Automation: Applications, Techniques and Technologies

Tech Report 055

Automation will play a key role as broadcasters transform their businesses to an all-IT approach.

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Automating otherwise tedious and potentially error-prone tasks will help free up programme-maker effort to concentrate on more important work, while machine learning will create more data, increasing the value of content. Automation will also facilitate more flexibility in where operations can happen, and where they are resourced, including on location, at broadcaster facilities or “in the cloud”.

This will be an unfamiliar area for many, involving new techniques and technologies, and terminology that often differs from that used in more traditional broadcasting.

This report makes a case for various types of automation and explains some key concepts and terminology, giving examples for how automation is being used by EBU members for development, deployment and configuration activities. It then looks more broadly at the challenges that will face broadcasters considering automation across the enterprise, such as managing resource conflicts, and the need for staff training.