BBC Sport is set to revolutionize the way football fans receive updates about their favourite clubs. The broadcasting giant has announced a four-week pilot of AI-generated football audio updates, named "My Club Daily". This innovative approach will leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to organize and reformat articles into scripts, which will then be read by a synthetic voice.
The pilot program will cater to fans of five clubs: Liverpool, Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Southampton and Plymouth Argyle. Supporters can listen to summaries of news related to their clubs on various platforms including BBC Sounds, the BBC Sport app/website and BBC social media accounts.
For Premier League sides Liverpool, Aston Villa and Newcastle United, these updates will be available daily. Meanwhile Championship side Southampton and League One team Plymouth Argyle fans can expect biweekly updates. The selection of these teams aims at testing how well the system works across different divisions and geographical areas.
Harnessing AI for sports reporting
To create these audio scripts, ChatGPT technology will be used to organise and reformat existing BBC articles about the selected clubs into draft audio scripts. Following this step is where ElevenLabs comes in; they'll generate a synthetic voice that reads out these scripts.
However, before publishing any content generated through this process it's important that accuracy isn't compromised. Therefore each draft script along with its recording will undergo thorough checking by the BBC’s editorial team for accuracy before being published online or aired on radio broadcasts.
In line with transparency practices regarding AI usage in content creation as per guidelines published earlier this year by the broadcaster itself; all summaries created using AI technology will be clearly labelled as such when published or aired.
Maintaining human touch in broadcasting
While acknowledging the impressive capabilities of new GenAI tools Rhodri Talfan Davies - executive sponsor of Gen AI at the BBC, was quick to clarify that the corporation has no plans to use synthetic voices routinely. He emphasized that while these tools are impressive, they will never be able to replicate the depth, humour or humanity of presenter-led programming in sport or any other genre.
Rhodri Talfan Davies, BBC executive sponsor of Gen AI, said:
“While it’s clear AI tools can support production workflows in many new ways, this pilot relies exclusively on the work of BBC journalists working across BBC Sport and BBC Local. The AI tools will not create stories - as this is not permitted by the BBC under our AI guidelines. Instead, the tools will reformat existing BBC stories that have already been produced by our expert editorial teams.
“However, the cost of making a bespoke daily audio bulletin for every major club using our existing approach would be prohibitively expensive. So, we’re exploring if AI could enable us to do this in a cost-effective way - by rapidly repurposing existing information produced by our colleagues for our tv, radio and online services.
“The reformatting of existing content allows even more people to enjoy it. For example, football fans with visual impairments might prefer to listen rather than read the latest updates from their club. The effectiveness and scalability of this approach will be tested during the course of the pilot.”
This pilot program represents a significant step forward in sports broadcasting and reporting. It showcases how technology can be harnessed to deliver timely and relevant content for fans across different platforms. However, it also underscores the irreplaceable value of human touch in delivering engaging and relatable content.
