The roles of broadcast engineers and CTOs are evolving, becoming increasingly IT-focused as cloud services and cybersecurity reshape traditional AV and media technology. This shift is impacting how media and entertainment companies implement their technologies.
“When I came into the company in ’22, coming 20-plus years out of IT industry services, it was just an inflection point,” said Eric Hutto, CEO of Diversified, in an interview with NewscastStudio. “AV integration would eventually just run smack into IT, moving to services, cloud, cyber – so many more things would come to bear to shape our ability to deliver what we know today as media, broadcasting, or even really just event spaces.”
This convergence is accelerating as clients prioritize cybersecurity, content monetization, and comprehensive technology solutions. The industry is moving away from traditional project-based work towards outcome-focused implementations, requiring a more holistic approach. “It’s not so much about the project, it’s about the overall outcome that the business wants to achieve,” Hutto said. “If you don’t have a holistic view of what it takes to get that business outcome, it will be hard to be profitable because you’ll just be relegated to a space.”
The integration industry faces challenges including rising labor costs, decreasing hardware prices, and talent shortages. CIOs now often control budgets previously managed by facilities teams, influencing how integration firms market their services. These IT-focused buyers expect comprehensive solutions incorporating cybersecurity, cloud capabilities, and managed services. “Our buyers have changed in our industry. We’ve got CIOs now buying my services, not a facilities manager,” Hutto said. “They’re more accustomed to the bigger technology stack conversations and managed services, and they’re asking themselves, ‘Well, you don’t look like anything I’ve been consuming for 20 years.’"
Integrators are responding by expanding their capabilities. Diversified, for example, has added cybersecurity personnel and partnered with external security firms. They've also established an innovation team to develop technology roadmaps. The increasing need for flexible staffing solutions for live production has led to the offering of temporary production teams that scale to event needs. “We can run your concert and then we can disappear. We can run 300 live events for you and then go away,” Hutto said. “You don’t have to bear the staff. We can even stand up the environment.”
The demand for software-based solutions is growing as organizations grapple with hardware refresh cycles. Traditional replacement schedules clash with depreciation periods, creating financial pressure. “Everybody’s trying to figure out how to maximize the revenue from their investment,” Hutto said. “We’re now looking at our suppliers to actually say, look, if you’re not software-remote capable, in other words, I can commission a program from anywhere in the world, and if you’re not cyber-cloud-oriented, you’re probably not relevant three to five [years out].”
Integrators are also adding design capabilities, allowing for better accountability throughout projects. “We now have our own design consultants that clients enjoy because whoever designed it, someone’s got to install it,” Hutto said. “If we design it, we can be accountable to it. And we actually can then adjust to things that come up during the actual implementation.”
Cloud technologies are impacting traditional broadcast infrastructure, including outside broadcast operations. This shift influences capital expenditure models as organizations seek operational expense alternatives. This is particularly impacting the outside broadcast sector, where truck-based production faces competition from cloud-based remote production solutions. “I think we both see the cloud is going to change the dynamics of a capital-based truck rolling environment,” Hutto said, referring to traditional outside broadcast providers.
Hutto emphasizes that the broadcast integration industry must evolve towards outcome-based solutions, requiring vendor neutrality. “If I’m truly going to be a solutions company, I have to be agnostic,” Hutto said. “I can’t be motivated by the spiff, because that may not be the best technical answer to that business problem that achieves long-term for the client.”