In the Fiercely Competitive Media Market, Intelsat Managed Services Allows Content Providers to Focus Where it Matters Most

The world’s media organizations remain locked in an intense battle for viewers and subscribers. With streaming providers and over-the-top TV services joining linear cable television companies in a fragmented, competitive, and oversaturated marketplace, the ability to survive and thrive requires massive investments in the development and production of content that will capture and retain the attention of viewers, and ultimately drive stronger advertising and subscription revenues.

In 2022, the top media and technology companies spent $140 billion on content development, a 10 percent increase from the previous year. That figure is expected to rise to $172 billion by 2025. Overall video consumption, which has increased by more than 60% over the past two years, is projected to continue to rise exponentially.  Success in an international market of thousands of providers, where acquisition costs can reach $200 per subscriber and churn rates can hit 70%, is dependent on the continuous generation of compelling content.

As if developing content wasn’t expensive and challenging enough, there’s also the task of distributing it all to affiliates and ensuring it reaches TVs and connected devices.

Historically, the largest media organizations owned and managed their own distribution infrastructure. However, with the increased demands to produce even greater volumes of content, media companies must devote the entirety of their attention and budget to original content development, pricing innovations, and bundling. They can no longer burden themselves with managing distribution networks that have only grown in size and complexity with industry consolidation creating even larger media monoliths.  

In response to these evolving marketplace challenges, Intelsat is taking its well-established Managed Media Services portfolio to a new level, developing a “next first” approach to content distribution in the modern media world, offering media owners, content creators, and broadcasters end-to-end management of the distribution of content through its Managed Media Services. The satellite company is adding a completely seamless switching layer for sources and uplinks, offering media owners, content creators, and broadcasters the most reliable and fault-free end-to-end management of the distribution of content yet available.

Intelsat assumes management for the entirety of the distribution process, connecting directly to the company’s origination points, shepherding content across its fully redundant hybrid satellite and terrestrial integrated network, ensuring it reaches its destination without delay or degradation of quality. Managed centrally from the company’s network operations center, Intelsat incorporates multiple layers of redundancies at all levels of the distribution chain and leverages automatic switching technology to immediately identify and utilize the optimal channels. Intelsat Media customers are guaranteed the Service Level Agreement that meets their needs and up to 99.999% of service availability.

Media companies that utilize Intelsat’s Managed Media Services proposition become free to focus exclusively on higher business priorities. Staff can focus on core, mission-critical activities such as engaging affiliates, pursuing new licensing agreements, and driving advertising revenue. Additionally, with Intelsat providing managed services across the industry for a broad set of global programmers, customers benefit from economies of scale and synergies that can lead to greater cash generation.

But large media organizations are not the only beneficiaries of Intelsat’s media services offering. Smaller and mid-size content providers with limited distribution capabilities can leverage Intelsat’s network and services to achieve wider dispersion of their content and expand their audience. Global organizations that transmit a handful of channels across multiple continents can also use Intelsat services, eliminating the need to invest in their own global capabilities and accelerating time to market. In all cases, companies realize significant cost savings as financial resources previously directed toward the upkeep of infrastructure and other resources are no longer required.

Today, Intelsat is relied upon by some of the largest and most prestigious media brands in the world that no longer need concern themselves with uplinks, compression technologies, and all things associated with the day-to-day management of a distribution apparatus. A media conglomerate in North America has offloaded all its distribution processes. Intelsat is now transporting content across teleports and transponders to takers across the continent. In Asia, a prolific broadcaster is using Intelsat to deliver a mixture of news, sports, and entertainment to cable and satellite TV providers around the world.

Consumers crave content. Today, there is no shortage of options for accessing it. By leveraging Intelsat’s expertise, reliable service, network breadth and strength, and management capabilities, media organizations can maintain an edge in the race for viewers and advertising dollars in a complex and superheated competitive landscape.