Now is the time to adopt cloud workflows

While massive disruption is the new norm across many sectors, it’s especially critical in today’s media and entertainment environment. Over the last five years, broadcasting has experienced more dramatic changes than possibly any other industry. Captivating content is now available everywhere, at the touch of a screen, thanks to streaming. Viewers expect to watch their favourite shows at any time on any device, and they expect personalised recommendations for what to watch next.

By the year 2022, streaming services will account for 25 per cent of video watched, generating nearly $73 billion in revenue for the global OTT market (sources: UBS and PwC, respectively). Meanwhile, cable and satellite TV continue their inexorable decline, as indicated in a recent report from Leichtman Research Group.

While traditional broadcasters have been aware of these trends for some time, many still struggle with inflexible, siloed systems not designed for today’s changing audience.

To me, the path forward is clear: delivering the best possible user experience requires a flexible cloud-based distribution workflow across both linear and video on-demand. The solution needs to comply with industry standards for security, protecting both content rights and audience data. It needs to be reliable, scalable and global. And it should be based on open standards, so there’s no unintended lock-in to a single technology component.

Once this workflow is fully cloud-enabled, you’ll gain a single view of the audience experience, enabling you to generate new insights around advertising, reliability and quality of service.

Instead of simply analysing what viewers just watched, you’ll be able to predict what they’ll want to watch next. That will allow you to make better decisions about what shows to greenlight, as well as how to acquire new audiences, increase engagement and boost subscriber retention.

Google Cloud is in an optimal position to provide these benefits to broadcasters. With a presence in more than 200 countries and a network that provides fast, reliable and secure connections globally, Google Cloud ensures audiences always receive high quality viewing experiences.

Google’s AI/ML expertise allows content producers to gain deeper insights into their content and their audiences. Our BigQuery analytics tool lets broadcasters see how their content is performing in real-time, while AutoML Video allows developers with minimal machine learning expertise to create robust analytics solutions. You’ll be able to automatically create searchable content libraries, generate transcriptions on the fly, track objects within a video, classify different shots, and detect explicit content.

Whether you’re an engineer, a data scientist, a content creator, or are fulfilling some other role in broadcasting, your job and your business have already been changed by cloud computing. Embracing cloud workflows is something all broadcasters need to do, but you don’t need to do it alone.

At IBC365, we’re looking forward to discussing the challenges and benefits of transitioning to the cloud, and how Google Cloud can help you on that journey.

Anil Jain is managing director, telecommunications, media & entertainment at Google Cloud