How the Cloud Is Fundamentally Reshaping Broadcast and Streaming Workflows

By Kristie Fung, SVP, Product & Solution Management at TMT Insights

In an industry shaped by constant innovation and evolving consumer expectations, the cloud is a business-critical enabler. From broadcasting to streaming, media companies are moving decisively into cloud-first operations, recognizing that cloud-native workflows aren’t just about convenience, they are the foundation for scale, speed, and strategic agility.

TMT Insights’ operational management platform Polaris stands at the forefront of this transformation. We're not just helping companies adopt the cloud; we're helping integrate disparate tools (along with any other third-party or in-house solutions) into one unified interface, offering a single pane of glass for content operations. This means teams can manage complex workflows from a unified UI, improving coordination, task management, and workflow visibility. The result is a smoother, more efficient content operation tailored to the specific needs of each user, helping them get things done faster and more effectively.

Cloud in Action: Powering Modern Media Workflows

The cloud is fundamentally reshaping every aspect of the media supply chain. Today, cloud-based services are used to ingest, manage, edit, transcode, and distribute content at a scale and speed previously unimaginable.

Take content ingestion, for example. High-speed transfer tools allow distributed teams to move large files quickly and securely, accelerating the start of production workflows. Once content is in the system, cloud-native media asset management platforms enable global access to vast media libraries, complete with AI-powered search and retrieval capabilities.

In the post-production phase, cloud-hosted editing environments empower editorial teams to work together in real time from anywhere, eliminating the need for physical proximity to media or specialized hardware. Meanwhile, transcoding solutions simplify large-scale encoding and format conversion, making multi-platform delivery both faster and more cost-effective.

When it comes time to distribute content, there are tools that ensure seamless, low latency streaming to viewers around the world, enhancing the user experience and expanding audience reach.

These tools are transformative, but the complexity of managing multiple platforms can easily become overwhelming. That’s where a platform like Polaris makes the difference.

Polaris: The Operational Glue for the Cloud Era

Polaris fuses best-of-breed tools, alongside custom and in-house systems, into a single, intuitive interface. It acts as a central command center, offering teams full control over content workflows from end to end.

This unified approach streamlines task management and orchestration, improves cross-team collaboration, and delivers real-time visibility into every stage of the content lifecycle. The result is faster, more accurate workflows that scale with the needs of the business.

Our work with A+E Networks illustrates this perfectly. By migrating editing workflows to the cloud and integrating Adobe Premiere Pro with centralized storage solutions like LucidLink and AWS, A+E enabled editors to collaborate remotely with minimal friction. Polaris added another layer of efficiency, overseeing operations and integrating AI tools to automate metadata tagging and content discovery. This shift not only increased speed and transparency but also set A+E up to scale their operations as technology evolves.

Similarly, Sky used Polaris to unify operations across its UK, Germany, and Italy teams. Before Polaris, their workflows were siloed and difficult to manage. Now, a single dashboard provides end-to-end oversight, improving everything from task coordination to issue resolution—without requiring them to replace their existing systems.

Virtual Production, AI & Cloud-Native Creativity

Cloud technology is unlocking entirely new possibilities in virtual production, post-production, and asset management. Editors and producers no longer need to be in the same room, or even on the same continent, to work on a project. Through virtualized production environments and cloud-native editing tools, they can now collaborate in real time with ease.

AI is playing a vital role here as well. Integrated into Polaris workflows, AI tools automate complex tasks such as segment detection, object recognition, and metadata enrichment. This dramatically reduces manual work, improves discoverability, and speeds up editorial decision-making.

The Cloud Isn’t Just for Tech Teams Anymore

Cloud adoption is no longer the exclusive domain of IT departments. Operational leaders, content strategists, and business executives recognize the cloud's role in driving efficiency, innovation, and resilience. From broadcasters modernizing legacy systems to global streaming platforms scaling up their reach, cloud technology is now an essential infrastructure.

At the same time, live event producers are leveraging cloud-based, serverless architectures to scale resources on demand. This is especially critical during major global broadcasts where performance, speed, and reliability are non-negotiable.

Why Now? The Cloud's Tipping Point for Media

So, why has cloud technology become such a focal point now, after more than a decade of slow adoption? Several factors have converged to push cloud to the forefront.

First, cloud-native services have matured significantly. What once required custom builds can now be deployed out of the box, reducing time to value. Second, automation has evolved alongside AI and machine learning, enabling faster, more efficient workflows for everything from localization to compliance. Finally, consumer behavior has shifted decisively toward on-demand, personalized streaming, demanding the kind of agility only cloud infrastructure can deliver.

TMT Insights sees this as a watershed moment. Cloud strategy is no longer optional, it’s foundational. Media organizations that invest in strategic, integrated cloud solutions are positioning themselves to lead.

Cloud Strategy is Business Strategy

The media industry stands at a critical inflection point. Cloud technology isn’t simply transforming how companies operate; it’s reshaping the industry’s entire value chain.

With Polaris, TMT is helping companies move beyond point solutions and toward strategic integration. The companies that thrive in this next chapter won’t just use cloud technology; they’ll lead with it.