Over many years, the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) contracted media rights management as well as production and distribution services from specialist firms such as UFA Sports, IMG (TWI) and IEC in Sports (Lagardère Sports). While the revenues from programming and rights sales were solid for a long time, they started to erode rapidly from 2010 – due to the decline of linear television.

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If a strategy governed the distribution efforts by these renowned firms, it is best described as finding a balance between securing the widest exposure and generating the highest revenues, with emphasis on the latter. The output produced by the host broadcasters and the experts added by the firms was limited to up to six international highlights on World and Continental Championships per year.

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After conducting an audit of the status quo, SAI advised WDSF to take production in-house, to offer some content free-to-air and to triple the overall output. A 12-part WDSF GrandSlam Series was created to complement the offer of the generally six-part “Best of DanceSport” series from 2012. The use of an innovative judging system in the GrandSlam competitions called for live scoring graphics to be added to the signal.

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To provide these graphics, to enforce a uniform rundown during the decisive stages of the competition, and to closely monitor the quality of production on location, WDSF started to dispatch a crew of its own experts to all GrandSlam legs. The involvement of this WDSF crew was later extended to the production of the other series too. A Host Broadcaster Handbook defined the production standards from 2013.

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The distribution of both series – 7 x 52’ “Best of DanceSport” and 12 x 56’ GrandSlam – was taken in-house from 2017.