The media landscape remains in a state of constant evolution and transformation. For the last decade, traditional pay television networks and satellite TV services have been under immense competitive pressure from on-demand streaming services, like Netflix and Disney Plus. More recently, the emergence of free ad-supported TV, or FAST, has added to the competitive mix and market complexity.
For media companies, the shifting landscape has upended the distribution landscape and dramatically impacted the type of technologies needed to ensure content effectively reaches TVs, mobile phones, and other connected screens. These challenges are being confronted at the same time as content companies attempt to balance the enormous costs of creating compelling content.
In a recent Satellite World podcast, Fred Boxa, Associate Director at Arthur D. Little and member of the consultancy’s TIME team (Telecommunications, Information Technology, Media and Electronics), explains how the changing content distribution environment has presented opportunities for satellite companies to play a more significant role in the content creation and distribution value chain.
Consolidating Distribution Channels
Whereas traditional media companies often used a singular satellite channel to deliver content to pay TV audiences, the emergence of video on demand, streaming, and FAST, typically delivered via terrestrial networks, means that multiple distribution pipelines are now needed to distribute content to the widest possible audience.
“Broadcast TV is not completely disappearing, there is just a share taken away,” says Boxa. “From a content provider standpoint, they are looking to distribute in two different ways which poses a lot of challenges.”
Creating new distribution channels has forced media companies to double their technology stacks, bringing about new cost challenges. By developing hybrid distribution networks that integrate satellite and terrestrial distribution capabilities and offering managed services over the top, satellite companies can bring distribution channels together and provide real value, cost savings, and enhanced distribution efficiency.
Moving to the Cloud and up the Value Chain
Historically, it was satellite’s role to deliver completed content to audiences as the final step in the distribution process. Boxa believes that satellite companies can play a much larger and more important role earlier in the process, supporting a wide range of steps along the way.
“Functions like planning, scheduling, postproduction, and playout were once done mostly on-site. These functions have moved to the cloud. Satellite companies can support this transformation and assist with other steps, instead of just picking up heavily at the distribution stage.”
Satellite-powered cloud services can enable content programmers to edit, localize, modify, and finalize content wherever they happen to be located, instead of at a production studio. And because of its global footprint, satellites can enable content to be contributed from virtually any location on Earth.
Optimizing Global Content Distribution
Assessing the distribution infrastructures and understanding the breadth and composition of networks from one country or region to the next is a pervasive challenge for media companies eager to distribute content on a global basis. In regions like Africa and India where fiber and other terrestrial networks are limited or fail to reach large swaths of the population, distribution must rely more heavily on satellite. In the U.S. and Europe, media companies often use a mix of terrestrial and satellite, depending on the type of content.
Boxa says that satellite providers can remove this burden from media companies by designing the right distribution solutions, using a mix of terrestrial and multiple satellite orbits, ensuring that the content distribution process is optimized, efficient, and reaches desired audiences no matter the locally available network infrastructure.
“You need to carefully analyze the distribution capabilities in the region. We’re working with satellite providers to evolve the capabilities to best serve each market.”
To learn more about how media companies can lean more heavily on their satellite industry partners to support content development and distribution in the highly competitive, fragmented, and always-transforming media industry, listen to the full podcast interview here: https://satelliteworldtoday.com/adapting-media-technology-trends-satellite-solutions-in-the-streaming-era/
