
SVG Sit-Down: Telstra Broadcast Services' Andreas Eriksson Focuses on Large-Scale Deployments, Managed Services Hybrid delivery platform, personalized workflows are part of the solutions offered By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, May 14, 2024 - 12:30 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Telstra Broadcast Services CEO Andreas Eriksson and the Telstra team around the globe continue to respond to an ever-changing broadcast-contribution and -distribution world. At NAB 2024, Eriksson sat down with SVG to discuss some of the company's new initiatives, evolving partnerships and alliances, and the future of the industry.
Telstra Broadcast Services' Andreas Eriksson: [With] tier-two or -three sports, there's a hunger to grow a whole sport or women's sport. Technology has enabled a lot of things that help [the quality].
What are some of the big themes for Telstra this year?
The big theme is, on the media-networks side, to continue to build out our internet delivery platform to have large-scale deployments, not just one-to-one, SRT-style deployments. It's about combining that into hybrid offerings with fiber, internet, and satellite so that we can offer a fully managed end-to-end service. That allows the rights owners to provide that service to the broadcasters, and they can pick and choose what is best for them.
The other thing we are doing is continue to build the portfolio around managed services on top of the media network. The virtual-advertising work we're doing with Supponor is a good example of that: we continue to work with technology partners focused on technology, and, being a managed-service provider, we provide managed services around that core technology. We're also working on our offering for [the AMPP platform] with the Grass Valley team, taking the core of that technology and providing it as an end-to-end managed service. We see that being a continuing trend.
There are more options than ever with respect to workflows that can be personalized for the client's specific needs. Are you finding that your conversations are becoming more personalized as you offer multiple ways to solve a workflow?
Yes, absolutely. We have the high-end fiber platform, an internet-based platform, and a very strong satellite offering with partners, as well as bespoke fiber solutions. And you have all those building blocks for a managed service located in three centers around the world that can do the booking and operation 24/7. Then it becomes a conversation around how you want to do the contribution, budget, risk appetite, and so forth. And it might end up a mix of high-end fiber solutions and maybe internet delivery for certain parts. It's a very customer-based solution built on standard components that are scalable for us. It's about having the Lego blocks that we can assemble into something specific.
Where do you see the cloud fitting in?
The reality is that no one has the money to just scrap what they have and move 100% to the new way, so we are in a transition as all this legacy hardware needs to be paid off and amortized. We see the cloud on deployments that have hybrid solutions because of performance requirements.
Actually, we are having more discussions around a software layer that can be deployed on-prem in a private cloud in combination with the public cloud for the same use case on something like archives. Cloud use is going to burst up and down, and when we look at working with vendors, they offer us floating licenses that we can mix and match based on the deployments. As a service provider, we want to be able to mix and match.
Three- or four-year market trends suggest that smaller federations and leagues are realizing that they want to have a global presence. And broadcasters are looking to have more-personalized services, which means that, in four years, they could be trying to transport many signals home from productions around the world versus just one signal. Does that make sports potentially a growth segment between now and 2030 with events like the 2026 World Cup and the Olympics in 2028?
It depends on how you look at the tier-one-style events. Of course, they will continue to want to bring more content out of an event and make different packages and so forth. The whole OTT use case is a 365/24/7 experience, so it's not the old days of appointment viewing. It requires more content and a different kind of content, and that's why you need to be able to bring more and more content out from an event. The tier-one events will want to bring more content, but will they have the budgets to do it right?
Of course, the cost of production is going down, but, with new technology, you can make a better production. [With] tier-two or -three sports, I think, there's a hunger to grow a whole sport or women's sport, which is great. Technology has enabled a lot of things for those sports that help [the quality].
How do you see AI playing a role at Telstra?
Today, it's a little bit of hype, and everyone talks about using it or having it. In three or five years, I think, it will be a little more ingrained, and companies will have more intelligence in their solutions. In our case, it would be how we manage and run network monitoring or things like predictive monitoring or virtual operators. It is a very powerful technology, and it will be used for different things. It might not be revolutionizing, but there will be logical things where it will be useful.
More from Sports Video Group
12/09/2025
College Football Kickoff 2025: Fox Sports Ups Look as Canon, Sony Power Shallow ...
12/09/2025
ABC/ESPN Excited For WNBA Postseason Coverage In Revamped FormatThe Finals moves to a best-of-seven series in 2025By Mark J Burns, SVG Contributor
Friday, Sep...
11/09/2025
Report: Busy Live Sports Streaming Execs Have Low-hanging Fruit' in Front o...
11/09/2025
Inside Game Creek Video's Big Week as Ovation, Flagship Make NFL DebutsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, September 11, 2025 - 7:00 am
Pr...
11/09/2025
NFL Kickoff 2025: Prime Sports Starts New Season at Lambeau Field; Sets Sights o...
11/09/2025
College Football Kickoff 2025: NBC Sports Pushes HDR Image Quality, Aerial Drone...
10/09/2025
Fox Sports Ups College Football Look as Canon, Sony Power Shallow Focus CoverageBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Wednesday, September 10, 2025 - 8:00 a...
10/09/2025
SAVE THE DATE: SVG College Summit Returns to Atlanta, May 27-28, 2026By SVG Staff
Wednesday, September 10, 2025 - 10:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
St...
10/09/2025
SVG Students to Watch: Chloe Gosk, Monmouth UniversityThe New Jersey native is honing her skills as a replay operatorBy Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Wed...
10/09/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Alex Souza, Assistant AD for Broadcast and Technology, ...
09/09/2025
Canon EOS C50 is Canon's Smallest, Lightest Cinema Camera EverBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, September 9, 2025 - 9:00 am
Print This St...
09/09/2025
ReachTV Elevates Its Game To Bring Live Sports to TravelersThe company is redefining sports distribution across airports, hotels, digital platformsBy Brandon Co...
09/09/2025
SVG All-Stars: Rusty West, Coordinating Producer of Live Events Technology, NBC ...
09/09/2025
AWS Elemental at 10: A Steady Stream of Cloud-based Video Processing Innovation ...
08/09/2025
Behind The Mic: John Fanta Finalizes Move to NBC; ESPN Gears Up for Fall of Foot...
08/09/2025
Powered Up: Inside the Los Angeles Chargers' New Content Studio at The Bolt Chargers SVP, Brand Creative & Content Jason Lavine offers a look at the facili...
08/09/2025
NFL Kickoff 2025: YouTube Breaks Ground With First Free Global NFL Stream, Backe...
08/09/2025
Dolby Vision 2 Promises to Make HDR Viewing Even BetterBy SVG Staff
Friday, September 5, 2025 - 10:14 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ea...
08/09/2025
BMG, Optimist Studios Combine Forces in L.A. to Give Content Creators Maximum Fi...
08/09/2025
CSI Sports/Fight Sports Announces 2026 Tyson-Mayweather Mega-Fight; Teases Strea...
08/09/2025
NFL Kickoff 2025: Fox Sports Upgrades A' Game Production with Ovation, Game...
08/09/2025
NFL Kickoff 2025: FOX Sports Launches Groundbreaking New LED-Fueled XR/AR StageThe revamp of Stage B follows in the footsteps of FOX's Stage A, which launch...
08/09/2025
NFL Kickoff 2025: CBS Sports Has Big Production Plans for Blockbuster Matchups, ...
08/09/2025
NFL Kickoff 2025: ESPN Opens Latest Era of Monday Night Football With New Trucks...
28/08/2025
The new oil is sports': Saudis share masterplan to boost esports on global stage By Adrian Pennington
Tuesday, August 26, 2025 - 08:49
Print This Story...
28/08/2025
Esports World Cup 2025: Team Falcons Defend Title as Broadcast Production Ramps ...
28/08/2025
Report: Mobile-first content has overtaken the big screen as the way fans watch ...
28/08/2025
New Era: A Pro's Guide to ESPN's Expanded College Football Playoff Graph...
28/08/2025
College Football Kickoff 2025: The CW Heads Into ACC, Pac-12 Schedule With New P...
28/08/2025
Live From US Open 2025: Tennis Channel Returns With Onsite Studio Show New set has a prime site; production is handled remotely By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
28/08/2025
NBC Sports Drives Its Coverage of NASCAR Cup Series Into Postseason Key technical upgrades for 2025 include modified Peacock Pit Box By Mark J Burns, SVG Contr...
28/08/2025
College Football Kickoff 2025: TNT Sports Launches First Big 12 Campaign With On...
28/08/2025
College Football Kickoff 2025: ESPN Gears Up for 1,000+ Games With Massive Opera...
28/08/2025
F&F's GTX21, the Company's Largest Production Unit, Hits the Road for CB...
27/08/2025
US Open 2025: ESPN Aims To Bring Viewers' Ears Closer to the Net The audio team is serving up more player and coach audio, reduced latency By Dan Daley, A...
27/08/2025
Riedel Brings Flex Licensing to Simply Live; Intros RiView VAR Expanded RiMotion replay, Venue Gateway contribution offerings, and Connect API also debut By Ke...
27/08/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Heather Winn on splitting the difference in sound fo...
27/08/2025
Cosm, NFL Ink New Deal for 2025 Season; Includes Post-Season, Super Bowl LX Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football also on tap for fans hungry to immers...
27/08/2025
Taking steps for sound: Warner Bros. Discovery Sports on how it is ramping up au...
26/08/2025
Former Sony and Broadcast Industry Tech Leader Alec Shapiro Dead at 72 For more than 40 years he changed the industry while leading Sony, Panasonic, Chyron, and...
26/08/2025
TCL Team Boxing League Prepares To Wrap Third Season Young league focuses on team aspect, deploys REMI production model By Mark J Burns, SVG Contributor
Tues...
26/08/2025
Banana Ballin': Fan First Entertainment Conveys Savannah Bananas Magic via R...
26/08/2025
Broadcast Industry Tech Leader Alec Shapiro Dead at 72 For more than 40 years he changed the industry while leading Sony, Panasonic, Chyron, and the industry at...
25/08/2025
IBC 2025: Grass Valley's Adam Marshall on IBC Intros, Partnerships, and Gen ...
25/08/2025
How XR and AR Are Changing Everything: An SVG Australia Summit Panel Discussion Leaders from ARL, Champion Data, Nine Entertainment, and Vizrt break down the im...
22/08/2025
Little League Baseball World Series: As Championship Weekend Approaches, ESPN Re...
21/08/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spolight: MyCaseBuilder's Steve Holand on Creating Custom Ca...
21/08/2025
Building From the Back: Will AI Benefit European Football Production and Distrib...
21/08/2025
Ratings Roundup: NBC Sports Starts EPL Season With Most-Watched Opening Weekend;...