As head of international technology at ITV Studios, Rob O'Brien is always on the lookout for new technology that can allow the company to work more flexibly and develop new workflows.
Based in the UK but with operations in 12 other countries, ITV Studios is a television production and distribution company owned by the British broadcaster ITV plc. Best-known for its output for UK channels such as ITV and Channel 4, ITV Studios is also intensively involved with broadcast production and distribution in the US, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Israel, France, Spain and Scandinavia.
Overseeing the non-UK technical operations from London, head of international technology Rob O'Brien concisely summarises his main role as being to maintain, organise and innovate. I spend a lot of my time looking at innovation, managing technical teams, and heading up the shift towards a new landscape which inevitably involves a great deal of research around the cloud and computing innovation in general.
Whilst there might seem to be an air of inevitability about O'Brien landing such a role by his own admission he was the geek that teachers asked to help with their IT he insists that he originally studied computing because I was rubbish at everything else! But it's true that I knew from a young age that I was going to pursue a career in technology, and once I had completed my Bachelor of Computer Engineering I started out in the newspaper industry working on picture asset management.
Given his subsequent progression into broadcasting, it was a case of right place, right time' as developers of asset management technology were then beginning to target TV production. Recognising that this is where his aspirations resided, O'Brien had an initial stint at ITV working on ITV's early digital and tapeless initiatives, but also picking up invaluable knowledge of CDNs, transcoding and media distribution. He then spent a period at Sony Pictures, where he added an international dimension to his career by overseeing digital content production distribution for platforms around Europe.
All of this experience meant that he was very well-prepared for his second, and ongoing, stint at ITV Studios. Working as lead technologist in digital creation, O'Brien was tasked with making our use of data more structured and, latterly, working to better align the ITV businesses in the UK and internationally so that they could communicate and create more efficiently. Eventually that evolved into the new role of head of international technology.
Alignment between the different ITV Studios operations continues to be an overriding priority for O'Brien, who works closely with each territory's technology head to ensure that the corporate stacks are working well and that all of the systems we use i.e. for production, data and archiving are effectively organised, and where they differ between operations that they are fully aligned.
Innovation as a Competitive Edge
In terms of both content production and distribution, and the technologies that underpin them, few would argue with the assertion that we are in the midst of a period of profound change. But while this undoubtedly heralds some significant challenges, it also brings with it some exciting opportunities. Innovation is a big part of our world, confirms O'Brien. Everyone is looking at, and comparing us to, the new peers in our market, such as Netflix. That means there is a lot of emphasis on how we can use innovation in order to secure a competitive edge.
It's not surprising, then, that O'Brien keeps a close watch on emerging technology trends, such as the migration of media production to the cloud. Like many broadcast tech leaders, his enthusiasm for the cloud's potential is only marginally tempered by its economic implications. As well as being more reliable for example, in terms of the risk of system failures the cloud offers much greater capacity to change, adapt and scale our operations, he says. So, if we acquire another system, it's very easy to upscale. Plus, there are some fantastic cloud services we can utilise, such as those using AI to deliver translation and localisation services.
O'Brien is also in no doubt that going it alone' for example, in terms of creating a bespoke ITV data centre would be prohibitively expensive, not only in terms of technology, but also in salaries for staff with the necessary technical expertise to run those systems. Building their own data centre would also be problematic in terms of the broadcaster's low-carbon trajectory. Sustainability is a big thing for ITV, we have made a commitment to becoming Net Zero and are on track for that, so it's great that [leading cloud service providers like] AWS and Microsoft support our sustainability targets, he says. We also need to retain the ability to scale up in a way that is sustainable. We are a growing business that is often developing interests in new territories and having that availability of resources whenever we need them is critical.
But he is acutely aware of cloud challenges, especially when working at the kind of scale required by ITV Studios. Of course, there are negatives and cost is potentially one of those. I don't really like the word cloud, I prefer the word rent' because all you're doing, really, is renting someone else's servers. And, if you use too much, it's going to cost more than you expected.
Rapid Content Migration
Many of these strands have come together during the past year as O'Brien has sought a fresh approach to the management of ITV Studios' content archive. Once again, alignment is the watchword here as many of the leading formats are distributed or franchised internationally. If ITV Studios makes a show such
Europe Stories
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Thursday 2 July 2026
Tea with Judi Dench returns to Sky Arts with legendary guest, Sir Ian McKellen
Sky today confirms Tea with Judi Dench will return this su...
01/07/2026
New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more
Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...
01/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
01/07/2026
Exclusive run of limited-edition modelling pedals
Sweetwater and Andertons M...
01/07/2026
LEXINGTON, Kentucky - July 2026 -Tyler Childers' seventh and latest studio record, Snipe Hunter, is an adventurously sprawling collection of tunes that span...
01/07/2026
** MEDIA ALERT **
BLEACH Comes to Life in Los Angeles with First-of-Its-Kind...
01/07/2026
UKTV has today announced the appointment of Matt Berry to the newly created role of General Manager - Marketing, effective 1 July.
Matt will take on this senio...
01/07/2026
Sky Zero Footprint Fund-backed TV campaign featuring Deborah Meaden challenges consumers to rethink everyday bathroom wasteWednesday 1 July 2026
Fussy asks Bri...
01/07/2026
Constituency-level analysis reveals where girls miss out most on sport - and where targeted action could unlock more than £640 million in economic and health be...
01/07/2026
Wuppertal July 1, 2026
Riedel and SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration With SimplyLive IntegrationRiedel Communications today announced an expanded collaboration wit...
01/07/2026
Apple today introduced power-packed updates to Apple Creator Studio, a groundbre...
01/07/2026
Nectar360, the Retail Media, Loyalty and Insights business of the Sainsburys Gro...
01/07/2026
9.2 million streams on RT Player between 11 and 28 June
Reach of 2.9 million viewers during Group stages of FIFA World Cup on RT 2
23 million video views acr...
30/06/2026
Could your journalism reach an international stage?
Entries are now open for the Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2026, one of the most prestigi...
30/06/2026
Brings together saturation & lo-fi effects
Following on from the release of their Voxcraft vocal-processing plug-in, UJAM have announced the launch of Retro...
30/06/2026
New IR reverb engine, Juno-inspired chorus & more
The latest version of Rapid Flow's hardware-emulation synth plug-in expands on its predecessor with a ...
30/06/2026
Excels at heavy-handed VCA compression
For their latest release, Shy Audio have recreated the crunchy' sound of a rackmount compressor that found its w...
30/06/2026
Component scarcity drives cost increases
Shortly after Apple's CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that cost increases would soon be inevitable , the company hav...
30/06/2026
Hitachi and Bank Pekao S.A. have completed the installation of the first Hitachi...
30/06/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
29/06/2026
Four-layer instrument aimed at dark electronic music
Excite Audio's latest software instrument has been designed with dark drum and bass, atmospheric te...
29/06/2026
New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more
Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...
29/06/2026
Details environmental policies & results
The Focusrite Group have just announced that following a long audit process, they have published their 2026 sustain...
29/06/2026
Arvato Systems Achieves AWS Cloud Operations Competency
The team behind the AWS Cloud Operations Competency (from left to right: Philipp Hellmich, Johanna Bod...
29/06/2026
RT today announced that Ger Gilroy will join the RT Podcasts team to present a daily sports podcast. Launching later this year, the new show will set the spor...
29/06/2026
RT Commercial announced OUTsurance as sponsor of the Oliver Callan show on RT Radio 1 from Wednesday 1 July.
Oliver Callan doubles the fun, delivering two ...
28/06/2026
Half-size model joins Console 1 line-up
Shortly after the release of their new Flow Studio controller, Softube have announced the launch of another new surf...
As head of international technology at ITV Studios, Rob O'Brien is always on the lookout for new technology that can allow the company to work more flexibly and develop new workflows.
