Edgio – Driving media experimentation with flexible streaming technology
Thomas Box, Director of Solutions Engineering, Media and Entertainment, Edgio
The media and entertainment landscape is changing rapidly, driven by increased fragmentation and growing competition. On top of constant pressure to report positive revenue growth with limited staffing and resources amid macro-economic challenges, streaming services need to be more flexible than ever to drive business success. Today, experimenting with multiple cost points, service tiers, and viewing models like SVOD, AVOD, and FAST is paramount to attracting and growing the widest audience possible.
Media companies are searching for quick and efficient ways to manage their existing streaming services or bring new services to market while engaging new viewers with profitable distribution models that fit their evolving business needs. In an environment where experimentation is critical to securing real business outcomes, organizations need to embrace flexible technology foundations to fuel success.
Flexibility at the heart of technology models
To overcome the complexities of delivering multiple business models while managing costs, media companies are placing a greater emphasis on technology investment strategies that focus on flexibility and operational efficiency. Caretta Research found that almost two-thirds of media companies consider customizability and integrations the most important factor when considering technology sourcing decisions. More and more, media companies are looking for providers that can offer a modular, flexible approach combined with pre-integrated partner solutions to create custom ecosystems — supporting any content distribution strategy while achieving the highest levels of quality, monetization, and security.
However, this level of bespoke integration isn’t always easy, especially when harnessing technology from multiple vendors or a mix of vendor and in-house tech. Existing streaming services are looking for technology partners that can seamlessly integrate into their ecosystem to simplify and reduce operational costs.
Managed service providers understand the challenges faced by major streaming companies today. Content owners and broadcasters want to know they are maximising returns on valuable in-house developed tech while sourcing best-in-breed solutions across every element of the streaming workflow. As a result, we’re seeing an increasing shift towards the managed services approach, as media organizations partner with trusted experts to assemble and manage their custom ecosystems, helping them reduce time-to-market, minimize operational complexity, and deliver exceptional viewer experiences.
Streamlining operations via managed services and pre-integrated partnerships
Assembling and managing a streaming workflow to deliver content across linear, live event, on-demand, and FAST channels, while optimizing monetization can be expensive and time-intensive. Business leaders don’t want to spend time and resources managing highly intricate technology integrations; they want to focus on their core business differentiators – creativity, content, audience strategy, and monetization.
It’s in this context that a pre-integrated partnership ecosystem can help streaming companies reduce complexity while driving profitability. A partner ecosystem that brings together best-in-breed solutions from leading tech providers enables content owners, rights holders and broadcasters to tackle many of the complexities of constructing a full streaming ecosystem, from production, security and metadata through to brand control, delivery, user experience and monetization. With one managed service provider at the core to lead on all operational and support requirements to simplify multi-vendor relationships, this type of approach de-risks and streamlines operations, while helping customers save time, reduce costs, and free up staff and resources for n creative tasks.
Flexible technology foundations are essential for powering any streaming business. Media companies that can harness flexible streaming tech to bring services to market quickly and cost-efficiently while enabling any monetization strategy will be best placed for success in 2024.
