Lionsgate improved media supply chain using AWS Marketplace

Viewership for subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services in the US surpassed cable and broadcast TV for the first time in 2022. The streaming market is expected to continue increasing at an 11 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next 5 years.

SVOD platforms face unprecedented media supply chain challenges as their content libraries and customer bases grow. From improving video ingest, version control, retrieval, and editing to distributing secure and reliable content to multiple platforms, cloud solutions can help. I recently hosted a webinar to explore how media and entertainment (M&E) organizations use cloud solutions to overcome these challenges. Gray Ainsworth, EVP of Global Technical Operations and Servicing for Lionsgate, joined me to share his company’s cloud journey.

In this blog post, I highlight key takeaways from Lionsgate’s cloud experience and benefits. View the on-demand webinar, Meet consumer demands with media supply chain innovations, for the full Lionsgate use case and other M&E organizations.

Lionsgate reinvents its media supply chain in the cloud

Lionsgate is a global content platform whose films, television series, digital products, and linear and over-the-top platforms reach audiences worldwide. At the beginning of the webinar, Ainsworth described his company’s media supply chain as complex.

“We have an 18,000-title library,” explained Ainsworth. “Our inventory is decentralized, and we rely on service partners for a tremendous amount of the supply chain.” He added that the company requires an average of 31 days to distribute content, from order to delivery.

Lionsgate wanted to gain control and transparency over its asset inventory. With centralized media management, the studio believed it will optimize delivery, gain flexibility in partner and customer interactions, and unlock sales opportunities. With these goals, they decided to take advantage of the cloud to achieve its vision of a modernized supply chain.

AWS, AWS Partners, and AWS Marketplace laid the foundation for Lionsgate

“It was overwhelmingly clear in our research that AWS was the best solution for us,” said Ainsworth. “AWS is far ahead in the media and entertainment space. Most of the available cloud microservices tools are built on the AWS platform, and the connections are already there.”

Along with using AWS as its cloud provider, Lionsgate used other AWS resources, including the AWS Partner Network (APN) and AWS Marketplace. Consulting services from AWS Partners like Slalom and Ateliere Creative Technologies helped Lionsgate create a proof of concept and assess migration readiness.

The studio also chose Ateliere’s supply chain orchestration platform Ateliere Connect as its asset management tool. Available in AWS Marketplace, Ateliere Connect allows Lionsgate to store all its distribution assets in one place. It integrates with Lionsgate’s service providers across the supply chain, increasing the speed of new content onboarding, licensing, and distribution.

As Ainsworth underscored, it’s a monumental task. “We syndicate content out to three-, four-, five-hundred partners and customers at any given time. We need to ultimately make our distribution assets more service-ready.”

The benefits of unified, cloud-based asset management

Lionsgate anticipates its modernized supply chain will bring monetary and nonmonetary benefits to the company, including:

• Tighter control of service-ready assets
• Flexibility in partner and customer relationships
• Additional revenue due to asset confidence and predictability
• Improved reporting and process automation through system integration
• Reduced manual interventions (phone orders, emails, and so on) through system integration
• Reduced media movement as vendors and applications will come to the media
• A central and comprehensive title catalog that helps customers inform their business and programming strategies

“To be able to say that you have all your distribution assets in one place, and you can sell and distribute with impunity is a pretty powerful statement. It’s that control we’ve been lacking, and that’s really ultimately what we’re trying to work towards,” said Ainsworth.

Looking ahead

Lionsgate is focusing on the distribution component of its media supply chain, but Ainsworth does not plan to stop there. From production and mastering to distribution and archiving, he intends to use AWS solutions to transform Lionsgate’s entire supply chain.

About AWS Marketplace and next steps

How can your organization address media management challenges like those discussed in the webinar? AWS Marketplace has a wide variety of M&E solutions to help organizations modernize their infrastructures.

AWS Marketplace is a curated digital catalog that makes it easy for customers to find, buy, deploy, and manage third-party software, services, and data. It offers quick, easy, and secure deployment, flexible consumption and contract models, and streamlined procurement and billing operations. More than 330,000 organizations, large and small, use AWS Marketplace monthly to accelerate digital transformation and improve efficiencies across their enterprises. Forrester’s independent research estimates it takes half the time to find, buy, and deploy solutions through AWS Marketplace compared to other sales channels.

Visit Media & Entertainment Solutions in AWS Marketplace to learn more about the M&E cloud solutions available in AWS Marketplace.

View Meet consumer demands with media supply chain innovations to learn more about the use cases discussed in this blog post.

About the author

As the Head of Global Business Development for Media Supply Chain & Archive and Data Science & Analytics at AWS, Ian helps customers and AWS Partners reinvent their business by migrating to the cloud. Besides his current business development role, Ian has led Industry Marketing and AWS Partner strategy for the Media and Entertainment Industry during his nine-year tenure at AWS.