Media Supply Festival 2023

In the first of our customer showcase sessions, we’ll explore how Sinclair Broadcast Group has built a new cloud-first supply chain using modular, best of breed tools from vendors large and small.

Media companies often ask for modular products, but what exactly does that mean? How granular should tools and products be? Do the media companies have the skills and capabilities they need to integrate these modular solutions? And does a wide range of modular products create a large set of vendors that’s hard to manage?

Associated Press occupies an unusual position in the media supply chain, as a business to business supplier of news information and content. How has its supply chain modernisation been impacted by the needs of other media businesses? And to what extent will AI play a part in news production in the near future?

Channel 4 has a unique status as a publicly funded commercial broadcaster, and as such it aims to serve not just viewers, but the UK’s media economy. So how has its supply chain transformation enabled its ecosystem of production suppliers, service providers, and technology partners?

An examination of the practical methodologies used for implementing business change, and the lessons to be learned from past successes and failures.

Over recent decades, the media industry has become dramatically more reliant on general purpose IT infrastructure. And in recent years, it has embraced concepts of supply chain management pioneered elsewhere. Yet it remains an industry fueled by content and creativity. So for a senior leader who’s worked in payments, infrastructure, and food and beverage, just how similar - or different - is the media business?

An efficient modern supply chain connects many different tools and data sources, but it also increasingly connects automated steps to manual processes. How will automation and the human touch best be deployed to create efficient supply chains?

Machine learning has long been seen as a tool to automate repetitive tasks. But recent advancements in generative AI have shown that machines can be more creative than many ever expected. So how will processes in post production change, and how will AI assist - or threaten - creative users?

In a challenging economic climate, businesses are seeking to reduce costs while maintaining or increasing revenue. Talk of transformation has given way to a pragmatic focus on operational efficiency. So how is the modern media supply chain contributing to business success?

Media companies on different continents face many of the same challenges, yet they have different contexts. How do these differences and similarities affect their approach? And how can they learn from each other?

ZDF Studios has embarked on a reimagining of its media supply chain, building on a modular architecture of API-first solutions. But it has also built custom user interfaces to meet business users’ needs, and integrated low-code solutions for data access and manipulation. We examine how technology is meeting the needs of the German media company’s users.

What does it take to run a successful vendor company in a fast moving media industry? We speak to the leaders of major services and technology companies, and see how they react to the messages from our media company CTO interviews.

Supply chain modernisation enables speed to market, content monetisation and efficiency. It puts the industry into the creative industry. In theory. But what's happening in practice? Is technology now being recognised as a key commercial enabler, or is still seen as a functional necessity? In this final session we reflect on what we've just heard from senior media industry leaders, as well as what we are seeing in the wider market, and ask if the role of technology in media has fundamentally changed?

In this unique workshop, we invite every attendee at the conference to help define the key takeaway messages from the past two days. This will enable us to summarise the key insights which will be published for all DPP members.