In today’s broadcast and streaming landscapes, ecosystems have grown so complex that no single company can service them alone. Partnerships are no longer just advantageous; they are absolutely essential for success.
Summary
- Partnerships are of critical importance in the ever-evolving media landscape. As technology advances, no single company can address the growing complexities alone.
- Deep collaborations are required across the broadcast value chain to deliver innovative and integrated solutions.
- Partnerships span various sectors, including content security, metadata management, and AI technology, ensuring seamless integration and fostering industry-wide innovation.
- By nurturing these collaborations, VO contributes to the work of shaping the future of the broadcast industry.
The End of Silos
As technology evolves, even the largest vendors in the media and entertainment industries have recognized that they must work together to address growing demands and increasing complexity. The siloed approach is no longer sustainable. While the end-to-end solution is still a popular option for many broadcasters and operators, in 2025, they are seeking solutions that are open and flexible rather than closed and proprietary.
The complexities of the modern, interlocked systems used for broadcasting and streaming are now too great for one company to fulfil, let alone provide best-of-breed tools for every niche in the ecosystem. To paraphrase and adapt a well-known saying, nowadays it doesn’t just take a village; it takes an entire town. What we find at VO is that seamless integration with our partners brings greater benefits to everyone across the ecosystem, but first and foremost to our customers.
That’s why at IBC2025, you will see other vendors on our stand as well as our own software hard at work on other companies’ stands. But it’s not just about finding other companies to work with; it’s about choosing the right ones.
Deep Collaborations
At VO, our focus is on identifying companies operating in complementary areas to ours. These collaborations enable us to deliver additional value together, because when our solutions fit, everyone involved is incentivized to promote and enhance our joint offering. We have found that over time, a partnership’s ‘stickiness’—which we define as how closely companies depend on one another—can be a significant business asset. This is especially powerful as we look to the future and the companies that will shape and even disrupt the industry’s evolution in the coming years.
VO’s partnerships span the entire broadcast value chain. While our initial focus was in establishing device partnerships in the content security sector, we have since widened the net considerably, and in recent years have established new collaborations in content creation and delivery including partnerships covering metadata, targeted advertising, metadata management, content discovery, and more.
The result is that today, Viaccess-Orca has over 100 partners globally. The list of companies we work with covers an ever-expanding field as the industry becomes steadily more complex and diverse, and now includes chipset manufacturers, cloud providers, CDNs, billing and advertising specialists, and more. Of those, around 10 partners represent our most strategic alliances, where we are in constant contact and actively co-developing solutions.
It is interesting to note that our partnerships progress through distinct stages, much like the typical product lifecycle: beginning with the coordination of sales efforts and evolving into an advanced stage where we align product roadmaps and marketing strategies. This is an important evolution. Ongoing support, joint RFPs, synchronizing timelines, and working together on joint projects and deployments all require trust and strong communication. Any delay with any partner can impact the whole ecosystem. Occasionally, we even take on the role of systems integrator ourselves to ensure seamless project delivery.
New Opportunities
The exciting thing about maturing partnerships is that new opportunities keep emerging. The cross-fertilization between companies means that areas of expertise can complement and amplify each other. This is when we can create even greater value by mixing technologies and uncovering innovative solutions. This is precisely what we saw happen a few years ago in the fields of targeted advertising and content personalization, and it is now happening, and indeed accelerating, with AI technology.
VO is also proactive in helping shape the future of the industry through participation in consortia and trade bodies such as the IABM, working with auditing / standards associations such as Cartesian, and liaising with research companies such as Caretta Research. These are vital parts of the overall health of the industry. Because they anticipate emerging technologies and new approaches, they often foster collaboration between even competitors and potential partners. This can happen because clear governance frames the collaboration, ensuring everyone involved benefits while preserving strategic interests. Such organizations also serve as fertile ground for seeding future partnership ecosystems.
No doubt we will see more of these as the years progress. In a marketplace defined by complexity, collaboration is the new competitive edge. By dedicating the same degree of care to establishing and nurturing partnerships as to developing and iterating products and solutions, we are able to better serve our customers, and help shape the broadcast industry’s future.
