in Mexico, and the trend here has been centralisation. The top three broadcasters in Mexico have all massively reduced their local news production, cutting the smaller cities. Even my town, which has a million people, has lost some of its local news broadcasters.” But this centralisation of news production does push newsrooms to present stories in ever more engaging ways. The stakes are higher, and tech integrations are made with audience impact in mind. Broadcast graphics company Vizrt recently worked with a broadcaster in Panama to implement the company’s Viz Engine 5 to boost its newsroom with a new real-time graphics set- up. A key component of the new graphics set-up was the ability to incorporate augmented reality into broadcasts for a richer storytelling experience. Today, storytelling alone is rarely enough to keep eyeballs on a broadcast. “Each Latin American country is navigating digital transformation at its own rhythm,” says Paula Brecci, senior channel sales manager at Vizrt, which is also located in Chile. “Compared to Europe or North America, we still see infrastructure limitations, tighter budgets and some regulatory hurdles. But what makes our region stand out is how adaptable and creative our broadcasters are. “We’re seeing them embrace hybrid workflows and cloud-based tools to overcome these challenges. Since the pandemic, interest in cloud-native solutions has grown; broadcasters are beginning to realise that they don’t need massive physical infrastructure to deliver high-quality content any more.” Connectivity and cloud While there are large swathes of sparsely populated land throughout Latin America – especially in South America – there’s good connection across its major cities. Fully cloud- based production is starting to be adopted too, but broadcasters have avoided using it for major events. The evolution has been similar to that in other parts of the world, with cloud production reserved for smaller events or broadcasts going straight
to streaming or social media platforms. Some of the smaller markets outside major cities might not be able to support
the connectivity and bandwidth required for a
broadcast, though that’s changing too. “IP and cloud
workflows are no longer simply future concepts – they are becoming a reality across Latin America,” notes Vizrt’s Brecci. “While adoption may have started slower here, we’re now seeing an acceleration, especially in sports and live productions. Many broadcasters are taking a hybrid approach, combining existing infrastructure with cloud- native tools. It’s a smart way to transition without disruption.” Additionally, the major cloud providers have made commitments to build several big data centres
» Broadcasters are realising they don’t need massive physical infrastructure to deliver high-quality content «
throughout the region. São Paulo, Brazil is already an enormous – and globally important – hub. Plus, it is a connecting point for many of the main cables linking South America with the rest of the world, but there are also hubs being built in Chile and Colombia. Just last year, Google announced plans for the construction of a monumentally big data centre in Canelones, Uruguay. The Mexican state of Querétaro – already a home to Mexican data centres – has become a destination for the major cloud providers too, with AWS, Google and Microsoft pouring billions into their own data centre projects in the region, creating local friction around their effect on water supply in the region. The area will become one of the major hubs for all of Mexico and Central
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