Monks Celebrates Awards and Innovations at NAB Show

This year, we were honored to take home TV Tech’s Best in Show award and the Bitmovin EMEA Reseller Award, alongside a Sustainability Leader in Media Technology Award for our EVP of Strategic Industries, Lewis Smithingham. These accolades, paired with our recent AWS Media & Entertainment Competency achievement, reflect our commitment to helping broadcasters and media organizations tackle their biggest challenges.

But what excites us most is what these accomplishments represent: progress in solving real challenges for broadcasters and media organizations. From harnessing AI to streamline workflows to redefining video analysis with cutting-edge tools, we’re proud to be at the forefront of meaningful change. This year, we showcased solutions designed to help our clients innovate, monetize and thrive in an ever-evolving landscape. Here’s a closer look at how we, together with our partners, are shaping what’s next. 

Alongside our partners, we’re realizing the potential of AI-powered broadcast solutions.

On the show floor, we introduced NVIDIA-powered solutions with a suite of tools under NVIDIA Media2, leveraging advanced technologies like NIM microservices, Blueprints, NeMo and Holoscan for Media. These tools enable real-time audience feedback, AI-powered selective encoding and contextual content analysis for large content archives, all of which transform how our clients deliver and optimize their media experiences.

In addition, we announced a strategic partnership with Twelve Labs, integrating their innovative AI-powered vision language models into Amazon Bedrock. This collaboration is designed to address critical challenges in media and entertainment by delivering advanced video understanding capabilities. The integration provides IP holders and broadcasters with a seamless and secure way to harness AI across the entire video value chain. This advancement marks a significant step forward in leveraging AI to transform how video content is analyzed, understood and monetized. 

A trio of award wins signify progress in tackling broadcasting’s biggest challenges.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the awards that recognize our commitment to innovation and driving meaningful change in the broadcast and media industries.

First, we were honored with the Best of Show award from TV Tech, alongside our partners Verizon, NVIDIA, FanDuel and Haivision. This award highlighted our AI-driven workflow, demonstrated at the Verizon booth, that showcased how advanced video inference and private 5G network technology are transforming broadcasting workflows at the edge.

Here’s why it matters: these technologies streamline live production by automating complex tasks, like selecting the best camera angles from multi-cam feeds to optimize stream bandwidth and incorporate real-time audience feedback. For broadcasters, this means smarter workflows and faster decision-making. For viewers, it opens up more personalized and engaging experiences, like following a favorite athlete in a game or isolating key moments in a race from hundreds of angles.

Monks was also honored with the title of Bitmovin EMEA Systems Integrator of the Year. This award celebrates a partnership that brought innovative, user-centric streaming to life during Fetch’s Super Bowl Giveaway. To provide a seamless, in-app livestream—bypassing conventional platforms like YouTube or Twitch—we integrated Bitmovin’s Live Encoder, which enabled fast startup and reliable, high-quality streaming for millions of viewers. We also embedded the Bitmovin Player within the Fetch app to ensure smooth playback across a wide range of devices, while Bitmovin Analytics allowed us to monitor performance in real time and quickly optimize the experience. Through close teamwork, we developed, tested, and refined this custom player integration, ensuring that when the stream went live, viewers enjoyed uninterrupted, top-tier video quality directly within the app.

This recognition underscores the impact of combining technical expertise and close collaboration to meet the unique needs of modern content delivery. By working together to simplify complex workflows and deliver interactive, large-scale livestreams directly to audiences, we’re helping clients like Fetch push the boundaries of viewer engagement and set new standards for what’s possible in digital broadcasting.

Finally, congratulations are in order for our EVP of Strategic Industries, Lewis Smithingham, who was given the Sustainability Leader in Media Technology award by the Media Tech Sustainability Series. This award celebrates the pivotal work Smithingham and his team are doing to address one of the industry’s most pressing challenges: resource inefficiency.

Broadcasting has long relied on energy-intensive infrastructure, heavy equipment and large on-site crews. But through software-defined workflows, Smithingham’s team is helping broadcasters transition to cloud-based solutions, drastically reducing the need for energy-hungry broadcast trucks and slashing travel emissions. By leveraging platforms like AWS—often powered by renewable energy—broadcasters not only reduce their environmental impact but also gain more resilient, scalable operations. These efforts are a blueprint for how the industry can align sustainability with innovation.

Building a smarter, more sustainable future for media and entertainment.

In an industry defined by constant evolution, NAB Show offers a glimpse into what’s next—and this year, it was clear that innovation, collaboration and sustainability are driving forces shaping the future of media and entertainment. From our AI-powered solutions to our sustainability initiatives, we’re proud to play a role in addressing the challenges facing broadcasters and media organizations today.

The recognition we received at NAB reflects our commitment to solving these challenges, but it’s only the beginning. As we continue to push boundaries alongside our partners, our focus remains on delivering transformative solutions that empower our clients to create smarter, more sustainable and more engaging media experiences. We’re excited for what lies ahead and grateful to the community of innovators and partners who make this journey possible. Let’s keep building the future together.