ViacomCBS To Migrate Entire Broadcast Footprint to AWS Cloud as Part of New Deal

Touted as 'one of the first such large-scale transformations in the M&E industry'

In one of the most significant commitments to the cloud by a major media company to date, ViacomCBS announced an agreement that makes Amazon Web Services the preferred cloud provider for its global broadcast media operations. As part of the strategic agreement, ViacomCBS will migrate operations for its entire broadcast footprint, which spans 425 linear television channels and 40 global data and media centers, to the AWS cloud – one of the first such large-scale transformations in the media and entertainment industry.

According to the two companies, the migration will enable ViacomCBS to drive greater efficiencies and cost savings, simplify access to content for its licensing partners, and reliably deliver new viewing experiences to consumers by broadcasting and streaming content on any device.

“We are expanding our strategic relationship with AWS to support our industry-leading technology and operations transformation,” says Phil Wiser, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at ViacomCBS. “With AWS, we will be able to automate and streamline our processes for content production, licensing, and distribution to consumer streaming services and innovate faster to deliver improved customer experiences. We are thinking and acting aggressively to build on the major disruptions that ViacomCBS is bringing to the market with our leading global content and services. AWS’s deep portfolio of services will help us unleash the power of content in new and interesting ways that benefit our advertisers, licensing partners, and streaming services.”

ViacomCBS will leverage AWS’s infrastructure cloud capabilities, including serverless, containers, databases, media services, analytics, and machine learning, to build a cloud-based broadcast and media supply chain operating model. This new cloud-based hub will help the broadcaster spin up new channels faster, dynamically assemble live content to optimize delivery over any distribution channel, add image and video analysis to applications, and automate workflows.

ViacomCBS plans to use AWS Elemental media services as well as AWS machine learning technologies, including Amazon Rekognition (AWS’s service that adds intelligent image and video analysis to applications) and Amazon SageMaker (AWS’s service for building, training, and deploying machine learning models), to quickly scale video processing resources, automate workflows, and predict audience preferences. These capabilities will aid ViacomCBS in producing and streaming dynamic content and enabling efficient national and local news distribution on CBSN, CBS News’s 24/7 digital streaming service.

“We are excited to deepen our relationship with ViacomCBS to redefine video delivery of media and entertainment content for global audiences across any platform,” says Greg Pearson, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at Amazon Web Services. “Moving its broadcast media operations to AWS gives ViacomCBS the agility to lower costs, take advantage of new distribution models, and drive efficiency and innovation across its entire global media operations. Using AWS’s proven operational experience and unparalleled portfolio of services, ViacomCBS can create and deliver new video content experiences with the utmost reliability and reach audiences no matter what platform they use.”