Independent media & broadcast advisory
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Independent advisory, 18 years on air

Your content moves through a chain. We advise on every link in it.

Broadcast Central is a boutique consulting practice for media houses building, transforming or outsourcing their broadcast workflows.

We assess what you run, specify what you should run, and help you choose the partners who build it.

Book a line check See the advisory practices
18 yrs
Advisory experience
5 stages
Advised end to end
Neutral
No resale, no bias
Multiviewer · take an advisory practice to program
SRC 01 / CONTRIBUTION

Contribution and distribution advisory

We review the path from venue to base and tell you where it breaks, before a live date does.

    ON AIR CONTRIBUTION 00:00:00:00
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    The value chain

    Five stages. We advise on each one, and on the seams between them.

    Most teams buy each stage from a different supplier, then discover the gaps at the handover. We hold the whole path in view, so a decision taken in production still makes sense at distribution.

    Stage 01

    Production

    We advise on remote and REMI production models, venue requirements and the crew each model actually needs.

    Stage 02

    Contribution

    We review venue to base transport over fiber, satellite and managed internet, and specify the path diversity to buy.

    Stage 03

    Processing

    We define transcode, packaging, subtitling and enrichment requirements for OTT and linear, on premises or in cloud.

    Stage 04

    Playout

    We assess channel origination, master control operations and the disaster recovery model that sits behind both.

    Stage 05

    Distribution

    We evaluate delivery to affiliates, platforms and viewers over fiber, satellite and CDN, commercials included.

    Advisory practices

    Six practices, one for each component you have to get right.

    Every engagement ends in a deliverable you own: an assessment, a target design, a business case or a shortlist. Something you can operate, staff and defend in a budget review.

    SVC 01

    Contribution and distribution advisory

    Advice on how live events and large files should move between venues, facilities and platforms, and what that path is worth paying for.

    • Review current live paths for diversity and single points of failure
    • Recommend transport formats against latency, quality and cost
    • Specify file transfer requirements for rushes, dailies and finished assets
    • Model REMI options so crew travel drops without risking the show
    • Define the failover test plan your provider has to pass
    Assessment · target design · test plan
    SVC 02

    Playout and MCR advisory

    An honest read on which channels belong in cloud, which stay on hardware and which should close.

    • Assess the playout estate channel by channel on cost and complexity
    • Compare on premises, cloud and managed playout on real numbers
    • Recommend an MCR operating model, shift pattern and escalation path
    • Specify automation requirements for schedule ingest and as run reporting
    • Define disaster recovery tiers proportional to channel value
    Estate review · operating model · migration plan
    SVC 03

    FAST strategy advisory

    Sizing the revenue sitting in a dormant library, before anyone asks you to buy a platform to unlock it.

    • Audit the library for rights, formats and channel potential
    • Define channel concepts, scheduling rules and refresh cadence
    • Build the revenue model, fill rate assumptions and cost per channel
    • Specify ad insertion and ad break conditioning requirements
    • Shortlist aggregators, ad tech and playout partners on fit
    Library audit · revenue model · partner shortlist
    SVC 04

    Media supply chain advisory

    Advice on the orchestration layer that should replace the spreadsheet and the shared mailbox, and what it costs to run.

    • Map the current supply chain and pinpoint where assets stall
    • Specify cloud processing requirements
    • Define event driven workflows across ingest, QC and delivery
    • Set integration points across MAM, scheduling and rights systems
    • Choose the metrics that expose cost per asset
    Process map · requirements · cost model
    SVC 05

    AI and regionalization advisory

    Separating the AI tooling that earns its keep on your content from the AI in the sales deck.

    • Benchmark metadata, highlight and localization tools on your own material
    • Define accuracy thresholds and where human review stays
    • Specify subtitling, dubbing and language packaging requirements
    • Set regional compliance, graphics and ad marker rules
    • Build the business case before you commit to a pilot
    Tool benchmark · requirements · business case
    SVC 06

    Outsourcing and provider selection

    Deciding what to keep, what to buy and who to buy it from, then holding the provider to the paper they signed.

    • Compare build, buy and managed service on real cost, not list price
    • Write the RFP and score responses on operational fit
    • Advise on service levels that reflect live event risk
    • Oversee transition so the first event is boring
    • Review provider performance on a cadence you control
    Build versus buy · RFP · provider governance
    How we engage

    Three engagements. Pick one, any or all.

    Boutique means the person who scopes the work is the person who does it. No pyramid, no handover to a team you have not met, no product to steer you toward.

    Engagement 01 · Assess

    Find out what you actually run

    Two to four weeks. We map the workflow as it exists, not as the architecture diagram claims.

    • Trace every signal and file path end to end
    • Baseline cost, headcount and failure history
    • Rank the gaps by risk and by money
    Engagement 02 · Design

    Specify the target and price it

    Four to eight weeks. A target architecture with a business case attached, ready to put in front of procurement.

    • Produce high level and low level designs
    • Build vendor neutral bills of material
    • Model total cost against the current baseline
    Engagement 03 · Assure

    Stay on your side through the build

    Ongoing. Your team and your chosen providers do the building. We make sure what arrives is what was specified.

    • Review provider designs against the agreed architecture
    • Witness testing, rehearsals and cutover
    • Check runbooks and handover before sign off

    Eighteen years spent on the operator side of the glass.

    Broadcast Central grows out of nearly two decades building and transforming media enterprise workflows alongside the service providers who carry the world's biggest live events.

    We advise, we do not resell. Nothing on this page comes with a platform attached, so we can say plainly how the network behaves under live load, how a playout centre is really staffed, and which parts of a vendor proposal quietly become your problem later.

    Live sports News OTT platforms Content owners Broadcast networks Service providers
    Next step

    Book a line check

    Thirty minutes on your current workflow. We tell you where the risk sits and what we would look at first. No deck, no platform pitch, no obligation.

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