In market uncertainty, focus on what’s core to your business

By Marco Tinnirello, Managing Director, EMEA

We’re in unchartered waters. The only known is that there are many unknowns. The TV market is having its Napster moment, while broadcasters and content owners across the globe face a similar challenge.

Traditional linear TV revenues are down. The previously rock-solid, ad-supported and pay-TV models are failing to deliver the expected returns, which is testing some of our channel economics. And, added to that, there is the new digital world of VOD, OTT and streaming, all adding costs into broadcaster and content owner’s businesses, and the associated revenue models are far from mature.

Given these significant challenges, broadcasters and content owners need to pay very close attention to the ever-changing landscape and carefully plan their strategy to maximize business value.

Where should they focus?

Create killer content and monetize it

For these companies, the technology and operational infrastructure required to create and deliver the content are not differentiators that drive revenue for them. A high-quality viewing experience across platforms for audiences is expected. It’s fitted as standard. What’s more, keeping technology and operations running at the levels viewers expect takes time, energy and money.

Forward-thinking media companies that recognize this have benefitted immensely from outsourcing difficult and constantly evolving technical operations to shared services partners like Encompass.

Why outsource?

These technology partners have the infrastructure and expertise to deliver content solutions for broadcast, over-the-top (OTT) and TVEverywhere (TVE) systems. By turning over the technical reigns, these companies don’t get bogged down with operations and can focus on innovation in areas that drive audience growth, revenue and shareholder value.

These issues are not new, nor are they unique to the media industry. IT has been revolutionized by the ability to outsource service and infrastructure needs to third parties. By now, most companies that previously employed a physical IT infrastructure have shifted to cloud environments. Gone are the days of in-house servers and a full IT department for support. Most companies are willing to move computer systems and applications to the cloud because it allows management to be flexible and focus more time on core competencies of their business, not technology issues.

What is the true value of outsourcing?

• Technology outsource providers bring innovation to the table
• Less upfront capital investment needed to purchase expensive technology
• Content owners and broadcasters can focus on short-term, flexible arrangements able to respond rapidly to evolving market demands.
• Experts provide new solutions for digital outlets, including VOD, OTT, streaming, IP distribution and cloud media processing

Broadcasters can go to market quickly and experiment with non-linear monetization models in order to find the new areas of growth and revenue generation.

Handing off technical operations to the experts provides the flexibility to shift focus and resources towards areas that truly matter. If you are ready to outsource to an innovator, Encompass would love to hear from you. Contact us today.