Jeff Rosica, Senior Vice President, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Avid
Rapidly evolving technology and audience behavior make it critical for broadcasters to stay at the forefront of technology. Yet current technology solutions, deployment models and upgrade cycles make this a complex, cumbersome and costly goal.
Content creators no longer have the power to dictate when, where, and how consumers enjoy media. Not only are today’s consumers more sophisticated than ever; they’re empowered to create and consume content anywhere, anytime, through any device and in any format. The proliferation of multiple formats, distribution channels, and devices has increased the cost and complexity of monetizing assets, as well as competition for a share of the consumer’s wallet and viewership.
As the traditional linear value chain in which content moved through pre-production, production, postproduction, distribution, and delivery—with predetermined handoffs occurring between each process—has been replaced by a fluid, multi-dimensional process, the creative side of the media value chain is fusing with the business (or monetization) side, and media organizations are finding themselves under intense pressure to connect and automate their entire creation-to-consumption workflow. They also face relentless pressure to increase operational efficiency and revenue, and are looking for innovative ways to achieve these goals.
Battling complex, costly technology environments
Despite the urgent need to integrate content creation and monetization processes, current technology solutions remain highly siloed, and roadmaps are increasingly disconnected from the most pressing industry needs. Multiple siloed vendors following the traditional value chain are not only putting media organizations out of touch with consumers, they’re also siphoning critical capital in areas such as integration and interoperability, in ways that still don’t match the needs of today’s environment. Technology integration, vendor management, and interoperability challenges make already-limited flexibility, agility, and innovation even more difficult.
The prevalence in media enterprises of disparate production technologies from a variety of vendors, combined with traditional technology deployment and upgrade cycles, makes it difficult for media enterprises to update, plan and manage technology, and keep staff trained and updated. A lack of common toolsets and workflows impedes enterprise-wide search and content sharing, and the ability to produce content for new channels and digital distribution models. This creates a technology environment that’s too complex and costly to sustain.
In the face of these challenges, it’s time for the industry as a whole to rethink traditional commercial and technology deployment models, and consider new approaches that enable broadcasters to keep their infrastructure up to date, create open but tightly integrated workflows, and respond to new business opportunities.
How to win in today’s environment
An organization’s ability to succeed in this challenging environment depends upon how aggressively it can adapt to the new realities of its business. Media organizations need solutions that will allow them to efficiently and easily respond to a broad range of content creation and distribution demands with a single integrated platform.
As the largest television station operator in the United States, Sinclair Broadcast Group has 64 local news producing stations, producing 2100 hours of news every week. These stations use a mix of disparate news production equipment from different vendors, with different versions of hardware and software. This makes it very challenging to manage technology upgrades, keep more than 2000 employees trained and up-to-date, and onboard new hires effectively. In short, it creates a technology environment that’s complicated and expensive to sustain.
To help overcome these challenges and keep its news operations at the forefront of technology, Sinclair recently signed a ten-year agreement to transform the content creation and distribution workflows in every one of its 64 local news-producing stations by standardizing on the Avid MediaCentral Platform. In addition to delivering technology solutions with third-party and custom workflow integrations, the managed services deployment agreement also encompasses project and fleet management, commissioning, workflow consulting, training and support.
Enterprise-wide, long-term, “platform” thinking
With a “platform” approach to enterprise-wide technology deployments combined with longer-term business models, Sinclair can increase the value and benefits from its technology investments while lowering its overall investments and operating costs.
With a common production platform across all of its news markets, Sinclair can create a content sharing news community across the organization to increase efficiency and productivity. By operating on a unified platform, facilitating shared, managed resources and meaningful collaboration, Sinclair can tap into and bring together their resources and talent for optimum effect.
Defined and more frequent technology upgrade cycles will enable Sinclair to keep its newsrooms current across the enterprise. The company can give its staff the tools and training they need to be the best in business, and attract people into the company that feel good about the tools they use.
As well as keeping its newsroom technology consistent, continuously refreshed, and on the leading edge, a standardized technology and operational footprint across all of its stations will also drive efficiencies and provide much greater flexibility in responding to industry changes and new business opportunities like new digital distribution models.
An open technology platform combined with a forward-thinking, enterprise-wide commercial approach to technology acquisition, deployment and support can help media organizations manage technology and maximize the value of content, giving them the agility and scalability they need to successfully compete in today’s media environment.
About Jeff Rosica
As Senior Vice President and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Jeff Rosica heads the global sales efforts for the company.
Mr. Rosica joins Avid from Grass Valley, LLC where he was most recently the Executive Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. Mr. Rosica joined Thomson in 2001 from Philips Electronics, as part of the acquisition and merger of Grass Valley Group, Philips Broadcast and Thomson Broadcast. During his tenure at Thomson/Grass Valley, he rose to become the division head in charge of the Grass Valley division in 2008 and managed the business until its sale to Francisco Partners in late December 2010. Prior to Thomson/Grass Valley, Mr. Rosica was with Philips Broadcast from 1996 until early 2002, serving as the Vice President and General Manager of the North American business activities. Prior to that and over his professional career, he has held a number of senior positions, focused largely in the areas of general management, business development, marketing and sales.
With more than 25 years of experience in the broadcast, media and professional video and audio markets, Mr. Rosica is an industry veteran who has also garnered significant personal experience over his career in the areas of live video production and post-production.
- Rethinking Commercial & Technology Deployment Models for Success - April 6, 2016
