#distribution

The DPP's Cloud Native Distribution report — the first part of a follow-up to its 2021 Cloud for Media series — discussed by its author and six industry contributors. DPP CEO Rowan de Pomerai explores how cloud is reshaping media distribution well beyond streaming: personalised content delivery, advertising strategy, and the challenge of keeping pace with shifting viewer expectations and new technology. John Bradshaw, who wrote the report's foreword, joins from 22 minutes in.

Written by John Bradshaw, Field CTO Cloud EMEA at Akamai, this foreword examines the pressures reshaping media streaming in 2025. Viewers now expect instant playback and flawless quality across every device, while operators grapple with massive content catalogues, international rights complexity, and rising egress costs. AI has moved from experiment to strategic priority — driving automated content tagging, personalised recommendations, and targeted advertising — but high egress fees and proprietary cloud AI remain significant barriers to innovation. Bradshaw argues that distributed, open cloud models are the path forward, enabling media companies to scale efficiently, eliminate vendor lock-in, and put high-performance GPU and VPU capacity to work without prohibitive cost.