demand, and so we are seeing traditional broadcasters taking advantage of abundant cloud payout services.” What’s particularly striking here is the cloud’s growing importance to established broadcasters, as well as new entrants. Organisations that once relied entirely on satellite or terrestrial distribution are embracing cloud workflows to remain competitive in a market that increasingly rewards speed and global reach. If the rise of streaming platforms set the stage, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the plot dramatically. Almost overnight, production teams were forced to operate remotely, post-production workflows had to be decentralised and collaboration tools became essential. Even workflows that had previously been considered too sensitive or complex for cloud migration were rapidly adapted, often under less-than-ideal conditions. Moote reflects on this: “Covid-19 triggered the rapid acceptance of using cloud services beyond playout despite the fact that the difference in quality was, more often than not, marginal. Covid audiences accepted this. It was quickly realised that operational flexibility was possible with cloud services as they support remote and distributed production workflows, while shifting costs from capex to opex, helping companies manage demand more efficiently.” This period marked a turning point where the long- standing assumption that cloud workflows could not meet broadcast-grade standards was challenged, not through careful testing, but through necessity. The results were sometimes imperfect but proved the model was viable. Cutting costs or cutting corners? As the Covid-shaped dust was settling, a more sober assessment began to take shape. The early narrative that cloud software was inherently cheaper than on-premises infrastructure has been increasingly called into question. While the ability to avoid large upfront capital expenditure remains attractive, the operational costs of running high- volume workloads in the cloud – particularly storage, transcoding and long-term archiving – can quickly add up. “Although a clear win with lower upfront investment,” Moote continues, “faster time to market and the flexibility to scale with demand – especially for fast-growing platforms – the industry narrative on capex to opex has evolved. At scale, cloud costs can become significant and less predictable, particularly for high-volume workloads such as storage, transcoding and long-term content libraries. In some cases, running steady-state workloads in the cloud can be more expensive than optimised on- premises infrastructure or hybrid models.” This change in mindset has given rise to a more nuanced approach: hybrid workflows. Rather than choosing between cloud and on-premises infrastructure, many organisations are combining the two, keeping predictable, steady-state workloads in-house while leveraging the cloud for burst capacity and experimentation. “As a result, the conversation has shifted from ‘the cloud is cheaper’ to ‘the cloud is more flexible’. Companies are becoming more deliberate, keeping bursty, variable workloads by employing cloud services. Flexibility and scalability, along with the need for efficiency, are
» Despite the near-ubiquity of cloud conversations at industry events, today’s reality is far from a simple, cloud-first narrative «
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