David Kohn (ARD)
As public service media (PSM) organizations continue their digital transformation journeys, the cloud has become a cornerstone of modern media operations. Yet, while cloud technologies promise agility, scalability, and innovation, they also raise critical questions about sovereignty, cost, resilience, and interoperability. To address these shared challenges, and seize the opportunities collectively, the EBU Cloud Strategy Group was created in mid 2025.
Why now?
Across Europe, EBU Members are adopting cloud technologies at different speeds and scales. Many face similar strategic dilemmas: how to balance sovereignty with efficiency, how to maintain interoperability across diverse platforms, and how to ensure resilience amid rising dependency on global cloud providers.
The Cloud Strategy Group was established as a collaborative forum to tackle these questions together. It is chaired by the Head of ARD’s Cloud Unit, Malte Blumberg. The group’s purpose is to develop a shared strategic direction for cloud adoption among PSM organizations, ensuring that EBU Members can make informed, future-proof decisions that strengthen their independence and sustainability.
Through several interactive sessions, a common vision for the group’s goal and deliverables was created, as follows: “Our goal is to achieve a shared cloud ecosystem for European public service media – one that safeguards freedom of choice while enabling powerful, collaborative services.”
The group’s ambition is twofold:
- Define a common EBU Cloud Strategy Framework that helps EBU Members navigate the cloud ecosystem, from infrastructure to data governance and service delivery.
- Promote collaboration and knowledge exchange – through shared best practices, use cases, and partnerships – to accelerate learning and avoid duplication of effort.
By pooling insights and aligning approaches, the group seeks to reinforce European PSM sovereignty in the digital space, while ensuring operational excellence and innovation remain at the core.
From vision to action
Since its formation, the Cloud Strategy Group has already reached several milestones. In Q2 2025, the group’s Terms of Reference were approved, setting a clear mission and governance model. By Q3, participation had expanded across numerous EBU Members, culminating in a successful kick-off workshop in August in Geneva. The workshop produced a consolidated vision statement, defining what “cloud success” should look like for European PSMs – resilient, collaborative, and values-driven.
Several concrete activities have followed. A roundtable on cloud resilience (November 2025) explored lessons from recent cloud outages and their impact on broadcasting operations. The group also met at France Télévisions in Paris in November, including a visit to cloud provider Scaleway, to examine European alternatives and cloud sovereignty initiatives. Work also continued on a strategy document summarizing the group’s collective insights, as well as a shared repository of best practices and proofs-of-concepts.
The group’s roadmap is ambitious. Upcoming topics include a cloud vendor landscape study and a feasibility study for a European Cloud Ecosystem for PSM – exploring how shared infrastructures or standards could reinforce collaboration and sovereignty in the long term.
Get involved
The Cloud Strategy Group is open to strategists and tech leads at EBU Members interested in cloud strategy, technology, and operations. Participants should have time to participate in group tasks. Whether your organization is just beginning its cloud journey or is already advanced, the group offers a space to learn, contribute to, and influence the collective direction of European PSM in the cloud era.
This article first appeared in the December 2025 issue of tech-i magazine.