The world of sports broadcasting brings its own unique challenges, from rising rights fees to shifting consumption habits. Another perhaps lesser known but growing pressure is the need to produce cue sheets faster and more accurately than ever.
For the uninitiated, a cue sheet is a document that lists all the music used in a broadcast or production, including the copyright details of each track. They are essential for tracking music usage and ensuring that the right people are properly compensated for their work.
In sport, cue sheets were once something of a grey area. That’s now changing quickly as publishers push for stricter music reporting, even in live and fast-turnaround formats. This shift poses a particular challenge for sports broadcasting and production, given its fluid schedules, last-minute edits and the increasing use of short-form content.
Reducing risk
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Sports broadcasters who fail to secure the necessary licences or fail to deliver proper cue sheets expose themselves to significant legal and financial risks. These include lawsuits and fines, as well as damaged relationships with artists and music publishers. Valuable time is also lost when problems have to be fixed retrospectively.
Despite these challenges, cue sheets in sports production are still often generated manually or semi-manually. This approach is inefficient, prone to mistakes and creates copyright risks. It is also widely regarded as a tedious task in the fast-paced world of sports broadcasting.
Automation, therefore, offers a way to stay compliant without slowing down production. One business offering such a solution is music technology company BMAT, whose cue sheet management tool automates and centralises the creation of cue sheets via music recognition technology.
“We create tools that facilitate the identification of the music that is used in different media and the processing of that music usage to identify the copyright data,” explains Pilar Callau, vice president of audiovisuals at BMAT.
Last year, €2 billion in royalties were distributed to creators based on BMAT’s data. Every day, the company detects 27 billion music usages and delivers copyright data for 80 million sound recordings to collective management organisations (CMOs), publishers, record labels, broadcasters and digital service providers (DSPs).
Its cue sheet management tool is powered by the company’s extensive music metadata database containing more than 180 million sound recordings and their corresponding copyright metadata, which is updated daily by music labels, libraries and publishers worldwide.
At its core, the BMAT cue sheet tool eliminates the manual work of tracking music used in productions. Instead of someone having to locate and input every track and its metadata by hand, BMAT’s system automatically pulls this information from production workflows and generates a clean, compliant cue sheet.
The system can even integrate directly with asset management tools or playout logs, depending on the client setup.
The World Surf League is among BMAT’s notable sports clients (Image credit: Getty Images)
Saving time and money
With over 20 years’ experience in music recognition, cue sheet creation and royalties management, BMAT is a recognised expert in the field. Its clients include Tennis Channel, the World Surf League (WSL) and Canadian network Sportsnet, positioning the company as a trusted partner to CMOs, publishers and broadcasters globally.
BMAT’s cue sheet solution involves combining audio fingerprint technology with post-transmission electronic programme guide (EPG) data to automatically generate music reports for broadcasts. The system detects and identifies music against BMAT’s database, then quickly produces an accurate cue sheet.
This helps broadcasters save time, reduce errors and avoid rights headaches – all without disrupting the content pipeline.
“It picks up all the music that is used, you get all the copyright information that you need,” explains Callau. “Searching for that manually is a nightmare. It’s a saver of time, it’s a saver of money and it ensures that the data that you are sending is accurate. You cut the risk of any legal problems.
“In sports, this is more important because they are moving faster than a general broadcaster.”
Adaptability and flexibility
Sports broadcasting is not only fast paced; it is also rapidly evolving as consumption habits change and the shift to streaming accelerates. As a result, BMAT is constantly adapting its tools to meet these changing needs.
“We’re designed to handle all kinds of content,” notes Callau. “We started working with linear broadcasters. But we knew already, because we were working previously with user-generated content platforms like YouTube, that short-form content was coming.
“Our tools support all sorts of content, including short form on social media, live broadcasting and pre-recorded broadcasting.”
BMAT also integrates seamlessly into broadcasters’ existing workflows, so there’s no need for them to fully adapt to a new system.
“Every broadcaster has a unique workflow,” Callau continues “Therefore, a broadcaster is more likely to adopt our tool because it easily fits into their current workflows without requiring significant additional resources.”
The company combines adaptability with flexibility by working closely with a client’s broadcast team to understand their workflows, rights holder obligations and technical setup, before mapping everything into its automated cue sheets tool.
Essentially, the solution is designed to integrate seamlessly with a broadcaster’s technical infrastructure, including file formats and file exchange methods.
BMAT is a trusted partner to broadcasters globally, including Canadian network Sportsnet (Image credit: Getty Images)
Unlocking new value
All of this has enabled BMAT to implement its services for a range of clients, from those relying on semi-manual music curation systems to others that have been found using unlicensed music. According to Callau, the latter is the most common scenario in sport.
“After years of raising awareness, we believe more and more broadcasters realise it’s better to get things in order sooner than later.” she says. “In some cases, we’ve onboarded people that needed years of retroactive analysis. They were behind multiple compliances, but they were given the opportunity to amend it and we helped them with that.”
BMAT’s tools also help those moving from linear broadcasting to streaming.
“With some other clients, not only were they uploading content that was already broadcast on the traditional channel, they were also creating new content for their own digital platforms,” adds Callau.
“We needed to adapt the whole system to be able to share the cue sheets from one side to the digital side.”
Sport may have taken a more relaxed approach to cue sheets and music compliance in the past, but it’s clear that this now needs to change. Those who fail to do so face major consequences and will miss out on the benefits of automated solutions that can make workflows more efficient and cost-effective.
“With some broadcasters, we can even help them in gathering data from all their cue sheets to better negotiate their next licence agreement,” says Callau.
“One of the advantages of having our system in place aggregating all the cue sheets is that you can analyse the data to know what your music tendencies are and, more importantly, calculate PROs’ [performing rights organisations’] market shares helping you out with those negotiations. US broadcasters know all about it as there are four performance right organisations with whom they need to sign a license agreement.”
To find out more about BMAT and its services, click here.
