feed at the bottom of the screen showed the latest tweets from athletes and news bulletins while an ‘Equipment’ section allowed viewers to find out more about specialist equipment used by the athletes.
For example, an interactive 3D model showed how Wheelchair Rugby wheelchairs differed from standard ones, highlighting their performance improving modifications. Viewers could personalise the application through a user dashboard to drill down on specific information and even to find information on local athletes using geo-location technology.
Channel 4
The 2012 Paralympic Games connected TV project was just one of many we delivered to Channel 4.
Other projects included interactive content for the home building series Grand Designs. We designed an application providing a user-navigable, realistic 3D virtual environment. It recreated the buildings shown in the TV programmes and allowed views to snoop around.
The Twitter Tracker was a second screen application which monitored the Twitter ‘buzz’ around contestants on Channel 4’s TV shows. It provided sentiment analysis on what was being said about each of them. It was used initially on Nigella Lawson’s cookery contest show, The Taste before we redesigned it for The Jump, a celebrity water sports show.