Cloud adoption poses hurdles for broadcast workflows despite promise of flexibility

As streaming services flood screens with content and viewers demand programming across ever-multiplying platforms, broadcasters face mounting pressure to produce more content while controlling costs. For many media companies, the answer lies in the cloud—but the transition is proving anything but simple.

Gone are the days when a broadcaster could focus solely on linear television delivery. Today, broadcasters at all levels are juggling content, simultaneously feeding traditional channels, streaming platforms, social media and mobile apps—often with customized versions of content. This new reality naturally pushes the industry toward cloud-based production workflows that promise greater flexibility and efficiency.

“Broadly, we are seeing a collapsing of media technology product market segments,” said Rick Young, senior vice president and head of global products at LTN. “We are seeing a transformation where segments like live content acquisition, playout, graphics, switching, publishing and delivery are all being combined under one product or solution. This is a new scenario and media companies able to leverage these technology enhancements are best positioned to compete.”

“Technology is the main driver of efficiency and cost savings today with scalability and elasticity, but it’s not just the technology itself, it’s also the new workflows it enables. With today’s connectivity and collaboration enabled by new tech we are seeing massive efficiencies with mutualized resources across teams, locations and organizations avoiding duplicate efforts while delivering better results,” said Aaron Kroger, product marketing lead, Dalet.

Yet the shift from traditional broadcast infrastructure, built around physical studios and satellite distribution, to cloud-based systems presents challenges as its adoption continues to scale. Industry experts point to legacy integrations, infrastructure costs and training requirements as key barriers impacting adoption.

Legacy integration and potential security challenges

The broadcast industry’s shift to cloud faces a challenge: integrating new systems with existing infrastructure while maintaining security.

“My approach would be by islands. That would offer the broadcaster to climb on the learning curve distributing the risks and costs over a longer time span,” said Sergio Brighel, executive vice president of robotics and prompting technology at Videndum Production Solutions. “Hard transitions like ST2110, remote production and cloud based assets cannot be executed without a phased approach.”

For many broadcasters, success depends on careful integration planning.

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“Moving to cloud is often a trigger to simplify workflows more generally, reducing unnecessary complexity built up over time,” said Tony Jones, principal technologist at MediaKind. “However, a move to cloud is disruptive and requires those workflows to be reconsidered, meaning it can often spur an efficiency-focused reset.”

The security implications of these hybrid environments add another layer of complexity.

“Broadcasters are trying to identify single points of failure in either their own or their service providers’ workflows,” said Chris Clarke, chief revenue officer and co-founder of Cerberus. “Recent security events and DNS issues have highlighted the fact that reliance on particular vendors, networks and cloud providers doesn’t fit into best practices.”

“To manage this transition successfully, broadcasters should partner with trusted cloud service providers, implement strong security measures, and focus on gradual migration of operations,” said Jay Ganesan, senior vice president of APAC at Amagi. “We recommend starting with specific functions like playout or disaster recovery, then expanding to full cloud-based operations as teams become more comfortable with the new technologies.”

In December, we’ll dive deeper into cybersecurity with a special roundtable on cybersecurity for broadcasters.

Connectivity demands

Remote production’s growing prevalence has heightened the importance of reliable connections for acquisition and distribution.

“Remote production is fast becoming the norm, even for complex live events. That is calling for very sophisticated network connectivity, demanding the highest standards in quality, reliability, latency and security,” said Sergio Ammirata, founder and chief scientist at SipRadius.

Robert Szabo-Rowe, head of engineering and product management at Tata Communications, noted that broadcasters increasingly view IP-based distribution as an alternative to traditional satellite delivery.

“Broadcasters find satellite distribution increasingly costly and less accessible as mobile operators use more spectrum for 5G. We can expect broadcasters to accelerate their shift toward IP-based distribution,” Szabo-Row said.

“The ability to send signals anywhere, to be viewed on any device with ultra-low latency, is transformational,” said Ammirata. “Using techniques like rist2rist means distribution networks — to remote editors, to supervising producers, to final delivery — can be spun up via the cloud when needed; dropped the moment the production ends.”

Technical skills gap

The transition requires broadcast engineers to develop new IT systems and cloud architecture expertise.

“You can’t just mirror the fault finding and integration approaches of SDI when moving to IP,” said Paul Turner, director of product management at AJA Video Systems. “Your video engineers must understand the basics of how network switches work, traffic shaping rules, NMOS, etc. It requires a lot of training of the technical staff.”

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“Moving from traditional production techniques to remote and collaborative live events with people and hardware in multiple locations demands completely fresh thinking,” said Ammirata. “No longer are workflows constrained by the technology: We can put creation, control and processing anywhere, meaning you have the freedom to create the workflows you really need to deliver the program.”

For smaller broadcasters, the challenge is particularly acute. While larger media companies can invest in comprehensive training programs, regional stations and smaller operations often struggle to attract and retain talent with the necessary combination of broadcast and IT expertise.

Cost and resource management in the cloud

While cloud solutions promise long-term cost benefits through increased flexibility, the transition requires careful financial planning.

“By transitioning to the cloud, media companies replace large CapEx investments with flexible, on-demand services that can easily provision more resources at a moment’s notice,” said Young.

Dalet report highlights budget, workflow challenges in news industry

“When considering costs, a holistic view is merited, considering all the costs involved for both the on-premises and cloud options (such as maintenance, server upgrades, cooling, building rent, IT staff),” said Jones, emphasizing the importance of total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis when considering the cloud. 

“Cloud and remote productions enable broadcasters to produce most live content at a lower cost. By utilizing centralized remote production, organizations can operate with smaller teams and transport less equipment, which minimizes travel, transport, and accommodation costs,” said Szabo-Rowe.

Cloud technology offers new possibilities for resource management, which is particularly important as broadcasters face pressure to maximize efficiency (and reduce overhead). 

“Cloud technology brings on-demand flexibility… meaning better utilization of resources as well as the ability to scale up as needed. This avoids the high costs and inefficiencies of maintaining idle resources when they are not being used,” said Jones.

“With the unpredictable nature of breaking news, sporting events and elections, the cloud allows for resources such as storage and media processing to instantly scale up and down to meet these demands all while doing it sustainably. No longer do you need large systems sitting mostly idle to manage those peaks, instead the cloud scales up just for those moments which can greatly reduce your carbon footprint,” said Kroger. 

“The most palpable benefit of moving workflows to a cloud, whether private and controlled, or public, is that investing in hardware that sits idle most of the time is no longer required,” said Chris Scheck, head of marketing content at Lawo. “Also, less gear needs to be transported to venues and arenas for live coverage, while collaboration and distributed production scenarios may be faster to implement.”

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Looking ahead

Despite these challenges, industry experts see cloud adoption as inevitable. The flexibility and scalability offered by cloud-based workflows align with the industry’s need to adapt to changing viewer habits and content delivery requirements.

“The big shift that I am feeling is an increased sense of pragmatism in the industry. Specifically, a broader acceptance that the broadcast platforms and workflows that we deploy increasingly need to align, from a cost and complexity perspective, with the value of the content being created,” said Andy Hooper, senior vice president of live products at Ateliere Creative Technologies.

“Cloud services significantly enhance the scalability of broadcast production by allowing broadcasters to rapidly adjust their operations in response to demand. This flexibility enables quick launch of new channels, seamless adaptation to market conditions, and the ability to scale resources up or down as needed, all without the limitations of physical infrastructure,” said Ganesan.

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Industry Insights: Reshaping broadcast workflows through the cloud

The industry’s move to cloud-based workflows represents more than a technological shift—it signals a fundamental change in how broadcast content is produced and delivered. While challenges remain, the potential benefits of increased flexibility, scalability, and efficiency continue to drive adoption across the broadcast sector.