SVG Sit-Down: Telstra Broadcast Services CEO Karen Clark on the Challenge of Live Global Distribution

SVG Sit-Down: Telstra Broadcast Services CEO Karen Clark on the Challenge of Live Global Distribution The company aims to be one-stop shop for fiber/satellite/internet solutions' By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Monday, April 21, 2025 - 11:27 am

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At the NAB Show, the LVCC's West Hall has become the hottest spot for transmission-related services of all types, and Telstra Broadcast Services stands out in transport providers' evolution from being about pipes and transport to being about signal management and quality control. Karen Clark, who was appointed CEO last November and is an eight-year veteran of the company and 25-year veteran of the industry, sat down with SVG to discuss the show, industry trends, and the evolution of managed services.

Karen Clark was named CEO of Telstra Broadcast Services last November.

What was your focus at NAB 2025?

Our focus is on doubling down on our managed media networks because our customers really like that we are that one-stop shop for fiber/satellite/internet solutions. The opportunity for us has been to expand that global reach, and, since last year, we have dozens more points of presence on our networks, with additional monitoring tools that leverage some of the newer AI technologies around operational efficiencies and automation on our internet delivery network. In addition, we're leveraging our global telco backbone to provide increased reliability and security over the public internet, and that is resonating well.

Of course, a key focus, particularly in the Americas, is live sport, and I think we are punching above our weight, because there are so many incredible events over the next couple of years that we're absolutely delighted to play a role in. We're doubling down on our investments in this part of the world.

How does Telstra look to stand apart from other service providers in the market?

The market is under much pressure, and there's much disruption, fragmentation, consolidation, and change. Coming into the role of CEO, it has been very important to consider who we are, where we want to be, and where we want to play. You can't be everything to everyone and spread yourselves too thin, so I think it comes back to our DNA as a wholly owned subsidiary of a global telecommunications and technology company that has 400,000 km of sub-sea cables, dozens of cable landing stations, hundreds of data centers, and five satellite teleports.

As the B2B arm in media and entertainment globally for Telstra, we're in a unique position to leverage that investment and that infrastructure - and those investments continue to grow. We just need to stay quite close to who we are and what we've been doing so well: providing trusted transmission capabilities with our managed service. Yes, we have value-added services around the connectivity using our bookings and master control, but you are not going to see us go off in a completely different direction and try to be everything to everyone. I think where we play very, very well is in live global connectivity. That's our sweet spot: being a global player.

What's new here at NAB?

Our recent announcement of a partnership with Unique Feed, the Swiss virtual-advertising-software provider, is a nice partnership for delivering contribution distribution of live sporting events globally. We love their technology as it doesn't require anything onsite and is truly a remote operation that we can spin up in our broadcast centers around the world. That's a perfect example of the value-add that we can make.

It has been fascinating to watch how Telstra has evolved over the years to become more than just the company to contact for transmission services in Australia and the Pacific. What was the trick in changing customers' perception of what Telstra is about?

From a go-to market perspective, we focused quite hard on live and region-to-region and then on leveraging our networks as well as partners in specific regions. And our recruitment practices over the years have helped us develop an incredible team that provides those managed services, particularly in the major-events field-operations space. That has helped us build the trust to deliver massive Tier 1 sporting events and show that we're a safe pair of hands for premium workflows. We've been able to build momentum off that.

The nature of sports events today is that not only are global events more globally distributed but smaller leagues are looking to expand their global presence. What do you see as the opportunity in all the leagues' looking to expand their global presence?

As we continue to grow our media networks and bring on more and more partners and broadcasters and platforms, there's the network effect: once you have your content on our network, you've got access to 2,000 different media organizations around the world. That makes global distribution easier. While we don't get involved in any content-rights deals, we are very good at facilitating introductions and are always keen to open our little black book and help some of those emerging leagues to get more eyeballs on their content globally.

That's one of the reasons we've invested so heavily in a portfolio of fiber plus satellite plus internet. A lot of the deals we're doing now are hybrids. For example, we'll do a major sports league going to 20 different takers, and every taker has different format requirements. Some of them want an SRT delivery, some of them want their own edge device, some of them want a premium fiber delivery, and some of them want a satellite uplink. We're able to bundle that into one managed service, and that makes it easier for the client. They can rate-card it and pay just for what they use.

It wasn't too long ago that open internet became a viabl

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