At NAB 2025, one thing became abundantly clear, the broadcast industry is no longer testing the cloud, it has embraced it. Cloud-based contribution and distribution have moved from fringe use cases to mainstream deployment. The conversations have shifted from “if” to “how fast,” and for many organisations, cloud workflows are no longer a matter of innovation but of survival.
Yet, for all the momentum, something isn’t adding up.
Beneath the polished dashboards and glossy vendor pitches, a hard truth is beginning to surface. Most so-called “cloud-native” solutions are anything but cloud-native. They’re legacy systems re-skinned for the cloud, static, inflexible, and shockingly expensive. The workflows being sold as modern and agile are often just old infrastructure repackaged and containerized to fit the trend.
This isn’t the future we were promised. And it’s certainly not the future GlobalM is building.
The Cloud Cost Crisis Nobody Wants to Talk About
The promise of the cloud was simple. Spin up infrastructure when you need it, shut it down when you don’t. Scale elastically. Pay only for what you use. But in practice, broadcasters are being forced into architectures that mimic the past.
At NAB, conversations with broadcasters and network CTOs revealed a common theme. Ballooning cloud bills, often driven by gateway technologies that must remain running 24/7. These gateways can’t be scheduled intelligently or spun down without manual reconfiguration. They’re not stateless and because of that, entire clusters are left idling “just in case,” racking up costs while doing absolutely nothing.
This isn’t a small-scale problem. One CTO reported a 40% year-on-year increase in cloud spending, primarily due to infrastructure that couldn’t be paused, reconfigured, or stopped without risking service disruption. That’s not elasticity. That’s unchecked waste. Keeping machines running around the clock doesn’t just burn budget, it also undermines sustainability goals by consuming unnecessary energy and resources for no operational benefit.
Worse still, many broadcasters have little visibility into which parts of their architecture are driving these costs. Cloud dashboards are cluttered, logs are siloed, and cost attribution is often buried beneath layers of third-party services. By the time teams realise what’s happening, they’ve already blown through budgets.
These inefficiencies aren’t just eating into OPEX, they’re undermining trust in the promise of cloud transformation. Some broadcasters have started to question whether the move was worth it at all. Not because the cloud doesn’t work, but because the way it’s being implemented doesn’t reflect what cloud infrastructure is actually capable of.
Why Fixed Gateways Were Never Meant for the Cloud
Legacy gateway architecture relies on pre-provisioned compute instances acting as static transit points. These are configured manually, often in fixed regions, and require persistent resources regardless of whether content is flowing through them. They can’t adapt to unpredictable live events, changing stream destinations, or sudden spikes in demand.
The result? Cloud waste on a massive scale. Rigid infrastructure that sits idle, slows down responsiveness, and forces broadcasters into costly overprovisioning. Configuration becomes guesswork. Scaling becomes reactive. And the promise of real-time orchestration slips further away.
In this environment, flexibility becomes a liability. Engineers hesitate to make changes on the fly, fearing the domino effect on configurations downstream. Teams start planning workflows around infrastructure limitations, not production needs. And the whole point of moving to the cloud is to be more agile and responsive and it rather gets lost in a maze of technical debt.
Optimising for Cost and Control: Stateless in the Cloud, Anchored on Prem
At GlobalM, we took a different path. Our architecture is stateless and protocol-driven. This means infrastructure is scheduled, spun up only when needed, and shut down immediately after. There are no idle resources consuming budget while waiting for a job to start. This is true elasticity, cloud compute that matches real demand, not imagined capacity.
But we also recognise that not all services are occasional. Permanent services, those that run 24/7 as part of a broadcaster’s core operation, require a different approach. That’s why GlobalM enables these services to run on-premises, using dedicated appliances or long-term leased infrastructure, to dramatically reduce exposure to standard cloud costs. When additional capacity is required, we support cloud bursting with flawless integration, combining the elasticity of the cloud with the predictability of owned infrastructure.
This hybrid approach isn’t just smart, it’s cost-effective. Broadcasters can align their infrastructure model with their actual usage patterns. High-volume, time-sensitive operations can benefit from on-prem performance, while dynamic or ad hoc events can still leverage the cloud’s scalability. It’s about precision, not compromise.
Most importantly, this model empowers broadcasters with true operational autonomy. Rather than being locked into vendor-specific infrastructure patterns or relying on heavy, always-on gateway models, GlobalM enables flexible scheduling and resource control through its own dynamic orchestration platform. Broadcasters benefit from intelligent automation while maintaining visibility and command over how, when, and where their infrastructure operates. It’s orchestration with options, not orchestration as a constraint.
Hybrid Isn’t a Compromise, It’s the Advantage
Most vendors treat hybrid as a concession. At GlobalM, it’s the strategy. We don’t force everything into the cloud, nor do we limit broadcasters to static, on-prem setups. Instead, we offer a platform that intelligently manages both, ensuring that every part of the workflow runs where it makes the most operational and financial sense.
With GlobalM, occasional services spin up automatically in the cloud, then disappear the moment the stream ends. Permanent services anchor themselves in local or long-term infrastructure. And the transition between the two is flawless. No manual intervention or brittle configurations. Just intelligent, protocol-aware distribution that keeps broadcasters focused on content, not infrastructure.
This model also delivers operational clarity. Teams know where each component lives, why it’s there, and what it’s costing. Configuration becomes declarative, not manual. Troubleshooting becomes systematic, not frantic. That clarity reduces stress on engineers and gives managers clear data to inform spending decisions.
It also fosters innovation. When infrastructure stops being a burden, teams can start focusing on what really matters, audience experience, content quality, and competitive agility. A hybrid model empowers broadcasters to experiment without financial penalty, scale without hesitation, and deliver without compromise.
The Sustainability Gap: Waste Isn’t Just Financial
While cost overruns are the most visible symptom of cloud inefficiency, the impact runs deeper into the environment. Every idle virtual machine, every unnecessary server instance left spinning in the cloud, draws real-world energy. And that energy comes at a cost to the planet.
When broadcasters keep infrastructure running 24/7 “just in case,” they’re not just wasting budget, they’re wasting carbon. The environmental toll of cloud inefficiency is significant, especially at scale. It flies in the face of ESG targets, corporate sustainability mandates, and the increasing pressure media organisations face to lower their carbon footprint.
In a world where sustainability isn’t optional, architecture choices matter. Stateless infrastructure dramatically reduces idle time and resource consumption. GlobalM’s ability to spin up only what’s needed, exactly when it’s needed, means broadcasters are not just saving money, they’re actively reducing emissions.
And with our hybrid model, organisations can optimise workloads on-premise where renewable energy sources are in use or where their carbon accountability is more transparent. It’s a smarter, greener way to build infrastructure that aligns with modern values as well as modern technology.
The waste we tolerate today, both financial and environmental, is a choice. And it’s one GlobalM helps broadcasters move beyond.
The Real Opportunity
Cloud-native isn’t a marketing label, it’s a foundational shift in how infrastructure should behave. At GlobalM, we don’t simply talk about stateless workflows, we’ve architected our entire platform around them. In our distributed gateway model, every node, whether a sender, receiver, or transcoder, can be scheduled, launched, and retired independently. These roles are not fixed, nor are they bound to static infrastructure. Instead, they operate dynamically, following stream lifecycles with precision.
This architectural flexibility is what allows GlobalM to deliver true cloud elasticity without the waste. Our protocol-driven design ensures every element of the chain is aware of the stream’s context, meaning nodes only exist when they are needed, and disappear when they are not. There is no persistent overhead, no invisible tax on scalability.
Combined with our hybrid model, this lets broadcasters build contribution and distribution networks that are not only agile but economically and environmentally responsible. It’s not about choosing between cloud and on-prem, it’s about knowing that both can be used intelligently, and that control lies with the broadcaster.
The future of contribution and distribution won’t be built on long-running gateways or fixed configurations. It will be modular, stateless, distributed and ready to scale in any direction the audience demands.
That’s what GlobalM has built. And that’s what we’re offering today. Cloud-native isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a philosophy. And unless your architecture is truly stateless, dynamic, and hybrid-ready, you’re not getting the benefit. You’re just paying for the illusion.
The future of broadcast contribution and distribution isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s protocol-driven, stateless, and hybrid. And at GlobalM, it’s already here.
If you’re tired of overpaying for underused infrastructure, and if you’re ready to rethink how your workflows scale, then it’s time to explore what a truly modern architecture can deliver. GlobalM isn’t just talking about the future, we’ve built it.
