SVG Sit-Down: Imagine Communications’ Kyle Luther Dishes on IP, the Cloud, FAST

The media/entertainment veteran is the company’s new VP, American sales

Since joining Imagine in August, VP, American Sales, Kyle Luther has been spending a lot of time listening to customers to better understand their technology needs. After more than 25 years in the media and entertainment industry, his experience at companies like Ross Video, Grass Valley and TVU Networks gives him a solid perspective on the technical and business evolutions (and revolutions) the sports-production market is going through. He spoke with SVG about his new role, the digital/broadcast future, and more.

Imagine’s Kyle Luther: “The most significant trend [in live sports coverage] is connected television, [with] a shift toward an ad-supported model for monetizing content.”

What are you hearing from customers in terms of where they are headed and what they need?
If we look at the 2023 IABM Live Sports Sector Trends report, it clearly shows that remote production, imaging, OTT, and streaming platforms are among the most important technical drivers of investment in live sports. And what we’re seeing is that the most significant trend within the transformation taking place is connected television (CTV). While the success of streaming services was initially centered on subscription video-on-demand, there has been a notable shift toward an ad-supported model for monetizing content, and the consumers are on board with this.

You mean the move toward FAST channels?
Exactly. We are collaborating with our strategic partner Amagi to help sports-media distributors leveraging increasing demand for FAST content. This market has grown 70% year-over-year in viewership, and these connected-TV channels can be launched for pop-up or for live-coverage events targeted at a highly focused audience. And cloud-based playout is cost-effective and versatile, so it makes for a great platform for business-model experimentation. I think the connected-TV driver is going to have a significant impact on sports this year and will continue to do so in 2024. The DTC platforms are taking a big share of broadcast sports in Europe and in the U.S.; it has peaked at 14.8% in 2023. So we’re already seeing that impact.

Can you elaborate on the Amagi relationship?
We like to think that our customer journey starts at the beginning, asking what problem are you trying to solve? We engage our customers and try to identify the business model they’re trying to meet and how our platforms can help them meet their primary business model and monetize content. That begins by evaluating what the requirements are for an on-prem playout environment as well as whether hybrid cloud playout would work. And our friends at Amagi can come in and do the needs analysis and then deploy the cloud-based production through Amagi CLOUDPORT. The on-prem portion is through Imagine’s playout systems, utilizing our cloud-based Aviator Orchestrator layer to be able to tie both of those together to manage linear as well as FAST playout content simultaneously.

Do you think FAST channels are of interest more to larger leagues and broadcasters or to smaller ones?
The most interesting thing about the FAST-channel market is that it runs that entire spectrum. Tier 1 enterprise sports networks are certainly exploring it as they’ve got the rights, they’ve got the technology, and they’ve got the personnel. They know how to deploy these types of channels, and they’ve been on the leading edge of testing the business models. But we’re also finding some Tier 2 and Tier 3 content providers who are providing coverage of sports that you normally wouldn’t see. It proves that there’s an appetite, a demographic that wants to see some of these niche sports, whether it’s the Alpine sports or backyard recreational sports. And that has been interesting because we’re helping some small businesses start and they’re passionate about content while we’re passionate about technology and helping them monetize that content.

Imagine has been at the forefront of the move to IT, COTS, and the cloud. What do you see as some of the intrinsic strengths in terms of Imagine products and strategies regarding the move to both IP and the cloud?
We were one of the innovators in IT, leading customers on that journey to the early adopters of ST 2110 and the AIMS standard of IP packetization. What we’re hearing from our customers and why I think we’re in a strong position to support them is simply our history. One of the unique things about this company is not only that we have a great history of innovation and collaboration but that our product and technical teams, the visionaries, are continually participating in standards development. Our products are developed with the highest level of technical and ISO compliance, and we’re proving to be a really good and dependable technical partner for people to lean on.

It seems as if we will be in a hybrid environment for quite some time: a mix of IP, SDI, cloud, and hardware. What are you hearing?
I agree with you. I think media companies have got to make the priority investments where they see the greatest return, the lowest long-term cost of ownership, and what’s going to enhance their production values and draw more viewers to content. ST 2110 is going to establish itself as the clear migration path to IP as it is an agnostic platform that provides non-blocking architecture and utilizes COTS hardware. That is not only efficient and less expensive to own, but it’s also green, right?

We do still have a strong base of HD-SDI customers, no doubt; that format still makes a ton of sense for them to stay in the baseband domain. I think that the elegant thing is the path that we give them to create these hybrid environments with our SNP, our Selenio Network Processor, where we can help them manage both HD-SDI baseband signals and ST 2110 signals. We can encode and decode between those formats, including HDR-curve changes and be able to give a migration path to IP. When it comes time for them to make a larger shift or acquire new technology, they can make a migration as opposed to a forklift shift.

Do you find that your customers are more amenable to hybrid solutions?
It depends on the facility. If you’re looking at the venue space — which, clearly, we do a lot of work in — we’ve got some great partnerships with the Golden State Warriors, NFL Media, and Texas A&M, to name a few. When they get that budget, it might come along only every 10 years to do either a new build, if they’re lucky, or a rebuild. You’ve got one chance there to make a decision: should we go in on IP? We’re seeing those facilities — especially when they have to have the flexibility to receive signals from multiple campuses, a training facility, the team office, local broadcasters — use IP tunneling to get signals from remote locations and bring them in. In those cases, it is a simple answer: IP is the way to go.

But not everybody has that budget, and some customers have to say, let’s set a migration path. They want to make sure they’re choosing vendors that are standards-based but also can provide that migration path.

You recently had a road show with AWS, Vizrt, and Amagi. What was some of the feedback you heard?
It was positive, and it went across the spectrum from Class A mobile companies to networks, sports networks, station groups, independent producers. And the feedback, the primary piece we got, is that they commended us for our partnership because there was a clear line of demarcation for where each one of the four brands started and finished. But there was also a clear demonstration through our Aviator Orchestrator that we can drive and control all of those systems. That is what they want to see moving forward: companies that are working well with other best-of-breed companies to provide solutions.

Last question: what excites you the most about Imagine and the future?
The loyalty of our base and how they’re working with us on these migrations for playout in ST 2110 is very interesting to this brand. I haven’t seen that in a lot of companies, and I think a lot has to do with the thought leaders that we’re surrounded by. In our support department, for example, the average tenure is 20 years, and you just don’t find that in this business. The fact that we’re being brought in as trusted advisors really excites me. And helping some of these Tier 2 and Tier 3 businesses get stood up and circling back with them a year later and knowing that you are part of their business plan and their launch is gratifying. Just being along on the ride with everybody else in this business as we make this significant transition in how content is consumed is a great experience and great opportunity for all of us to think about our own business models and how we play in this ecosystem.