Creative Broadcast Agency
Investor relations

IR broadcast readiness audit.

Marketing webinars and IR broadcasts are not the same product. A missed question in a marketing webinar is a lost lead. A missed disclosure in an AGM is a regulator call. This audit walks through the 14 points we check with investor relations teams before their first broadcast, from authentication to bilingual delivery to post-event evidence retention. If it feels onerous, that is the point.

01 / Why IR is different

A marketing webinar and an IR broadcast are not the same product.

Marketing webinars tolerate risk. A dropped connection costs you a lead. A fumbled slide costs you a second of credibility. Nothing gets escalated to the General Counsel.

An investor call, AGM, earnings broadcast, or fund announcement operates under a different regime. The failure modes include regulatory intervention, market-sensitive disclosure outside an approved window, unauthenticated attendees hearing inside information, and permanent archival that can be subpoenaed. Production has to harden against those, not just for video quality.

This is the 14-point audit we run with IR teams before they go live with us for the first time. If the answers aren't yes across the board, we don't broadcast.

02 / The 14-point audit

What we verify before an IR broadcast

Point 01

Authentication

Registration validates against a pre-approved invite list. Email verification is not enough. Two-factor or tokenised link minimum for shareholder or analyst audiences.

Point 02

Disclosure window control

Broadcast go-live is clock-aligned to the exchange disclosure window. Recording release and press distribution gated on the same clock.

Point 03

Q&A moderation discipline

Live questions pre-screened by IR and General Counsel before they reach the speaker. No open chat. No unmoderated floor.

Point 04

Bilingual delivery (Arabic / English)

Simultaneous interpretation with proven interpreters, not machine captioning. Two independent language channels. Regional GCC audiences expect this.

Point 05

Recording retention

Archival to a regulator-acceptable storage class with chain-of-custody evidence. Retention term matches your jurisdiction's requirements.

Point 06

Geographic reach logging

Who watched from where. Required for some regulators. Always useful for IR planning.

Point 07

Redundancy

Dual encoders, dual bonded connections, secondary CDN. If primary fails mid-broadcast, failover happens without viewer interruption.

Point 08

Time synchronisation

NTP-locked timecode across all systems. Required for regulatory evidence and for accurate disclosure-window alignment.

Point 09

Watermarking and fingerprinting

Optional for sensitive broadcasts. Identifies the source of any leaked recording.

Point 10

Transcript accuracy

Official transcript delivered within 24 hours, reviewed by your IR team, released only after sign-off. No auto-generated captions in the official record.

Point 11

Attendee list handling

PII handled under your data residency rules. No attendee list leaves the production environment without GC sign-off.

Point 12

Pre-broadcast dry run

Full dress rehearsal with all speakers, interpreters, moderators, and IR team at least 48 hours before go-live.

Point 13

Post-event evidence pack

Recording, transcript, chat log, attendee list, Q&A log, time-stamped failover log. Archived for your audit trail.

Point 14

Escalation protocol

Named IR contact, GC contact, and broadcast engineer. Communication channels agreed. If something goes wrong, everyone knows who talks to whom.

03 / Failure modes

The three headlines you don't want.

Every point in the audit above exists because at some point in the last five years, someone got hit with one of these three outcomes. Listed here so your team understands the stakes, not for fear.

Disclosure out of window

Broadcast went live two minutes before the approved disclosure time. Minor for press. Major for a regulated market. Regulator asks. GC spends a month responding.

Unauthenticated attendee in private call

Shareholder-only Q&A had an open link somehow shared. A journalist joined. A market-sensitive comment got reported before the company intended. Authentication is not optional.

Mid-broadcast failure, no failover

Primary encoder failed, no secondary path. Broadcast went dark for 11 minutes during the CFO's remarks. Re-broadcast wasn't an option because the Q&A had started. Redundancy is the difference between a rough evening and a PR response.

04 / Sign-off matrix

Who has to sign off, before go-live.

Role Sign-off
IR Lead Content accuracy, speaker prep, Q&A curation
General Counsel Disclosure alignment, transcript release, attendee handling
Compliance Archival, retention, jurisdiction-specific rules
CFO Final content sign-off on numbers, forward-looking statements
Broadcast engineer (CBA) Technical readiness, redundancy tested, failover drilled

If this audit feels onerous, that's the point.

Marketing webinars run on speed and agility. IR broadcasts run on certainty and evidence. The two production patterns are not interchangeable, and a partner who doesn't know the difference is a risk vector, not a vendor.

If you're planning an AGM, earnings call, or investor event for the first time, we run this audit as a one-hour session before any proposal is issued. Book the call first. The quote comes after the risk picture is honest.

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