What impact have the current global uncertainties had on the company’s R&D and product development in recent months?
The current global uncertainties have impacted the way we approach R&D and product development, underscoring the importance of agility, innovation, and security. At Arqiva, we see this as an opportunity to lean into our strengths. The rapid pace of technological change, particularly in cloud-based services and next-generation streaming, means that many businesses are navigating relatively recent technical debt. Our focus has been on helping customers stay ahead of that curve by accelerating the development of software-defined, cloud-native solutions that are secure-by-design and resilient enough to maintain availability, even as the risks of breach and content piracy continue to rise. While the environment remains dynamic, it has only reinforced our commitment to delivering resilient, future-ready technologies that meet the evolving needs of our customers.
What do you foresee as the biggest challenges in R&D and product development/deployment in the coming years?
Crucially, it’s about building products and solutions that serve multiple formats as flexibly as possible. Streaming is definitely surging at the moment, but it would be wrong to declare that linear is dead. One of the chief focuses for us is meeting our customers where their customers are, and at the moment, viewing patterns are evolving. This diversification is being driven by the VoD and OTT landscape, with viewers expecting the same broadcast-grade experience, however they get their content.
Content owners and broadcasters are currently facing the challenge of removing the duplication and repetition within the process of delivering content to various platforms, formats and consumer propositions such as linear, digital, and FAST. Alongside this, they’re having to deliver this in line with multiple requirements, such as different languages, subtitles, and then processing and adapting the content to meet the needs of various platforms, territories and affiliates.
Essentially, today’s environment demands faster service launches, more granular content personalisation, and the ability to support new platforms all without compromising on quality. The challenge for the industry has been pivoting away from legacy models which are developed with consistency in mind, towards products and services that are agile at heart. It’s agility that will serve as the new benchmark in R&D and product development. Whether it’s live events, launching new channels, or sunsetting old ones, broadcasters are seeking products that they can test before making an enormous commitment to, and ones that allow them to scale up and down in a cost-effective manner.”
Where do you see the most opportune areas for innovation in your area of the market, and what tech/solutions will drive that development?
First, it’s important to understand what’s driving innovation, and that’s profitability pressures. Broadcasters are facing the dual challenge of maximising ad revenue and reducing operational costs. It’s that pressure that’s forcing them towards more cost-effective, innovative technologies, and more affordable and componentised cloud-based services. Ultimately, broadcasters want to see products, tech and solutions that are built for the cloud, rather than retrofit.
While many expected playout to be among the first broadcast functions to move to the cloud, it has followed after headend and live operations more gradually. However, owing to cloud playout’s cost efficiency, scalability and flexibility, this is now changing. From ingest and encoding to scheduling and metadata, cloud playout unlocks flexibility across the media supply chain and re-simplifies the ecosystem.
The reality is that to drive real value, the whole ecosystem must evolve. By this, I mean that business operations must become more API/cloud-centric, so as to scale infrastructure, capabilities, and services up and down alongside playout, providing that all important boost to resilience.
What are you working on currently that excites you as a product team, and what can we expect to see at IBC2025?
We’re particularly excited about the strides we’re making in software-defined, cloud-native solutions—in order to support our customers as they navigate changing viewing appetites and expectations. At IBC2025, our main focus will be on developments in playout, showcasing how we’re enabling more agile, scalable, and future-ready broadcast operations.
