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Companies that can stay on top of today’s rapidly accelerating digital landscape are far ahead of those struggling to understand and adapt to these vital trends. The ability to adapt is even more important for those in post production, where technology and media are inextricable from the business as a whole. Change that truly meets audience needs is critical to success. That’s why the ability to understand key trends driving the industry, including cloud-based video production, is so important.

Here, at Avid, we think about those trends, too, how to maximize use of the cloud, and how we can provide support. Consistently reaching out to you, our customer community, for feedback and to hear about your experiences gives us the information we need to know what to innovate so that you can advance and grow. Your success is our success.

This article is part of a series of three articles examining the evolution of production and the economic and operational benefits of moving content creation to the cloud. The articles are based on a whitepaper we published, Avid | Edit On Demand - The New Evolution of Production, and explore why remote post-production workflows make operational and economic sense, why it’s important to move from a CapEx to an OpEx mode, and changes impacting the industry overall.

Key trends in migrating production to the cloud

Changes in audience habits, increased competition, demand for speed, distributed teams, adoption of the cloud and as-a-service models, sustainability, and a shift toward OpEx are just a few of the trends impacting the media industry.

Audience behavior looks different

Consumers are increasing their spending, content consumption, and online shopping, replacing brand loyalty with what truly resonates most with them. To remain relevant, companies are being forced to develop a robust online presence and deliver engaging content.

Globally, cable and broadcast TV revenue is declining, and in the U.S. the cord-cutting trend is accelerating as streaming content becomes the new norm. The result is an increase in competition among growing streaming service offerings is pushing more production.

Demand for faster times to market and higher quality content is expanding

With more data available and greater capability to analyze that data with AI and other technological innovations, market research is happening exponentially faster than in decades past. Companies can now make quicker adjustments and decisions of what, when, and how to release content, which in turn creates tighter deadlines for post-production teams. Content is needed now—not in six months when it’s out of date. This mad “rush-to-market” mentality adds more pressure to deliver work faster without reducing quality, but it also means more opportunities for post-production companies to increase their bottom line.

A distributed workforce and work-from-anywhere capabilities are now requirements

On average, the work-from-home phenomenon has led to an estimated 13% increase in productivity and promoted greater wellness and mental health benefits for employees. Remote work, including remote post-production workflows, is expected to continue to impact business on many levels.

The acceleration of “as a service” and use of the cloud

With flexible pricing, scalability, and continuous updates, Software as a Service (SaaS), and Data as a Service (DaaS), industries are accelerating adoption of the “as a service” model. This move is critical to realize the greatest benefit from the cloud. Adoption of the cloud as part of a broader deployment strategy is also advancing. The cloud is proving to boost profits, increase efficiency, and optimize enterprise business—if done correctly. Simply taking what you do today and moving it to the cloud is not enough. For example, now all workflows can be enhanced with the technology and AI available through SaaS. Workflows can be monitored, reviewed, and optimized automatically, which means that going all-in can dramatically increase return on investment (ROI).

Being good environmental stewards

Companies are rethinking strategy to include sustainability because of consumer concern for the environment. In one recent poll, 85% of respondents indicated that they had shifted their purchase behavior to be more sustainable in the past five years. The business world is doing the same, consuming less energy, striving for a smaller carbon footprint, and finding more sustainable ways to deliver products and services

• An estimated 4.9 million people will cut the cord in 2022, bringing the total number of cord-cutters up to 55 million or 20% of the US adult population
• Nearly all Americans aged 25–34 access TV content through the internet
• The global streaming services industry is expected to have a CAGR of 21% from 2021 to 2028
• It’s predicted that the number of cable TV subscribers will fall from 71 million people in 2020 to 56 million in 2025
• In Q1 2021, Netflix had ~210 million subscribers, nearly 10 times that of Comcast, the largest U.S. cable TV provider who counted ~22 million

(Source: Nick G., “19 Cord Cutting Statistics and Trends in 2022,” TechJury, June 20, 2022)

Why Avid | Edit On Demand

As multiple trends continue to affect the post-production industry, Avid keeps innovating to meet those changing needs. Avid | Edit On Demand is the right tool to keep moving to that next level.

And here’s why:

• It enables you to use familiar, known systems—without the operation, maintenance, and support costs—for instant collaboration across the globe.
• As a subscription service, you pay per month, lowering project start-up costs, rather than a large capital outlay all at once.
• Stay on top of costs on a daily basis with an available dashboard within your familiar Avid account. If a project grows outside of the scope expected, there’s no need to rent extra rooms or buy additional data storage facilities that are superfluous at the end of the project. Simply adjust your Edit On Demand subscription to match project and needs, making any necessary changes on the fly.
• Easily add and subtract data storage, and edit seats and bandwidth.
• Since Avid | Edit On Demand is a complete SaaS solution hosted by Avid, cloud technical expertise is not required, as the solution auto-provisions everything needed for production in the cloud. Avid | Edit On Demand takes care of all the deployment and configuration via automation with a few clicks—far faster and easier than any human can set up a collaborative editing environment.
• Avid | Edit On Demand is backed by Microsoft Azure, meaning you have the industry leaders in cloud security protecting your assets.

And, if that’s not enough to convince you, our customers say it best.

“Avid | Edit On Demand has given us access to a much greater workforce than we ever had before,” says John Laskas, creative director/founder of Black Spot Media. “We now are able to recruit globally.”

“When I had tried other cloud editing systems, there were problems such as delayed response and desynced audio, making them difficult to use for actual work,” explains Mitsuo Nishio, editor, Imagica Entertainment Media Services, Inc. “But Avid | Edit On Demand was a different story. When working from home, audio was perfectly in sync, and the response during frame stepping and other editing

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