Fox and Amazon Web Services have signed a multi-year strategic collaboration agreement to build an integrated, cloud-based platform for video distribution.
The companies will combine AWS’ portfolio of services, infrastructure, and professional services organization to build a production and distribution platform that will be used to send Fox’s sports, news, and entertainment television content to multi-channel video programming distributors, to more than 200 affiliate stations, and to streaming video providers.
The companies also said that Fox will be using the first AWS Local Zone, a new type of AWS infrastructure deployment that places compute, storage, database, and other select services closer to customers for applications that need ultra-low latency.
“Our extended partnership with AWS will strategically underpin our video and data workflows with a world class, adaptable, reliable, and scalable set of platforms that will extend and evolve to power our business well into the future,” said Paul Cheesbrough, chief technology officer and president of digital at Fox Corporation, in a statement. “Across our facilities, we’re enabling our organization to create a platform that will respond to real-time data that enables us to deliver the best programming.”
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“Fox’s media platform is pioneering the delivery of live content using AWS’s unmatched breadth of functionality and highly reliable infrastructure to usher in a new model for content delivery that will drive operational efficiency and greater agility,” said Dr. Werner Vogels, vice president and chief technology officer at Amazon, in a statement. “The platform will serve as the nerve center for Fox distribution and operation capabilities, supporting the most demanding needs of live broadcast television production and distribution with plenty of capacity. We look forward to working with Fox on this unique, green-field opportunity to unify and transform the delivery of reliable and innovative content to millions of viewers.”
The new deal expands on an agreement Fox (prior to the Disney acquisition) announced in 2018, when Fox said that it would begin using AWS for the “vast majority” of its cloud operations.