Telstra acquires Mediacloud Australia

Telstra has acquired Perth-based web hosting and cloud services provider Mediacloud Australia for an undisclosed sum.

The deal would provide Telstra’s global broadcasting arm Telstra Broadcast Services (TBS) with software-defined and cloud-based capabilities, as well as a number of media cloud delivery experts and a Master Control Room in the United Kingdom.

As part of the acquisition, Australian free-to-air TV channel SBS also renewed its playout contract for MediaCloud services for seven years and will be a TBS customer throughout its duration.

Head of Telstra Broadcast Services Andreas Eriksson said that the addition of the MediaCloud platform will provide broadcasters with incredible flexibility to manage their content offerings through virtual environments.

“The global media industry is expanding to cloud-enabled and software-defined capabilities. Adding these leading new capabilities alongside TBS’s existing global fibre and satellite networks sets us up to meet the evolving needs of the broadcast market as well as expand our value proposition to our global client base by providing a world-class broadcast operations [centre] in London,” Eriksson said.

“The new capabilities will help broadcasters deploy new services and channels to respond to special events, programming opportunities and new markets in these changing times.”

Telstra said the new capabilities would enable TBS to offer new services, including managed streaming, internet delivery, media management and content orchestration and playout services.

Speaking on the contract renewal, SBS acting chief technology officer Darren Farnham said, "We’re pleased to have extended our agreement for MediaCloud services with the backing of Telstra, and to continue delivering SBS’s unique content to audiences on their device of choice."

In a report from Insolvency News Online in April, Telstra had been eyeing Mediacloud “for some time” as its parent company cut off funding.

Mediacloud was founded in June 2020 as a holding company on behalf of UK-based Deluxe Broadcast Services Ltd, with SBS as a major client. After a restructuring and winding up of Deluxe, funding to Mediacloud was cut and the company called in administrators in November 2020.