Industry Insights: Building the business case for corporate and enterprise video studios

Corporate video is moving beyond one-off events and becoming part of how organizations communicate every day.

As enterprises produce more content for employees, customers, investors and partners, many are weighing the cost of outsourcing against the benefits of building internal production capabilities.

In the first installment of this three-part Industry Insights roundtable series, vendors and integrators examine what is driving investment in corporate studios, how organizations are measuring returns and why enterprise facilities are not simply smaller versions of traditional broadcast plants.

The discussion also explores the tradeoffs between flexibility, cost and production quality, the growing emphasis on reliability and the planning mistakes that can undermine an in-house studio before the first production begins.

Key takeaways from this Industry Insights roundtable

• Video becomes infrastructure: Organizations increasingly view internal production as an ongoing communications capability rather than a resource reserved for major events.
• Volume changes economics: As content needs grow, enterprises are weighing the recurring cost of outside crews and facilities against the long-term value of an internal studio.
• Flexibility shapes design: Enterprise studios often need to serve multiple formats, smaller teams and distributed contributors without recreating a traditional broadcast environment.
• Reliability defines quality: Broadcast quality in a corporate context increasingly means dependable performance, consistent presentation and fewer technical disruptions.
• Planning prevents problems: Organizations need to account for space, acoustics, power, cooling, workflow integration and future expansion before selecting equipment.

What is driving investment in corporate studios and enterprise production, and how are organizations justifying it internally?

Jonathan Lyth, product director, enterprise media, Grass Valley: A few years ago, many organizations treated live video as an occasional event. Now it’s becoming operational, with teams expected to communicate continuously across dispersed workforces while audiences increasingly compare those experiences against the quality of the media they consume elsewhere, rather than traditional “corporate video.” Many organizations want production environments that allow them to respond quickly without rebuilding workflows around every major event.

Yang Cai, CEO and president, VisualOn: The clearest driver is the compounding cost of outsourcing at scale — enterprises running the numbers often find a dedicated internal capability pays for itself within two to three years when volume is high enough. Ownership of the production pipeline also means faster turnaround, consistent brand expression, and the ability to respond to market moments without waiting on an agency. Increasingly, organizations are also factoring in infrastructure efficiency, as growing media libraries and rising storage costs make long-term content retention and management a more visible operational expense.

Ivy Li, marketing director, Telycam: Organizations are no longer satisfied with their productions having baseline quality that looks like a video call — they need higher quality, polished visuals, stable audio, and consistent production values for internal training, executive communications, and higher-stakes events like product launches and investor briefings to keep viewers attention. Compared to repeatedly hiring outside crews or renting facilities, building an in-house studio makes a compelling case on cost, sustainability, and scalability.

Ken Kobayashi, business manager for remote cameras, edge AI, beamforming mics, and professional display solutions, Sony Electronics: The importance and frequency of corporate external communication are increasing yearly. By actively promoting video-driven communication through corporate channels and podcasts, organizations can enhance the customer’s experience and deliver their messages directly to specific audiences more accurately, ultimately creating opportunities to gather direct feedback through deeper engagement. 

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TJ Kortlever, senior solutions architect, Diversified: Corporate studios and enterprise event spaces can be looked at as a money-saving opportunity. The point between quality and cost continues to improve, and when you weigh it against operational costs to rent equipment and hire a crew to operate, it becomes an easier conversation. The other benefits are consistency and convenience. The facility is highly available and can provide a consistent look for daily shows or one-off standups.

Rupert Watson, VP, go-to-market, EMEA, LucidLink: Investment is being driven by a simple realization: enterprises now produce the volume of content a mid-sized broadcaster used to, and outsourcing every piece of it is neither fast enough nor cost-effective. The justification internally tends to land on three things: speed to market for executive and product communications, consistency of brand and message across regions, and the ability to repurpose a single production into dozens of localized, channel-specific assets. Shopify is a good example of this on LucidLink, where their internal creative team has grown to more than 120 producers, editors and DoPs collaborating on the same media in real time, which is the scale at which the in-house model genuinely pays for itself.

Rick Seegull, SVP, technology and business development, Riedel Communications: Investment in corporate studios and enterprise production is being driven by always-on communications demands and increasingly distributed workforces, as organizations deliver continuous content to employees, customers, investors, and partners across live, hybrid, and on-demand platforms. Companies now view internal production as strategic communications infrastructure — one that provides greater control, consistency, and reduced reliance on external production resources for executive messaging, training, and investor communications. These investments are justified through long-term operational savings and scalable infrastructures that evolve incrementally with business needs, avoiding costly replacement cycles while accommodating future growth.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: The strongest driving force is no doubt the desire to stay in control of the narrative and to increase the output of content without depending on external service providers. In the age of social media and other platforms, video has become an essential communication tool. As long as output and quality are high and messaging consistent, justifying such a decision internally shouldn’t be too difficult for large corporations.

Bea Alonso, marketing lead, Projective: The main driver is volume: Organizations now need far more video than any agency budget can sustainably feed, so bringing production in-house becomes a cost and speed decision. The internal justification usually rests on three numbers, namely cost per asset, turnaround time, and how much creative work gets done versus how much time is lost hunting for files or waiting on infrastructure. Our corporate clients include telecoms, travel brands, and sports media groups, all of which have made the case that an in-house studio pays for itself once output crosses a certain threshold.

What does success look like for a corporate studio beyond output volume?

Jonathan Lyth, product director, enterprise media, Grass Valley: Success is increasingly measured by how naturally video production fits into day-to-day operations. A successful corporate studio tends to disappear into the background operationally. When teams trust the process, video becomes part of normal communication rather than a special project that creates disruption every time it happens. Another important measure is whether content remains useful after the live event, especially as organizations support more distributed audiences across live, replay and short-form formats.

How are organizations measuring ROI for internal production capabilities?

Yang Cai, CEO and president, VisualOn: ROI is shifting from pure output metrics to audience engagement, playback quality, and delivery efficiency. Enterprises are increasingly looking at QoE indicators such as startup time, buffering ratio, bitrate efficiency, and infrastructure utilization as proxies for both content effectiveness and operational sustainability. As storage costs continue rising, organizations are also evaluating how efficiently they can retain, distribute, and repurpose large media libraries without continuously expanding storage capacity.

How are enterprise studios being designed differently from traditional broadcast environments?

Jonathan Lyth, product director, enterprise media, Grass Valley: Enterprise studios are increasingly being designed around adaptability rather than fixed production models. Unlike traditional broadcast environments built for defined outputs and dedicated teams, enterprise environments often need to support different formats with smaller operational groups. As a result, there is a greater emphasis on long-term usability and how easily production environments can evolve. Many enterprise teams are far more focused on outcomes and usability rather than the underlying broadcast terminology.

Ivy Li, marketing director, Telycam: The biggest difference is the people running them. In traditional broadcast, operators tend to be technically fluent; in an enterprise studio, the same setup might be run by an IT manager with no live production experience or a marketing team member with no technical background at all. Yet their expectations for output quality are just as high — which is why enterprise studios are being designed around genuine ease of use, not just technical capability.

Nick Ma, CEO and CTO, Magewell: There are many differences between broadcast and enterprise studio design, starting with the budget — enterprise budgets for production studios will be lower than traditional broadcast environments. Fortunately, new enterprise studios can be designed from the ground up on an IP-based media architecture, which can reduce infrastructure costs and provide the flexibility to incorporate any source type — from AV signals to IP streams — while distributing the resulting content across multiple platforms. Enterprise studios are also often smaller in size and designed for easy operation to allow smaller crews or solo operators to create engaging content.

Phil Rapp, senior director of engineering, Diversified: True broadcast environments begin from the ground up in considering locations and isolation for sound and other interferences. Most corporate studio environments are squeezed into available spaces within an office building. Sometimes these spaces use real estate that is a higher value than most companies can afford to spend, but the cost is weighed against reputation and outsourcing costs.

Rupert Watson, VP, go-to-market, EMEA, LucidLink: Traditional broadcast environments are designed around a fixed signal chain and a building full of people who all sit in the same place. Enterprise studios start from the opposite assumption: contributors, editors, producers and reviewers are distributed across cities and time zones, so the design centers on the network, identity and shared access to media rather than on tape rooms and SDI routing. WebMD is a clear illustration, with a video team spread across New York, Atlanta, Paris, The Hague and Munich producing more than 200 videos a month from one shared cloud filespace on LucidLink rather than a central on-premises NAS.

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Rick Seegull, SVP, technology and business development, Riedel Communications: Enterprise studios are departing from traditional broadcast environments by prioritizing flexibility, simplicity, and multi-purpose utility — serving executive communications, training, live events, and hybrid collaboration within a single adaptable infrastructure. In the meantime, organizations are also adopting integrated infrastructures that unify communications, control, and media workflows across both SDI and IP environments — with operational simplicity as a governing design criterion. The design emphasis is on reconfigurability: studios built to expand and absorb new capabilities incrementally, without requiring full infrastructure overhaul as needs evolve.

What tradeoffs are organizations making between flexibility, cost and production quality?

Jonathan Lyth, product director, enterprise media, Grass Valley: The main challenge is balancing professional production standards with environments that need to adapt quickly. Many organizations no longer want infrastructure designed only for peak demand, because systems often sit underutilized between major events. As a result, there is growing interest in software-based production environments that allow teams to scale production resources when needed while maintaining dependable reliable visual quality.

Nick Ma, CEO and CTO, Magewell: The evolution of AV technology has made it possible for enterprise production teams to make fewer trade-offs, as flexible solutions are now available that deliver broadcast-grade quality and reliability at lower cost than previously possible. While 4K may be preferred but not essential in corporate environments, the price gap between 4K and HD solutions has narrowed enough to make 4K solutions affordable for many corporate projects.

TJ Kortlever, senior solutions architect, Diversified: I always encourage customers to put together the story of what their end result needs to be. Are they creating a system that the C-suite can use to tell their story to the company? Do they want larger town halls or panel-type discussions with opportunities for collaboration? Do they want to use the space to sell the company to outside parties? Purpose-built spaces can perform efficiently, be more cost-effective, and are easier to maintain than a space that needs to be configurable for every size show imaginable.

How do teams define “broadcast-quality” in a corporate context?

Nick Ma, CEO and CTO, Magewell: We see two aspects to “broadcast quality” in a corporate production environment: whether the technology solutions meet users’ expectations for broadcast-class robustness such as reliability and connectivity, and whether the resulting content is visually sophisticated enough to grab and keep viewers’ attention. For corporate and enterprise producers, keeping viewers engaged means striving for production values that approach what their audience is used to seeing on entertainment channels. Full-featured production solutions that include features like on-video drawing, sophisticated graphics, and the ability to combine high numbers of legacy AV and modern IP sources help enterprise production teams achieve this.

Martin Lindsay, head of networked solutions, Sony Electronics: Organizations now demand broadcast-level quality for an internal meeting (1080p at minimum or 4K ) comparable to major sporting events, and they’re investing in the equipment that’s going to provide the best possible viewing experience.. Enterprise audiences now expect that same level of quality in the workplace, on their laptops, Zoom or Teams meetings, on the video displays in multi-purpose areas and during every presentation. Nobody wants to hear audio delay or see jitter or latency problems with the video.

TJ Kortlever, senior solutions architect, Diversified: Enterprise clients don’t always have a metric that defines “broadcast-quality”. They want a system that lets them tell the stories they want to the people who need to see it.

Rick Seegull, SVP, technology and business development, Riedel Communications: In a corporate context, “broadcast-quality” today is defined by reliability, operational resilience, and consistency. These criteria have expanded well beyond traditional television benchmarks. Once an event begins, communications, production, and presentation systems must perform flawlessly, supporting executive messaging, live streaming, and audience engagement without disruption. Corporate teams expect professional production values from infrastructures that is flexible enough to accommodate changing formats, distributed audiences, and evolving delivery requirements.

Ali Hodjat, senior director of marketing, Telestream: In a modern corporate context, “broadcast-quality” has changed from meaning a polished visual style to representing a mandatory standard of total system reliability. It is defined by a dependable technical infrastructure that completely prevents dropped frames, timing delays, and visual glitches across shared networks where multi-camera setups must run without a hitch. Ultimately, achieving broadcast quality means using integrated tools that remove everyday technical friction, ensuring corporate videos perfectly match strict brand guidelines and protect project investments on every screen.

What are the most common missteps when building an in-house studio?

Martin Lindsay, head of networked solutions, Sony Electronics: A common mistake when building in-house studios is failing to plan for business growth and technological expansion. IP-based infrastructures enable facilities to be future-proofed, allowing for extensive resource sharing between studios and control rooms, even across different locations. Don’t cut out the steps that will set you up to succeed for the long term.

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TJ Kortlever, senior solutions architect, Diversified: Not setting aside enough space. In addition to a studio, you want proper space for a green room, control room, equipment room, and any post-production spaces you might need. You want your main equipment room to be close to the studio to simplify cable pulls. and have enough power and cooling to support the hardware. Also, proper treatments for the studio (acoustics, surface treatments, etc.) really makes a difference in your end results. Clients sometimes focus too heavily on the technology itself rather than the problem they are trying to solve.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: The most serious mistake would be to hire a person with a broadcast or video production background and ask them to configure the studio by themselves. Irrespective of how knowledgeable they are, they are likely to overlook certain aspects that need to be included from the get-go. I would certainly recommend hiring a systems integrator with a proven track record and deploying an IP network for a flexible selection of shooting and play-out locations as the infrastructure will most likely also be used for internal town halls and smaller all-hands occasions.

Ali Hodjat, senior director of marketing, Telestream: One of the most frequent errors is relying on disconnected, consumer-grade or “good enough” AV components that lack professional master timing and synchronization capabilities. Another common mistake is treating post-production and file delivery as standalone, manual tasks instead of implementing automated background processes for rendering and formatting. These approaches create constant technical friction and operational bottlenecks, ultimately leaving the in-house studio vulnerable to live signal failures and missed production deadlines.