Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has been working with HPE for over two decades across all areas of the business - a business that is enjoyed by over 95% of the Australian population, with 99 radio stations across 64 markets, 105 TV signals, and the LiSTNR app that offers both live and on-demand listening.

That existing relationship has been, of course, the traditional on-premises data centre with owned and self-managed servers and other hardware. With growth, with new corporate business strategies, and with ever-increasing demands for reliable, scalable, performant - and cost-effective - technology, SCA embarked on a digital transformation project which saw the company continue its HPE relationship, but pivoting to HPE GreenLake, the HPE edge-to-cloud platform. HPE GreenLake brings all the power of cloud with the flexibility of being where the customer needs it.

“The HPE GreenLake implementation stemmed from our need to deliver a seamless listening experience across every listening platform,” said SCA CTO Stephen Haddad.

“We have a unique business model whereby we needed to retain our on-premises data storage capability to facilitate broadcast listening, but also required a solution that can manage infrastructure at scale, effectively. Our approach to technology is to work in a reliable and simplified environment, offering the best-personalised audio experience so that we can reach the largest number of people across the country," Haddad said.

The HPE GreenLake move ensures SCA can deliver a seamless experience supporting customer audio consumption and digital advertising, providing a reliable experience for listeners, and greater revenue opportunities.

The transformation has seen SCA migrate traditional broadcast capabilities into a robust, scalable, flexible virtualised environment that supports media management and processing whether live or on-demand, without sacrificing quality at any step.

SCA has seen rapid growth since launching LiSTNR in 2020, with the app now considered Australia's number-one commercial podcast network and the fastest-growing audio app. The app reached 7.7m monthly listeners in September 2023. 20 of the top 50 podcasts in Australia are available from LiSTNR, more than any other podcast network. And, the top podcast in Australia continues to be SCA and LiSTNR's Hamish & Andy. Such figures demand highly-available, performant, trouble-free media playback, storage, and bandwidth at the highest levels.

“We’re proud to have delivered a technology solution that has successfully supported SCA’s business objectives and growth trajectory, said HPE VP and MD South Pacific Chris Weber.

The partnership also included AC3, who supported SCA staff in deeply technical areas by providing expertise and training to support the delivery of the GreenLake solution.

"We’ve been working in partnership with both businesses for many years, focused on implementing world-class technology solutions that deliver real business outcomes, and this is another great example of that,” said AC3 CEO Simon Xistouris. “We’re proud to have played a role in implementing the HPE GreenLake solution and enabling the LiSTNR app to be so successful.”