Fox to Use Amazon Web Services for Cable, Satellite Broadcasts
- Multi-year deal makes AWS Fox’s official cloud provider
- Broadcaster will use new, local AWS data center services
Amazon Web Services Inc. is displayed on a sign at a pop-up office.
Photographer: Jason Alden/BloombergFox Corp. is turning to Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud to route video to the broadcaster’s cable and streaming customers, the latest Digital Age tie-up between the high-tech newcomer and big media companies.
Under the multiyear deal, announced at Amazon Web Services’ re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, AWS Media Services will transmit Fox sports, news and entertainment content to television customers and streaming services. Amazon’s tools will also help power Fox production facilities in Los Angeles, New York, Tempe, Arizona, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Fox will use Amazon to replace a video infrastructure built mostly in the 1990s, before the emergence of online streaming or cloud computing, Paul Cheesbrough, Fox’s chief technology officer, said by email. “At a technical level, we’ll have a more agile infrastructure that can grow and adapt with our business,” he said, enabling capabilities like quicker launch of new channels or products.
Amazon is the largest seller of cloud infrastructure services such as rented data storage and networking services. The unit’s growing scale in corporate technology circles has been a source of tension for potential customers in industries like retail that go head to head with other Amazon groups. Fox isn’t immune to that and competes with Amazon in original TV content and the right to broadcast live sports.