IABM JOURNAL 21

Driving the content

supply chain:

How IABM members are facilitating the new

media factory

Earlier this year, IABM unveiled theresults of a major project to provide

a new model to reflect how theindustry works today. In just a fewyears, the industry has moved onalmost unrecognizably, which is why we set about researching

and constructing the new modelwhich would not only reflect the

way the industry is today, but also accommodate future

developments and changes.

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The result is the new IABM BaM™ Content Chain: fromCreator to Consumer. The BaM™ Content Chain movesaway from an inward-focused, product-centric view ofthe broadcast and media business, to one based on thecreative, operational, economic and technical activitiessupporting the content supply chain: mapping how apiece of content gets from creator to consumer. Itdescribes the industry in the same way that broadcastand media companies themselves think, using the sameterminology.

We asked a number of IABM member companies to tellus how they are adapting to broadcast and media end-users’ new ‘media factory’ approach that has given riseto the BaM™ Content Chain, how their products andservices work across and within the chain, and whatthey see coming next.

Integrating the content supply chainFirst, we asked respondents how they are helping theircustomers achieve greater integration across thecontent supply chain. Three overarching themesemerged – easy connectivity through APIs, removing theneed to move media from one part of the chain toanother, and automation to enable mapping (and socontrol) of complete, end-to-end workflows. Pervadingall was a recognition that no one company has all theanswers any more, and collaboration is key to successtoday.

Keeping it in the cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers IT resources on-demand via the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. “Weprovide the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)service that enables customers to create and manageuser groups based on permissions,” says Niall Duffy,AWS Media and Entertainment, Partner Lead.

“These groups can include authorized 3rd parties so youcould a have a content organization that keeps contentin place in its AWS account and enables other serviceproviders, such as compliance, post-production ordistribution services to use that content without havingto move it. For a media supply chain, this has theobvious advantage of reducing the transfer of high bitrate content between service providers throughout thevalue chain. UKTV is a good example of a mediaorganization in Europe who is utilizing this feature,working with partners such as M2A, Mediasmiths, andVidispine to build a next-generation media supplychain,” Duffy adds.

Vidispine's business is centered on its API-based mediaasset management platform. Marketing Manager,Patrik Malmberg, explains his company’s part in thisintegration: “The Vidispine API is the center of theVidispine ecosystem. It gives developers access toadvanced metadata handling, storage management,essence management, and integration to any third-partyservice. The API supports native integration withservices across the content supply chain, as well as APIintegration with support services such as DRM andworkflow engines. The extensive API in itself makes iteasy to build and maintain integrations by being forwardcompatible…and is built using standards as far aspossible, making it easy to integrate into any externalservice also adhering to standards.”

The cloud also underpins Deluxe’s approachto integration. “Deluxe One allows contentowners to manage, publish, and monetizetheir content – all in one place,” says MorganFiumi, Chief Innovation Officer at Deluxe. “With DeluxeOne, we reimagined what was a highly fragmentedcontent chain, unifying those services in the cloud, toreduce complexity and increase automation andefficiency. We partner closely with customers todetermine their goals, integrate their requirements, andautomate their workflows within Deluxe One. Ease ofintegration with existing operational systems andcustomer-preferred vendors is further enabled via APIsto the Deluxe One platform. The platform’s openarchitecture provides greater interconnectivity acrossthe supply chain, allowing not only customers, but othervendors, to connect their business, making servicesfrom other leading industry providers easily accessiblefrom one destination.”

...We reimagined what was a highly fragmented contentchain, unifying those services in the cloud, to reducecomplexity and increase automation and efficiency

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...We have been broadening our definition ofautomation for some time, looking at it in thecontext of the broader supply chain

Greater efficiency through automation

Whether it’s making cars or delivering media toconsumers, automation and efficiency underpin anysuccessful factory operation. “Automation is the key tointegration, and Cinegy provides tools andexperience in mapping content andmetadata between their respectivesources and destinations. We provide notjust a destination, but a choice of routes toget there,” says Lewis Kirkaldie, Head ofProduct Management at Cinegy.

Grass Valley’s VP Global Marketing, NeilMaycock, also sees automation as central:“We have been broadening our definitionof automation for some time, looking at itin the context of the broader supply chain.A good example is the Momentum solution,which enables customers to automate media processesand link them within the supply chain, mapping theirbusiness processes into the workflow. It delivers ahugely flexible and responsive approach to managingassets and creating greater operational efficiency.”

Taking collaboration to the next level

Arvato Systems offers a range of products and servicesacross MAM, PAM, IP/rights management, cross-mediascheduling, ad sales and ad/promo placementoptimization and automation. Portfolio Manager, BenDavenport, emphasizes the importance of collaborationin delivering a successful integrated supply chain, andsees further benefits of this approach too. “A big focusfor us in the last 18 months has been ‘ecosystem’ – howdo we connect to all the things we ‘touch’ and beyond?”he says. “This has led us to find different approaches tohow we partner with other vendors and end-users. As

an example, some years ago, a vendor would sell aproduct or system (off-the-shelf or custom) to the‘customer’; today this still happens, of course, but analternative might be co-developing a solution inpartnership with end-users and other vendors andentering into a revenue sharing agreement on theresult, directly tying our success to that of our‘customer’”.

Collaboration is also a keystone of VSN’s approach; thecompany offers advanced software solutions to solve theneeds of media and content creation, distribution andmanagement across the entire media lifecycle. “VSN iswell-known for its open, agnostic and above all, veryflexible solutions when it comes to integrating withthird-party systems, if necessary, to make them ‘fit’within an already designed and implemented workflow,”says Patricia Corral, VSN Marketing Director. “Bothpartners and customers praise our ability to developpowerful and very efficient integrations in aspectacularly fast way - we have even been said todevelop better integrations with third-party systemsthan manufacturers themselves achieve with their ownsystems.”

Crystal’s products sit at the point of playout anddistribution and are focused on ensuring that contentcontinues to flow, and by their nature have to be highlyintegrated. “Our solutions are software-based andplatform agnostic, meaning they can easilyintegrate with other parts of the chain. Wealso work closely with a number ofpartners to tightly integrate oursolutions,” says Roger Franklin, Crystal

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CEO. “More and more broadcasters are realizing thepotential to increase monetization by dynamicallyreplacing ads for other reasons, whether that isindividual personalization or to tie in with specific localevents. With linear ads being a wide variety of lengths,this is not as easy as it may seem and often leads tosimple slate screens where an ad once was. Ourtechnology means that broadcasters can easily replaceads with another of exactly the same length, meaning aseamless viewing experience for the consumer and awealth of opportunities to personalize the ads. Ofcourse, this also means that advertisers are much morelikely to pay for ads.”

Moving media?

KnoxMediaHub (KMH) also solves the problem ofneeding to move media between operations by offering acomplete cloud platform, where it says all mediacompanies, content producers, post production studios,distribution platforms and broadcasters can host theircontent and execute most of their related business andtechnical operations. “KMH provides the idealprocessing location where content has no need to movefrom one location to another. All operations andtransformations of content can be performed with just aclick. It provides the ultimate stage of end-to-end integration with the highest possibledegree of automation,” says Daimon Hall,International Sales Director at KMH.

Even in the most integrated supply chain, files still needto move – in terms of the BaM™ Content Chain, toConnect – and when they do, Signiant’s intelligent filemovement software is the choice of many leadingcompanies. “Signiant’s simple yet powerful product

portfolio includes three products that cover nearly everyfile transfer use case in the industry,” says ManagingDirector of EMEA/APAC, Greg Hoskin. “All companies inthe content chain require easy, secure ways tomove large files and that is exactly whatSigniant provides. Signiant supportsmodern global media operations throughmoving file-based content betweenfacilities, people and into and out of cloudservices. Vital for today’s large files, network conditionsand long-distant transfers, Signiant’s core accelerationtechnology provides fast and reliable movementthroughout the life cycle of media files, from productionand post-production to distribution and archives.”

Data drives everythingAll the content in the world is no use if you can’tdescribe it, find it and monetize it with consumers.That’s why data is increasingly at the heart of everycontent supply chain. And it’s not only data about thecontent itself that matters – but also data to improveworkflows, and data about the end-consumer to drivecontent targeting and success too.

Informing business decisions

“The Big Data revolution is here to stay in the broadcastand media industry,” says VSN’s Patricia Corral. “Onlythis way will professionals be able to perform detailedanalysis of their resources’ performance, whileevaluating which content and processes are generatinga greater return on investment, based on the ever-changing trends and interests of the audience.

“In our case, aware of the importance of data and itscorrect analysis to make well-founded strategicdecisions, we have created a Business Intelligencemodule for our VSNExplorer platform for media andbusiness process management. Basically, this moduleis able to transform all the metadata of stored mediainto analytical information that brings real value to thecompany. It can extract information from the assets,quality of the media, traffic, transcoding and from otherseries of processes, including third-party systems aswell, to subsequently present all this information insimple graphs and analytical reports that can even becompared to each other. Companies can rely on thesereports to make decisions and analyze the performanceof their businesses, without having to carry out this taskmanually or acquire additional third-party systems to doit.”

... our solutions are software-based andplatform agnostic, meaning they can easilyintegrate with other parts of the chain.

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Targeting audiences

Arvato Systems’ Ben Davenport concurs, and sees dataplaying an important role at the consumer sharp-endtoo. “We see AI, and the metadata it creates, at manydifferent parts of the content chain. As the accuracy ofthat data increases, that data becomes useful in termsof automating processes – including the automatedscheduling of tertiary and/or personalizedprogramming. One of our highlights for IBC will belooking at how we can use detailed audience data toenable automated ad-placement optimization. While thefirst half of the decade saw a big shift towards ‘digital’advertising and the ability to control reach andfrequency on web and social media, events in the lastfew years have seen a number of high-profileadvertisers swing back to the ‘brand safe’ environmentof television. For the first time, by combiningautomation, optimization algorithms and large datasets, we are able to give end-users control over reachand frequency and reduce ‘waste’ within that brand safeTV platform.”

Crystal’s Roger Franklin also sees data as playing acritical role across the supply chain. “Data andmetadata are key elements in the future of TV video. Oursolutions are able to automatically extract metadata,insert markers, and turn metadata into somethingwhich is extremely actionable. Crystal Connect, VidTime,and Metadata Cloud are focused on ensuring the rightdata and metadata are communicated from thebroadcaster to the distributor or the viewing deviceframe-accurately.”

AWS has data services very much at the core of itsbusiness. “We provide platform services that can beused for the ingest and management of large datasetsand for analyzing data,” says AWS’ Niall Duffy. “Theseservices are either used by customers themselves, orwith partners for the provision of more specific services.In media, some of those services are in managingcustomer viewing and behavior data and specifically inproviding recommendation engines. AWS partners suchas ThinkAnalytics utilize AWS tools with TV and Videooperators like Proximus, BBC, and Telstra to providecustomer lifecycle management around personalizedcontent discovery, navigation and viewer analytics. Otherpartners, such as Piksel, have built OTT SaaS offeringson AWS, that provide an enterprise view of metadata,from operations to end viewers for contentorganizations such as Liberty Global and OSN.”

Vidispine too has data at the heart of its solution. “In

Vidispine’s core product, the Vidispine API, advancedmetadata handling is one of the cornerstones of theoffering. With a simple yet powerful data model and ametadata-driven philosophy, the Vidispine API allowsdevelopers to specify multiple generic and configurablemetadata models in the same repository, capturing allinformation you need on any object in the database. Themetadata granularity spans from repository level downto objects in a video frame, giving you perfect controlover all content. The model uses datasets that definesemantic relations between metadata values, usingstandard RDF documents. The datasets can then beused to validate the metadata in the system, making iteasy to apply already existing models inside Vidispine.”

AI will continue to play an ever-growing role in turningdata into actionable decisions according to KMH’sDaimon Hall. “The provision of an extremely open andaccessible metadata management system allows theingest, editing and output of data from and to anysource. Moreover, we believe in Artificial Intelligence formore advanced metadata generation. Also, as partnersof IBM Watson, we are working on the integration oftheir Artificial Intelligence engine.”

Keeping it clean

While Grass Valley is not directly involved with datamanagement, it understands the value of clean and fulldata to its customers. “What we do focus on is datapreservation, which is increasingly critical for mediaorganizations as they implement greater operationalefficiency, but also seek to maximize the value of theirassets,” says Neil Maycock. “A lot of data, which canoften serve as the ‘recipe’ of how a flat piece of contentwas put together, has been typically discarded intraditional broadcast processes.

“We are now implementing workflows with the AAF fileinterchange format which ‘unflattens’ content,preserving data throughout the creative process.Additionally, our media management solutions haveextensible data models, with a core set of metadata thatis used throughout the workflow. Customers can amendand augment the metadata to preserve the informationthey want through the workflow.”

Efficiency – the holy grailOne of the cornerstones of any factory is efficiency, andthe media factory, with its content supply chain, is nodifferent. How are vendors supporting broadcast andmedia companies’ efforts in this business-critical area?

Events in the last few years have seen anumber of high-profile advertisers swing backto the ‘brand safe’ environment of television

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“The efficiency of the supply chain across the wholeindustry has become absolutely critical, as the salesmargins are falling significantly and will never go backto the old levels (as happened to the automobileindustry 25 years ago). This is one of the pillars for theexistence of KMH,” says Daimon Hall.

More for less

Arvato Systems’ Ben Davenport sees automation as keyto efficiency gains. “To increase efficiency, you need toreduce waste and/or increase output for the same cost.Cost is a key word here as cost, or value aware,automation enables more targeted efficiency – as thatautomation and ‘assist’ can ensure utilization of morevaluable rights or scale processing according to cost,but only when there will be an appropriate return.Automation can also be used to drive effectiveness – forexample, by evaluating different scenarios in terms of ador promo placement and scheduling and finding themost optimal result.”

Automation is also key for Crystal. “Efficiencyimprovements are increasingly important ascompetition increases,” says CEO Roger Franklin. “I’vealways said that the industry needs to automate asmuch as possible. Not only does that make processesfaster, it also greatly reduces errors, maximizingefficiency. Our solutions are all about automating asmany processes as possible and flagging up any errorsor potential errors early so that they can be dealt withbefore the feed is affected.”

For Grass Valley’s Neil Maycock, there are more gains tobe had beyond those delivered by automation. “It’s notjust automation that brings in greater efficiency.Workflows also need to do more without requiringadditional headcount and resourcing. As mediacompanies increasingly have to support content deliveryto multiple platforms, automating previously labor-intensive processes is the only viable way toaccommodate these new services. Additionally,broadcasters now need to support multiple resolutionswithin the live event production workflow –simultaneously delivering HDR, UHD and HD feeds. And,

all this has to be done off a single creative process. Withour switchers, an operator can cut the program once,while the switcher processes it in the various formatsthat are required.

“While asset management and moving files around in anautomated way does drive workflow efficiency, there isstill much more that can be done. Producing threeflavors of a piece of content shouldn’t mean you needthree times the number of people working on it. Thesystems and the workflow should handle these aspects,allowing the operator to focus on the job they are thereto do,” Maycock adds.

End-to-end

“Automation and optimization are inherent componentsof AWS cloud infrastructure, with tools such as AWSCloudFormation for automating provision in AWS andAWS Lambda and AWS Step Functions for triggeringautomated workflows,” adds AWS’ Niall Duffy – and hehas plenty of real-life examples to illustrate this.“Partners such as SDVI have worked with TurnerInternational to utilize these technologies to streamlinetheir end-to-end content workflow and move them intoAWS. A core part of the Turner migration to cloud was abusiness case based on reducing the Total Cost ofOwnership (TCO) as well as being able to support amore flexible business model. 21st Century Fox hascreated its Media Supply Chain on AWS, which acts amedia processing factory for the receipt of content,metadata enhancement, compliance, and distribution.Thomson Reuters used AWS Step Functions and AWSLambda to automate the transcoding of daily news clipsinto distribution formats, reducing processing time from20 mins to 2 mins.”

Agility – matching supply with demandWhile efficiency is key to an effective content supplychain, today broadcast and media companies also needto be able to instantly scale their operations to matchthe continuous cycle of spikes and troughs in demandas ever-more fickle audiences flip-flop betweendifferent platforms and content. This has implicationsbeyond just flexible resourcing – it is also changingbusiness models at end-users – which in turn requirestechnology suppliers to change theirs too.

AWS is the cloud platform of choice for a significantproportion of media and broadcast companies. “Weprovide the underlying infrastructure that enables theprovision of all of the components of the BaM™ contentsupply chain model,” says AWS’ Niall Duffy. “Cloud

Automation can also be used to driveeffectiveness – for example, by evaluatingdifferent scenarios in terms of ad or promoplacement and scheduling and finding themost optimal result.

Thomson Reuters used AWS Step Functions and AWS Lambda toautomate the transcoding of daily news clips into distributionformats, reducing processing time from 20 mins to 2 mins

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infrastructure is particularly relevant to content supplychain management because the requirement forcollaboration, and in some cases global collaboration,and the need to support peaky workloads (e.g., largeingest, transcoding, or processing jobs) align well tothe core benefits of AWS, namely agility, elasticity, andcost savings.

“With AWS customers can quickly spin up resources asthey need them and deploy hundreds or eventhousands of servers in minutes. This means they canvery quickly develop and roll out new applications, andit means teams can experiment and innovate morequickly and frequently. Customers can also nowprovision the exact amount of resources that theyactually need, knowing they can instantly scale up ordown along with the needs of their business. AWSallows customers to trade capital expense for variableexpense, paying for IT as they consume it. And, thevariable expense is much lower than what customerscan do for themselves because of AWS’ economies ofscale. Netflix is an example of a media organizationthat utilizes AWS to deploy global systems servingmillions of customers in a timescale that has neverbeen seen in linear broadcasting,” Duffy adds.

Deluxe’s Morgan Fiumi sees agility as being a“consequence of embracing change and respondingappropriately, using technology to drive both efficiencyand innovation. We are creating solutions that enable afaster time to market with improved customerexperience. Once integrated into a client’s workflow,Deluxe One allows clients to rapidly respond tochanging needs in programming and provides themwith instant access to their content. Clients canconsume services on demand and fill gaps in theirsupply chain without having to implement and bebeholden to large monolithic systems. They can bemore agile and pick and choose the tools they needbased on whatever the specific scenario dictates.”

Agility is vital not only in terms of flexible resourceprovisioning, but also in being able to instantly respondto “market changes, consumer demand, or even simplybreaking news that might affect programming,” saysCrystal’s Roger Franklin. “Being able to easily replaceads or content is an important part of that agility. Thevideo industry is changing quickly and having the righttools and systems in place which are flexible, likeCrystal Connect, are key to ensuring you will be readyfor the next change. The other important aspect is thatthe current systems simply cannot be turned off or

forgotten about which is why Crystal builds solutionsthat work with existing broadcast systems andworkflows. Being able to adapt at the drop of a hat willbe a real bonus for providers.”

AI to enhance agility

AI will play an increasing role in improvingsupply chain agility according to VSN’sPatricia Corral. “More ‘smart’ automation isneeded, in order to help users concentrate oncreativity and content creation, rather than on manualand repetitive tasks. In the end, greater automation oftasks lets users become more agile when creatingcontent and thus, companies can be more competitivein the market and stand out.

“In this regard, one of the technological advances inwhich we are investing more resources in is ArtificialIntelligence. We already consider AI a fundamentalpiece in the development of media management and infact, we have integrated our MAM system with differentAI services like IBM Watson, Google Cloud, MicrosoftAzure and Etiqmedia, to help users automaticallyextract and detect metadata, both for quick cataloguingand advanced search purposes,” Corral continues. “Forexample, with our VSNExplorer, MAM users can nowperform searches of very specific content, such as allthe red cards shown during a football match or themost recent public appearances of a famous person, ina matter of seconds. However, our goal does not stophere. We are determined to make AI gain a greaterrelevance in our platform little by little, being able, forinstance, to self-segment content or chapters of aprogram, automatically create video edits for promosand advertising, or to recommend to the user whenshould cuts for advertising be included in theprogramming.”

Arvato Systems’ Ben Davenport sees agility reachingback into technology suppliers’ own working methodstoo. “We can work with our customers in an agile way.Agile project management is common in other ITdisciplines but still in its infancy in the M&E industry.By applying agile methodology to projects ourcustomers are able to ensure that the end result trulymeets their needs, without having a crystal ball at thestart of the project or even before an RFP. This alsochanges the relationship between vendor and end-userto a far more collaborative one. Agility should increaseefficiency by virtue of reduced waste.”

KnoxMediaHub agrees. “By using the cloud and agilemethodologies, companies can easily experiment and

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test new products and services without significant cost,”says Daimon Hall. “Their media assets, being in thecloud, are ready to be customized and/or transformedwithout effort. Media companies are empowered tocompete in an environment that is no longer a value-chain, but rather a rapidly changing ecosystem.”

Future-proofing

That ever-changing ecosystem also puts pressure ontechnology vendors to build-in the ability to respond toas-yet undefined future requirements. “KMH provides anew level of agility in that we supply a platform thatsuits today's requirements. Over time, the need to adaptto new workflows is highly likely; clients will not want tocontinually be on the lookout for their next solution. Theability of an existing supplier is now to mold newrequirements and workflows into an existing solution;this has become paramount,” Hall adds.

Grass Valley’s Maycock sees the increasing adoption of IT and software-based systems as the way forward.“As broadcasters and media companies have to adapt to the rapidly shifting media landscape, using the righttechnologies is critical to creating agile infrastructuresand workflows. The move to adopt IT and software-based systems, which are more flexible, makes it easierto facilitate increased agility. Unlike with proprietarysystems, in a software-based environment,broadcasters can very quickly change the job that the infrastructure is doing; processing is now genericcomputing, allowing facilities to run different pieces of software to do different jobs. This enables customers to adapt to different requirements veryquickly by reconfiguring the system and re-allocatingresources to different parts of the chain as needed.

“BBC Three in the UK is an excellent example of achannel that launched as a linear service and then went digital to respond to the changing demands of itsviewers,” Maycock adds. “In the current market,deploying a fixed, linear system and expecting tocapitalize on it in five years is no longer viable, whereassoftware-based systems running on standard IT canvery quickly adapt to market trends as they evolve.”

Keeping up standards

For Vidispine, agility means that “customers can pickand choose between best-of-breed services, as neededfor the current business requirements, without having tosign up for long-term contracts, or wait for a newservice to be integrated,” says Patrik Malmberg. “WithAPI-only and standards implementations whereverpossible, all integration work with new services can be

done without much hassle, e.g., to add on a workflowengine or a DRM solution. Vidispine API includingservices runs on any cloud, and for customers that arenot ready to go full cloud, Vidispine can offer hybridsolutions to bridge the gap between on-premise andcloud.”

Standards matter to Masstech Innovations too.CTO Mike Palmer says, “Standards do matterand are needed for long-term stability andsolid infrastructure – this is why Masstechsupports and contributes to SMPTEstandards. The market is moving too fast and insome cases requires less formal and rigorous standardsthan SMPTE, such as customer and vendor-focusedworking groups, such as the MOS Protocol group, towhich we also contribute. We see the combination offormal/rigorous and rapid-response/dynamically-flexiblyprocesses complement each other rather thancompeting.”

The road aheadWe asked all our respondents what’s next in the contentsupply chain. Cinegy’s Lewis Kirkaldie predicts “Acontinued drive towards subscription models; cloud-based virtual appliances and workflows; and all-IPproduction and distribution.”

Deluxe’s Morgan Fiumi points to “Personalization ofcontent driven by massive amounts of consumer dataand advancing AI capability. For broadcasters, two keydrivers will be the transition to IP based delivery and theintegration of disparate workflows platforms into asingle unified solution. IP’s ability to facilitate two-waydata exchange, will allow broadcasters to track theirusers’ viewership data and providing customized viewinglibraries and EPGs, as well as serving consumers withfar more personalized, (and valuable) advertisements.Whilst the unification of back-end workflows for live,

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linear, and OTT will greatly accelerate the ability todevelop AI which comprehends the entire broadcastuniverse, rather than compartmentalized sections.

“Imagine a future where you are watching a soccergame, and are impressed by a particular player. AIsoftware could identify that player purely from theirimage, and then automatically scan through abroadcaster’s content library, and create a bespokehighlights playlist combined from live game footage andpre-recorded features, all just for you. That future is notfar away…” Fiumi concludes.

Cloud, cloud, cloud

AWS’ Niall Duffy naturally sees the cloud as enablingthe next steps forward. “The next step will be cloud-based playout for linear TV as well as OTT, andcompanies that range from Discovery Communicationsto FashionTV have proven that cloud-based playout isboth feasible and economical. Once playout begins tomove to cloud it unlocks the entire content supply chain– when you originate in the cloud for playout then itmakes sense to have content in the cloud from theearliest moment, as more end to end, cloud-basedworkflows will be faster, more adaptable and cost-effective than on-premise workflows. Tools like AI willfurther enhance the benefits of the cloud throughautomation and in providing greater insight intocustomer needs and operational processes.”

Signiant also sees a cloud future. “There are now activecloud deployments at most media companies fromusing SaaS solutions like Media Shuttle to incorporatingcloud services from AWS and Azure,” says Greg Hoskin.“Many companies are still in the beginning phase ofdeveloping a full cloud strategy, but there’s a lot of focuson it as companies have seen how well it fits theirbusiness needs. The cloud’s elasticity and flexibilityalign perfectly the media industry’s project-basednature, spiky compute demands and complex storagerequirements.

“We are still in the early phases of witnessing how thecloud ecosystem will transform the media technologyindustry. For example, cloud-native SaaS enables rapidinnovation and huge economies of scale. I think we will

see a slowdown of companies deploying expensivecustom software solutions and instead look tosimplicity, deploying SaaS solutions at a fraction of thecost and allowing them to be much more agile than ifthey were wedded to an expensive custom behemoth,”Hoskin concludes.

For KnoxMediaHub, the future is a one stop destination.“The cloud. We believe that media companies who donot go cloud in the next few years will cease to becompetitive and sustainable and will disappear. TheKnoxMediaHub Platform is a smart and smooth way toembrace the cloud by any media organization. Byintegrating with legacy systems and workflows that arestill functional, it can progressively be upscaled as in-house systems reach saturation or their end of life,”Daimon Hall concludes.

Controlling costs, increasing revenues

Arvato Systems looks across the three areas of thecontent chain in which it operates. “In Produce,technical innovation and the adoption of cloud nowenables flexibility in where and how we work, even whenworking with full resolution video, which is going to havesignificant impact on the way we work. In Manage,solutions for scaling storage and processing, e.g.transcode, dynamically using private or public cloudresource are now robust and reaching maturity. To fullyexploit these solutions and maintain efficiency, theworkflow management and automation that consumesthese resources needs to be cost aware. Later, withintegration to rights management and audiencemetrics, we may even see RoI calculated on a per-assetbasis. Finally, in Monetize, automation, integration andpersonalization. Automation in a sense that the majorityof repeatable processes, workflows and decision will besupported, if not even replaced, by AI. Integration willallow to use particular services from everywhere ratherthan using complex and siloed applications. Greaterpersonalization of content, but also advertising, will be akey trend over the next years both for online video, butalso through ‘traditional’ linear television withoptimization of placement and ‘edge’ ad insertion,” BenDavenport concludes.

Crystal sees the battle for advertising revenuescontinuing to escalate. “We have already seen thatconsumers are favoring media stacking, getting contentfrom several different sources,” says Roger Franklin.“This is likely to continue and with that we will see moreand more niche services launching to tap into thedemand for a wide choice of content. At the same time,

Greater personalization of content,but also advertising, will be a keytrend over the next years...

“The cloud. We believe that mediacompanies who do not go cloud in the nextfew years will cease to be competitive andsustainable and will disappear.”

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consumers will continue to expect all that content forfree or very little investment and providers will bepressurized into keeping costs low, even for premiumcontent. However, the modern consumer doesn’t mindsitting through ads to access that content, especially ifthose ads are relevant. Advertising revenue willtherefore become all the more crucial, and thebroadcasters and service providers will be looking fornew ways to keep advertisers happy and serveconsumers with relevant and engaging ads.”

More consolidation coming our way?

“We anticipate large-scale mergers and acquisitions inthe industry – and an acceleration in the rate at whichthey take place in the near future. The broadcast andmedia space is currently heavily saturated with a lot oftechnology providers all hungry for market share, andconsolidation is a sound strategic driver to combat this.Belden has clearly demonstrated strong intent to bepart of that process. With the backing of the BeldenBrand, Grass Valley has both the stability and theresources we need to continue innovating so we canmeet the competition head on,” Grass Valley’s NeilMaycock concludes.

Prepare for the unknown

For VSN, the future means being prepared for theunexpected and acting quickly. “We will keep witnessinghow new innovative technological advances will continueentering and disrupting our sector, as has recentlyoccurred with the AI,” says Patricia Corral. “And themost exciting, but also the challenging, side of this isthat we will be capable of applying all these new - andtoday inconceivable - technologies to content creationand management in just a matter of months.

“Thus, we do believe that it will be key for broadcastersto strengthen their existing systems and ultimately,invest in new technology for media and businessprocess management that allows them to integrate allthese new and disruptive technologies easily withoutlosing any of their systems’ potential and usefulnessand of course, without affecting users’ productivity anddaily work,” Corral concludes.

The prize for the most succinct – and, judging by theenormous changes our industry has gone throughrecently that few can have fully predicted, mostprescient – goes to Masstech’s Mike Palmer:“Unpredictable change. Semper Paratus.” For those ofus who aren’t Latin scholars, that means ‘Alwaysprepared’; great advice in any language!

Unpredictable change. Semper

Paratus.Mike Palmer, Masstech

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