Zixi: Streamlining Sinclair
Posted on May 16, 2025 by FEED Staff
Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Mike Kralec shares key insights on his tool of choice when it comes to redefining broadcast architecture
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Before partnering with Zixi, Sinclair faced certain challenges when it came to ensuring a steadfast delivery of content.
“We’re in the midst of a transformation programme that involves moving all of our broadcast automation and playout to the cloud using AWS,” begins Mike Kralec, SVP and chief technology officer for Sinclair Broadcast Group.
“Initially, when we started that process, Zixi wasn’t a partner of ours and we were using other methods for transporting the streams between our television stations and the cloud,” continues Kralec.
“When we began to take all those feeds to and from the television stations, we started to see some instability in the network. We have stations across the United States, in almost every market, and in each of those we might have a different network circuit and a different internet service provider that introduces some inconsistencies.
“It wasn’t as stable as we’d have liked it to be and wasn’t an optimal design in terms of network architecture. So, we started looking into reconfiguring the network using Zixi to develop a much more flexible infrastructure with consistent performance. One of the biggest operational challenges is operating our diverse IP network across a national footprint.”
Implementing Zixi has transformed Sinclair’s broadcasting capabilities, particularly in terms of efficiency and cost savings. “We’re spending a lot less time on troubleshooting,” Kralec adds. “It’s also more cost-effective for us than how we were set up previously. Although there’s a licence fee, there’s also a reduction in cost for transport to the cloud endpoint and we simply don’t spend as much time worrying about drops in our video streams or disconnections in the cloud. That greater stability gives us the opportunity to spend time on things that are more important.
A trusted platform
One of the main pros of using Zixi is that it’s trusted on the network side, and it’s the most complete platform for managing live broadcast-quality video delivery over any IP network, protocol and cloud provider.
“It’s not just Sinclair’s trust in the protocol to be able to support a very stable and flexible network, it’s also other people’s trust in Zixi,” says Kralec. “While there are alternative standards and protocols and they usually work fine, the implementations can differ from vendor to vendor and endpoint to endpoint. While they should work together, they don’t necessarily always do so. But Zixi just works and everyone knows it’s consistent.”
For Sinclair, shifting to an IP-based workflow signified the company’s commitment to flexibility.
“Transitioning to IP-based networking is about being able to use that flexibility from the IP side to do things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to in operations,” explains Kralec.
“If you’re constantly having to evaluate whether your operations are as efficient as they possibly can be, then using a flexible tool provides more optionality. Having more of a Swiss Army knife-type tool gives us the option to manipulate and move more quickly on the transformation side of things.”
Broadcast benefits
Since their burgeoning partnership began, Sinclair has noticed several incremental improvements when it comes to leveraging what Zixi has to offer.
“There’s a lot that others have already done with Zixi,” adds Kralec. “Because that trust exists, we can more easily talk to our contribution and distribution partners about how we could engage with them during Sinclair’s transformation.
“It becomes not just about Sinclair’s move to broadcast automation and playout to the cloud, but also what we can build on top of that… they can benefit from our transformation as well.”
Kralec acknowledges that Sinclair is more than happy with its partnership, as Zixi has largely reset its network positioning.
“It has really given us stability in terms of managing all those diverse networks across the nation, from all stations through to the cloud,” he concludes. “It’s given us that flexible architecture so we can reconfigure things as we transform further. It’s opened those conversations out to other broadcasters and distributors about how our changes could potentially help them as well and continue this transformation.”
Kralec concludes: “Zixi’s contribution of reliability and quality to our live broadcasts goes back to the stabilisation and consistency in our circuits and our overall network. Outside of it just being a better tool in our toolbox, it adds flexibility as well. We are always transforming, always looking for opportunities to improve how we operate, and finding a tool like Zixi accelerates that process.”
Find out more about Zixi at zixi.com
This article first featured in the Spring 2025 issue of FEED magazine.
