🎤 Gregory Kuzin: Media market requires a unified digital industrial ecosystem

Gregory Kuzin, Director of Media Platforms at MSK-IX, participated in the plenary discussion of the 10th annual TeleMultiMedia Forum 2026: Leaders of the Digital Media Sphere, held on May 27 in Moscow.

In his speech, Kuzin noted that the digitalization of the media industry has ceased to be an end in itself. According to the expert, it represents a logical stage in market evolution, where television, online video, adtech, AI services, storage, delivery, rights management, and analytics must operate within a unified digital ecosystem.

Strategic deployment over crisis management

Discussing the media market’s resilience against external challenges, Gregory Kuzin cited the incident with the Express-AT1 satellite, noting that satellite signal delivery issues led to varying outcomes for operators and broadcasters in the Far East.

He explained that the outcome depended entirely on whether a backup delivery scheme had been established in advance. In this instance, the effective deployment involved backing up satellite delivery with ground-based delivery via the Medialogistika platform.

According to the speaker’s assessment, approximately 60% of TV channels that had a pre-configured “satellite plus Medialogistika” setup continued broadcasting almost entirely as normal. Another 30% restored their broadcasts within 24 hours; these were cases where the broadcaster’s signal was available both on the satellite and within Medialogistika, but the operator had not previously utilized the terrestrial route as a permanent backup. Around 10% of TV channels, which relied solely on satellite delivery, experienced significantly longer outages.

“For the operator, this is a matter of service continuity for the subscriber. For the broadcaster, it is a matter of maintaining distribution in the region. For the viewer, it is even simpler: the TV channel is either there or it isn’t. Therefore, the best anti-crisis architecture is actually a strategic architecture. It is not about scrambling to solve a problem after it arises, but about pre-configuring a primary route, a backup route, and a clear switching scheme,” noted Gregory Kuzin.

Television has integrated into digital

The Director of Media Platforms at MSK-IX paid special attention to the shifting logic of the television market. According to him, contrasting television with digital is no longer relevant.

“Traditional broadcasting has conclusively integrated into the digital industry, evolving into a media service akin to VoD. Interactive features, catch-up TV, and smart advertising on online platforms are direct evidence of this. Naturally, in this new environment, television cannot rely solely on legacy technical solutions. It requires a foundation in the form of a developed digital industrial platform,” emphasized Gregory Kuzin.

He noted that the television market used to be defined by a relatively simple chain: “content – channel – broadcast.” Today, this is no longer sufficient. Content must be prepared, stored, adapted for various platforms, delivered to different environments, cleared for rights, monitored for quality, integrated into an advertising or commercial model, and analyzed.

Fundamentally new workflows have integrated into the standard production process. The first centers on digital content monetization, encompassing targeting, special triggers, dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technologies, and campaign effectiveness analytics. The second workflow involves AI solutions for media, ranging from compliance and anti-piracy to automated reporting, speech recognition, on-the-fly translation, and smart video metadata tagging.

Mediabaza as an industrial platform for the media market

According to Gregory Kuzin, utilizing these technological elements as a collection of disparate services is becoming increasingly difficult. When storage, delivery, playout, adtech, AI services, document workflow, and monitoring exist in silos, the industry faces manual integrations, separate agreements, fragmented interfaces, additional information security risks, and complex operations.

The next stage of media digitalization involves assembling these services into a unified digital industrial ecosystem. This is precisely the role MSK-IX envisions for Mediabaza—an industrial platform for the media market that unifies content, TV channels, content storage, AI-driven media technologies, adtech, as well as content and service buyers and sellers.

The platform comprises several key layers:

• Mdisk: A professional, secure content repository and working environment for media assets.
• Technological Layer: Unifies AI-driven media technologies, adtech, and services that cover various stages of the production workflow, including preparation, verification, publication, transmission, monetization, and reporting.
• Market: A marketplace for content, TV channels, and professional services tailored for the media market.

“Mediabaza serves as the integration point for the media market. It is an environment where content, technology, infrastructure, service partners, and clients converge within a single digital ecosystem, allowing individual services to function as part of an actual media business value chain,” noted Gregory Kuzin.

How does this look in practice? Consider the turnkey creation of a FAST channel. A broadcaster registers on Mediabaza, populates the broadcast schedule with content, selects technical modules—ranging from playout and interactive program guides (EPG) to monitoring and adtech solutions—and receives a product ready for broadcast.

Online streaming platforms locate it in the catalog, instantly deploy it, and activate the commercial model. The project creator sees revenue growth, the video service satisfies its viewers with new content, and the media market transitions from fragmented, manual integrations to an automated, industrial-grade ecosystem.

Infrastructure in an era of cost optimization

Responding to a question on how to maintain investment in technological infrastructure during periods of cost optimization, Gregory Kuzin noted that it is becoming less rational for media companies to independently purchase, install, and support the entire suite of new technological modules.

According to him, it is more efficient for many market participants to utilize infrastructure as a service (IaaS) within a unified digital ecosystem. In this model, there is no need to invest in a proprietary set of solutions via CAPEX; the required services can be accessed through a rental model.

For media companies, this lowers the barrier to innovation. For technology firms and startups, particularly in the AI sector, Mediabaza can serve as a sandbox, a showcase, and a market entry channel.

“Mediabaza is an example of efficiency during times of budget optimization. This is a case where a project does not seek state subsidies, but instead assists the state in developing the media industry, supporting domestic technologies, and elevating Russian media products and services to the international stage,” emphasized Gregory Kuzin.

What will cease to be viable by 2027

Looking ahead at the near-term prospects of the media market, the expert noted that by 2027, a narrow specialization solely in classical TV will become increasingly unviable.

“Television is not dying; it has simply fully integrated into digital. In this reality, B2B companies that can only handle a single, isolated task—such as exclusively transporting a media stream or managing a localized broadcasting stage—will eventually become inefficient,” stated Gregory Kuzin.

According to him, the market no longer requires an isolated service, but rather a broader business and technological ecosystem encompassing content, storage, preparation, playout, adtech, monitoring, rights management, analytics, and monetization.

“The future belongs to unified services and industrial platforms. This is precisely the role we assign to Mediabaza, which is designed to be the environment where television, online video, technology, infrastructure, and commercial models converge into a single, functional ecosystem,” concluded the Director of Media Platforms at MSK-IX.

About the event

The TeleMultiMedia Forum: Leaders of the Digital Media Sphere is an expert platform for discussing the development of the digital media sector, media consumption trends, audience acquisition and retention, and the integration of new technologies into media business. The forum is organized by TMT Conferences, Telesputnik publishing house, and the TelecomDaily information and analytical agency.