Ryarc CEO Fergal Ó Ceallaigh joined Dave Haynes of Sixteen:Nine for a wide-ranging conversation about Ryarc, CampaignManager and how the requirements of large-scale digital signage have changed over the past two decades.
The discussion moves from the origins of Ryarc to the less visible engineering challenges behind operating distributed screen networks — reliability, remote management, edge devices and the infrastructure required to keep systems running without constant intervention.
From digital signage software to enterprise infrastructure
Fergal explains that Ryarc began with a straightforward idea: digital signage would eventually need to become usable as an ordinary enterprise application rather than remain a specialist broadcast-style tool.
That thinking shaped CampaignManager around both usability and the operational requirements of distributed networks.
As deployments grew, the emphasis increasingly moved beyond content management itself. Remote device management, monitoring and the ability to resolve problems without unnecessary site visits became central to the platform.
The same capabilities subsequently extended into areas including IoT, sensor management and Edge AI, where the underlying requirement is often similar: deploy software or models across many remote endpoints, maintain them, collect information and keep the edge infrastructure manageable.
ATSC 3.0 and another route to the edge
A substantial part of the conversation focuses on Ryarc’s work with ATSC 3.0 datacasting.
ATSC 3.0 allows existing broadcast television infrastructure to carry data as well as traditional television programming. Ryarc has been working with broadcast technology providers to use that capability as another route for delivering digital signage content to remote endpoints.
The opportunity is particularly relevant where moving large volumes of data over cellular networks is expensive. From the user’s perspective, the objective remains familiar: publish content normally while the delivery infrastructure determines the appropriate route underneath.
The conversation also touches on Ryarc’s history in in-store audio, where large libraries and distributed endpoints created many of the same content-distribution and remote-management challenges long before today’s edge terminology became common.
Listen to the full conversation
The full interview covers Ryarc’s early years, the evolution of digital signage from a specialist discipline into an enterprise IT environment, CampaignManager’s approach to remote manageability, and the work underway around broadcast-based content distribution.