Arqiva Cloud Playout: Flexibility, Trust, and Future-Readiness

Evolving Consumption, Unwavering Expectations

The way audiences consume content has undergone a seismic shift. While linear TV continues to hold its ground, especially for live events and shared cultural moments, the rise of VOD and OTT platforms has transformed how, when, and where people watch. Viewers now expect seamless access to content on any device, at any time, and in any location. But one thing hasn’t changed: their expectation for broadcast-grade quality.

This expectation - for reliability, immediacy, and flawless delivery - now applies across every platform. Whether it’s a live football match on a smart TV or a drama boxset streamed on a mobile phone, audiences demand the same high standards. Traditional broadcast remains a powerful medium, but it now coexists with an expanding universe of IP-delivered content. The result is a more complex, more fragmented, and more demanding content landscape than ever before.

Broadcasters and content owners are expected to deliver everything to everyone, everywhere. A single feed might need to support up to 20 languages, with accessibility features like subtitles and audio descriptions built in as standard. The result is a hybrid delivery model that challenges older workflows and demands a new level of operational agility.

Agility Over Infrastructure: The Cloud-Driven Imperative

In this environment, legacy infrastructure is no longer enough. Today’s content owners need to be faster, smarter, and more flexible. They must launch services quickly, support new platforms on demand, personalise content at a granular level, and manage costs - all without compromising on quality.

Legacy operational models, while robust, were designed for a different era. They prioritised stability over speed, and predictability over adaptability. But agility is now the name of the game. Broadcasters need to pivot quickly, respond to shifting audience behaviours, and embrace new delivery models.

Cloud-native, software-defined services offer a powerful solution. By decoupling operations from physical infrastructure, broadcasters gain the freedom to adapt, scale, and innovate in real time. Cloud platforms allow content owners to dynamically adjust capacity based on audience demand, whether that’s launching a new channel, testing regional variations, or spinning up a pop-up service for a special event.

This kind of agility is especially critical during high-pressure moments where demand can spike without warning, including live sports, breaking news, or major cultural events. With cloud infrastructure, content owners can respond instantly, ensuring seamless delivery at any scale. It also enables them to tailor content for specific markets or audience segments, and to experiment with new advertising models or monetisation strategies in a low-risk, low-cost environment.

Flexibility at the Core

Arqiva’s Cloud Playout solution is designed to offer maximum flexibility, placing operational control directly in the hands of broadcasters. Clients can opt for a fully managed service—where Arqiva oversees end-to-end delivery, or choose a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) model that enables in-house teams to manage their own workflows. This adaptable approach allows each broadcaster to align operational responsibilities with their strategic priorities, whether they prefer expert support or direct control.

This flexibility is central to Arqiva’s Cloud Playout proposition, empowering broadcasters to innovate at their own pace and according to their specific requirements. Both the managed service and PaaS models are built to scale rapidly and efficiently, whether launching a FAST channel or deploying an entire multiplex, the process is streamlined and accelerated for the customer.

Flexibility is delivered across three key dimensions:

• Flexible Capabilities

The solution supports features such as live voiceovers and integration of access services, catering to a wide range of broadcaster needs. This enables content owners to activate functionality for event-specific requirements or trial new features without long-term contractual obligations.

• Configurable Resiliency

Options include single or multi-availability zones and single or dual-site operator configurations, ensuring robust service continuity. Broadcasters can scale infrastructure to meet peak demand (e.g. major live events) or reduce capacity during off-peak periods, optimising resource use in line with audience behaviour.

• Adaptable Operating Models

Available as PaaS, hybrid, or fully managed, the solution allows broadcasters to tailor their operational model. This flexibility supports cost optimisation and enables a mix-and match approach to service levels, resiliency, and capability as business needs evolve.

Trust Built on Proven Excellence

Arqiva’s reputation for reliability has been forged over decades, supporting mission-critical broadcast operations for major international players. Leveraging a clean-slate, cloud-native architecture, Arqiva avoids technical debt, meaning customers benefit from solutions that are not only future-ready but also faster to deploy and more cost-effective to run.

Trust is further reinforced by Arqiva’s customer-first ethos, where every deployment is meticulously tailored to deliver business outcomes, not simply tick technical boxes. Arqiva’s heritage when it comes to dependability, combined with a strategic partnership mindset, ensures that broadcasters can rely on a collaborative, forward-thinking partner as they navigate digital transformation.

The Arqiva Advantage

Unlike many others in the market, we don’t carry the burden of outdated infrastructures. While competitors may be adopting cloud components, they’re often forced to integrate them into existing workflows, sometimes alongside on-premises playout systems. This dual-system approach introduces complexity, cost, and delay.

They’re maintaining two systems at once and adapting new technology to fit outdated processes. They’re retraining teams to work in unfamiliar ways that can slow the process down.

At Arqiva, we have no legacy systems. No parallel workflows. No compromises. We’ve built our cloud playout offering from the ground up, fast, flexible, and future-ready. We can help customers get up and running quickly, without the drag of outdated infrastructure. Essentially this means that customers benefit from solutions that are not only future-ready and more innovative, but also faster to deploy and more cost-effective to run.

The Cloud’s Watershed Moment

The industry has reached a tipping point. Changing viewing habits, evolving market dynamics, and rapid technological advancements have converged to create a new reality: cloud is no longer a future ambition, it’s a present necessity.

To future-proof their operations, content owners must embrace modular, scalable workflows that can flex with changing behaviours and market demands. Those who do will be better positioned to optimise performance, control costs, and thrive in a media landscape that’s more competitive and more fragmented than ever before.

This is the moment for cloud. Consumer expectations, market needs, and technology have aligned. The broadcasters who act now will define the next era of content delivery.