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20 WORLD RUGBY YEAR IN REVIEW 2015The World Rugby TV show replaced the long-established and well respected ‘Total Rugby’ magazine show and has since built on its predecessor’s success, being aired in more than 130 countries, now all 52 weeks a year.The programming continues to showcase the finest rugby action in both 15s and the Olympic sport of rugby sevens, focusing exclusively on the international game, while also reflecting the game’s grassroots in both traditional rugby strongholds and new, emerging territories.In 2015 a strong editorial emphasis was given to counting down to the Rugby World Cup, just as in 2016 the show will champion sevens as it prepares for rugby’s Olympic return after a 92-year hiatus.As well as the weekly half-hour show, a separate hour-long quarterly programme is being produced and has proved successful with airlines for in-flight. In addition to the regular magazine programming, World Rugby continues its strong investment in producing highlights from key tournaments, notably all 10 rounds of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series and also the U20 Championship, from which bespoke digital content is also generated on-site by a dedicated World Rugby-appointed production crew. The governing body launched ‘World Rugby Radio’ in 2015 in conjunction with the TuneIn platform, enabling live audio streaming of all 48 Rugby World Cup matches to a worldwide audience. Live audio coverage is also in place for the men’s sevens series, providing coverage to fans where live video streaming is geo-blocked in many exclusive broadcast markets. In addition to the developments in broadcast output, 2015 also ushered in an increasingly digital-first focus behind the planning and production of broadcast content. As well as an increased number of live streaming hours, for the first time World Rugby also offered a daily video offering across its digital and social media platforms on www.worldrugby.org and also notably on www.rugbyworldcup.com.Digital platform advancesIn the digital media space, Rugby World Cup 2015 and the new sevens series ensured that there was further strong platform development during the year, delivering to global rugby fans the most digitally and socially engaged sporting event of all time. The Rugby World Cup website and mobile application were delivered in English, French, Spanish and Japanese (RWC only) with 25 million people taking advantage of the content-rich platforms during the six-week tournament. The RWC App was downloaded 2.8 million times and for the first time at a World Rugby event, geo-targeted alerts were employed to update fans with a variety of information and entertainment dependent on their location or team preference.The RWC Match Centre was the hub for all the match day content, integrating the best social activity from multiple channels, in-depth live player and team statistics, instant video highlights as well as informative and multi-language live text commentary. The match centre accounted for 25 per cent of all page views during the tournament.Later in the year the World Rugby website was also made available in French and Spanish, heralding an exciting new multi-lingual era for rugby online as the sport prepares for Rio 2016.Following in the footsteps of the RWC 2015 digital delivery, the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series websites for men and women were both relaunched, the icing on the cake for ardent and casual supporters the new video hub. This allowed fans to browse hundreds of action and feature-led videos, and even personalise what they see depending on their team of choice. A fantasy game was launched for sevens, the first of many new fan-facing developments in 2016.Following the launch of its new website www.worldrugby.org in late 2014, World Rugby kicked off 2015 celebrating its new broadcast magazine programme ‘World Rugby TV’, and the roll-out of the related daily digital content. EXCITING NEW ERA FOR DIGITAL AND PROGRAMMINGENGAGING THE RUGBY FAMILY | DIGITAL AND WORLD RUGBY TV