Shane Ormsby (far left) and Junior Hunter (far right) enjoy networking at the Broadcast Asia's Future of Broadcast Expo, in Singapore.
Staying ahead of the rapidly evolving media landscape in the Pacific is one of the key priorities for Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Limited (PCBL).
Helping to ensure PCBL stays relevant, Chief Operations Officer Junior Hunter and Chief Technical Officer Shane Ormsby attended Broadcast Asia’s Future of Broadcast Singapore Expo, in late May.
On his return to Aotearoa New Zealand, Shane says there are many reasons to attend the international broadcast trade show, including gaining insight into the latest technology and leading trends.
“Specifically, we are looking at a range of scalable solutions that may be relevant to meet the aspirations of our Pacific broadcasters considering digital platforms, to be implemented over the next year or so,” Shane says.
“These events are also great opportunities to understand better where the industry is heading and what technology is having the biggest impact.”
Meanwhile, it is a chance to network and meet key stakeholders, vendors and industry contacts.
Based on the theme, Broadcast Future Forward, the Asia-based conference aligns with what is happening in the Pacific region currently, Shane explains.
Throughout the three-day conference, Junior and Shane explored new initiatives and information about various topics, including industry standard cloud-native transformation.
“Another theme the conference addressed is AI integration, which is happening everywhere, but Pacific language models are still a long way off due to low demand priorities,” Shane says.
“Also, it has been established that Asian and Pacific markets need to take different approaches to Western models, when it comes to regional content monetisation, especially when populations are smaller.
“Streaming disruption is a current focus, where traditional free-to-air broadcast models are under increasing pressure and streaming OTT solutions are gaining attention and maturity.”
Shane adds connectivity solutions, and alternative methods for Pacific broadcasters during natural disasters to obtain initial footage and restore some limited production and broadcast capability for communicating with local audiences were of particular relevance for PCBL currently.
Junior says while there are many learnings from the conference, which can potentially be implemented at PCBL, there are a couple of key takeaways.
“The major learnings for us, is we are not niche,” Junior says.
“Pacific challenges are a concentrated version of what all Asia-Pacific broadcasters face.
“The other lesson is, technology is ready – cloud workflows, OTT and AI are all production-ready, and connectivity is the key enabler.”
Visit the Broadcast Asia website for more information.
