SES bets on coralPlay for cloud-native channel playout automation

SES operates one of the world's largest video networks, carrying over 8,200 channels to 367 million households. Adopting a cloud-native playout system gives SES the flexibility to spin up channels in minutes rather than weeks, while maintaining hybrid deployment options for customers not ready to fully commit to public cloud. The deal reflects a broader industry shift: Harmonic reported in February 2025 that 30% of media executives surveyed are considering cloud playout migration, and ProSiebenSat.1 moved its entire content supply chain to AWS in January 2025. Watch whether SES expands coralPlay beyond its initial deployment — per Digital Media World, the system already handles 70 channels for SES — and whether competitors like Amagi or Imagine Communications respond with similar hybrid flexibility.

The coralPlay deployment fits into a broader acceleration of cloud playout adoption across the broadcast industry. Per a Harmonic blog post from February 2025, a survey of over 200 media and entertainment executives found that 30% have considered migrating playout workflows to the cloud, citing scalability, cost reduction, and faster time-to-market as primary drivers. Harmonic itself has promoted a "playout-to-delivery" approach that bundles playout, encoding, and distribution in a single cloud-native stack, claiming it can cut cloud costs by nearly half compared to siloed architectures.

SES has been building out its cloud capabilities on multiple fronts. According to an SES blog from April 2021, the company partnered with Microsoft Azure to power its Cloud Playout solution, enabling broadcasters to spin up new channels in minutes. SES also launched its SES 360 workflow management system, which lets customers self-manage cloud playout operations. More recently, in February 2025, SES announced a deal with ATP Media to deliver tennis content worldwide using its SES SCORE platform, managing 200,000 hours of live content annually across 58 tournaments via hybrid satellite, fibre, and IP distribution, per BusinessWire.

The competitive landscape for cloud playout has intensified. Amagi, Imagine Communications (with its Aviator platform), Grass Valley (GV AMPP), and Evertz (Evertz.io) all offer cloud-native playout solutions, according to APB+ News. At NAB 2025, The Broadcast Bridge reported that playout migration to the public cloud was a dominant theme, with vendors emphasizing FAST channel integration, AI-driven ad insertion, and hybrid deployments. Notably, per Digital Media World, coralbay.tv was founded by former Pebble Beach Systems engineers, and SES's coralPlay installation had grown to 70 channels — suggesting the partnership has moved well beyond initial deployment.