Head of marketing content at Lawo, Chris Scheck, agrees. “The pandemic certainly encouraged most operations to venture into some form of remote or distributed production, what with the physical separation regulations. Those already on IP were clearly at an advantage and discovered new strategies to stay on air,” he says. “Broadcasters also found out that top picture and audio quality mattered less than everybody had previously thought,” Scheck notes – especially when the choice is between lower-quality content and none at all. “The pandemic encouraged quite a few customers to migrate towards IP because of its flexibility,” Scheck continues. He recalls that some Lawo customers were early IP adopters, and that these same folks are now migrating towards server-based signal processing – with IP an important step. According to David Kaszycki, the CEO and co-founder of Beam Dynamics, “The pandemic was a forcing function for the industry in ways that are still playing out. “The immediate impact was obvious: extended lead times, chip shortages and equipment delays that pushed project timelines out by months. But the lasting effect was structural,” he argues. “Organisations that had relied on tribal knowledge and in-person workflows suddenly had to figure out how to manage complex technology estates with distributed teams.” There wasn’t much choice. While Kaszycki agrees that the pandemic ‘accelerated a shift towards more remote and hybrid operations’, he believes that the bigger impact was on technology refresh cycles. “Equipment that was originally purchased in emergency conditions is now approaching end-of-life or requiring major firmware updates. Many organisations are dealing with a ‘pandemic wave’ of assets that all need attention simultaneously, and they don’t have the systems in place to manage it.” Stan Moote, CTO at the International Trade Association for
the Broadcast and Media Industry (IABM), thinks that ‘most of the pandemic issues in the supply chain have softened up’, given we’re now nearly six years (!) post the first lockdowns. “With raw parts,” he explains, “there are always some specific issues,” such as those outlined by Kaszycki. “This said, due to the pandemic, companies did pivot to make their supply chains more resilient. “And IP-based media carriage adds resilience,” argues Strachan. “We see the media supply chain as an increasingly software-defined workflow spanning contribution, managed transport, switching and distribution. It often has to serve multiple takers and, increasingly, more than one delivery path. Our customers want two things: broadcast-grade assurance and digital-era agility.” Like Scheck, Strachan notes, “There’s strong momentum towards hybrid and IP-based delivery as customers balance cost pressure with rising demand for live sport and events. More tiers of sport are driving demand for flexible, lower- priced transport, where internet- based carriage is a practical part of the mix. That’s why more customers want a hybrid approach, blending dedicated fibre with internet delivery – and, where relevant, satellite – to extend reach, add resilience and manage costs.” Supply has been struggling to keep pace with that spiking demand – especially amid a global economy where tariffs loom large. Tensions and tariffs Import and export fees have always characterised international trade, but the threat of exorbitant tariffs – primarily from the US – has thrown the global supply chain into chaos. “Tariffs, both threatened and enacted, have been adding real uncertainty to procurement planning,” explains Kaszycki. “Broadcast and production equipment relies heavily on global manufacturing, and when costs shift unpredictably, capital expenditure planning becomes significantly harder.”
ince the pandemic, the media supply chain hasn’t been the same. The world shut down, and when it finally reopened, industries looked very different. Shifts in consumer behaviours, coupled with hybrid workflows and rapid technological advancements, forced suppliers to adapt – all while navigating an incredibly unstable geopolitical climate. Today’s media supply chain has to balance cloud- native architecture with artificial intelligence and international conflicts with inflation. In our contemporary era, operational efficiency is key – but it’s not an easy feat. Let’s unpack the challenges currently facing the media supply chain and look at what the future might hold. The pandemic and the shift to IP When social distancing took effect, it forever altered how we live, work and consume content. It forced us into at-home and hybrid environments – a huge financial favour for streaming services and a painful blow for broadcasters who hadn’t prepared for remote production yet. “The pandemic accelerated distributed production and remote operations throughout the industry, permanently raising the bar for rapid provisioning, consistent monitoring and scalable event operations,” begins Mark Strachan, chief product officer at Telstra Broadcast Services (TBS). “Those expectations are ‘business as usual’ ones now, especially for live sport.”
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