Imagine you’re a data architect at a major UK broadcaster. During a live sports event, the metadata tagging system grinds to a halt, the analytics dashboard lags and viewers are complaining of sub-par streaming quality.
Your legacy database is groaning under the weight of 4K/8K video, real-time viewer behaviour data, and a flood of unstructured content from social channels. That moment becomes a wake-up call. The need for database modernisation in the media industry goes from “nice to have” to critical, not tomorrow, but right now.
Oracle 23ai in Media Industry Database Modernisation
The media industry is undergoing a massive shift from linear broadcast to multi-platform OTT, from scheduled to on-demand, and from passive viewership to personalised engagement.
In this transformation, your database must evolve from a silent back-end workhorse to a strategic enabler of agility, insight and innovation. That is why database modernisation in the media industry is now a boardroom topic.
It’s not simply upgrading storage but rethinking how data flows, how analytics run, how AI augments content workflows and how infrastructure scales globally.
Learn more about Oracle 23ai database use cases across industries.
Challenges of Traditional Database Solutions in the Media Industry
Traditional relational databases were designed for predictable workloads: structured transactions, well-defined schemas, and moderate volumes. But the media world today presents very different demands:
- Massive volumes of unstructured content (video, audio, transcripts, and social commentary) alongside structured metadata.
- Requirement for real-time analytics (viewer behaviour, personalisation) and near-instant search across huge asset catalogues.
- Multi-platform delivery (mobile, OTT, live event, VR/AR), with global reach and peak demand spikes.
- Legacy databases often silo asset metadata from analytics, lack native support for unstructured data, and struggle with scaling on-premise or in a hybrid cloud. These limitations slow time-to-insight and increase operational cost.
In short, the old model doesn’t cut it. That’s where database modernisation in the media industry becomes imperative.
How Oracle 23ai Database Can Overcome Traditional Database Challenges in the Media Industry
Enter Oracle Database 23ai (formerly Oracle 23c) — a long-term support release with more than 300 new features focused on AI, scalability, unified data models and mission-critical workloads.
For media companies, this translates into the ability to:
- Store structured, semi-structured and unstructured data (video metadata, transcripts, user behaviour logs) within the same converged database.
- Use built-in AI Vector Search to perform semantic queries across documents, images, and relational data, enabling richer content discovery and targeting.
- Scale globally with high availability, active-active replication (RAFT-based) and improved cache mechanisms, supporting high-traffic live events and global OTT delivery.
- Run hybrid cloud or cloud-native deployments that avoid data duplication and latency, enabling content workflows and analytics closer to viewers and operations. All of these help deliver on the promise of database modernisation in the media industry.
Top 5 Features and Benefits of Oracle 23ai Database for the Media Industry
1. AI Vector Search & semantic metadata search:
Media houses deal with vast unstructured assets. Oracle 23ai’s vector search allows semantic search of these assets, enabling smarter content discovery, recommendation and automated tagging. This accelerates time-to-value for new content.
2. JSON-Relational Duality and Unified Data Model
Media houses deal with vast unstructured assets. Oracle 23ai’s vector search allows semantic search of these assets, enabling smarter content discovery, recommendation and automated tagging. This accelerates time-to-value for new content.
3. Globally Distributed Database & High Availability
With RAFT-based replication and True Cache, media companies can deploy global delivery nodes, support live broadcasts worldwide and maintain near-zero downtime. No more bottlenecks in legacy centralised DBs.
4. Developer Productivity & Embedded AI-Ready Assets
The release simplifies development with in-database AI, native graph support, improved SQL features and JSON-relational methods. For media teams, this means faster rollout of new services (e.g., personalised streaming, real-time analytics).
5. Better Cost and Operational Efficiency
By consolidating multiple systems (metadata store, analytics DB, vector DB) into one converged platform, broadcasters can reduce complexity, lower licence and hardware costs, and shift focus from maintenance to innovation.
Media-specific capabilities unlocked by modernisation
In the context of next-gen broadcasting:
- Metadata & asset management: Modern databases enable automated tagging, faster search and retrieval of content.
- Real-time analytics & audience insight: With modernised platforms, media companies can analyse viewer behaviour, personalise experiences and monetise smarter.
- Scalable global delivery and workload management: Cloud-native databases adjust with demand peaks (e.g., live events).
- Security & compliance: With regulation and rights management critical in media, modern platforms improve governance and risk-mitigation.
These features require a robust database modernisation framework in the media industry that aligns with business goals, not just an IT upgrade.
Explore our Oracle database management solutions.
Conclusion
For UK broadcasters, OTT platforms and media-tech firms, the path to next-generation infrastructure begins with database modernisation. But technology alone isn’t enough; it requires expertise, strategic alignment and trusted partnerships.
That’s where NCS London comes in. With deep experience in Oracle database deployments, hybrid-cloud architectures and media-industry workflows, NCS London offers end-to-end advisory, migration, implementation and managed services to help your business execute on database modernisation in the media industry.
