A fractional CTO from Cuez's broadcast-SaaS API rescue
CMS strategy, audience-data strategy, monetisation tech, vendor management for publishers and broadcasters. $4,500/mo Advisory, $8,500/mo full.
Who this is for
Publisher or broadcaster ops/product lead where legacy CMS, audience-data strategy, and monetisation tech are all different conversations without unified ownership.
The pain today
- Legacy CMS blocking editorial productivity
- Audience data scattered across systems with no single view
- Monetisation tech (ads, subscriptions) managed by different teams
- Performance under traffic spikes is unpredictable
- Full-time CTO hire not justified at current scale
The outcome you get
- Fractional media CTO at $4,500 to $8,500/mo
- CMS strategy (stay, replatform, or hybrid)
- Audience data unification plan
- Performance and scale architecture
- Vendor and platform strategy
Media/broadcast CTO topics
Four topics dominate media CTO work. CMS — stay, replatform, or headless hybrid. Audience — unified view of readers/viewers across channels, subscription data, newsletter data. Monetisation — ad tech, subscription platforms, commerce features, performance implications of each. Performance — traffic spike handling, Core Web Vitals for ad revenue, video delivery. Fractional CTO at $4,500 to $8,500/mo covers all four with broadcast-SaaS experience from Cuez.
Performance and scale playbook
Media sites face traffic spikes (major stories, live events, viral content). Scale architecture: CDN edge caching for static content, server-rendered critical paths, queue-based background work, horizontal scaling on API tier. Post-Cuez (3s to 300ms API rescue), I bring specific performance discipline — database query optimisation, caching strategy, FFMPEG-era video processing experience. For publishers preparing for viral moments or live-event coverage, infrastructure needs conscious architecture, not hope.
Vendor and platform strategy
Publishers run on dozens of vendors — CMS, ad server (GAM), audience measurement (Chartbeat, Parsely), email (Mailchimp, Substack), subscription management (Piano, Memberful), video (Mux, Cloudflare Stream), analytics (GA4, Adobe). Strategic consolidation reduces vendor overhead and integration complexity. For publishers preparing for replatform or major vendor decision, CTO role ensures decisions made on technical and strategic merit, not vendor marketing.
Pricing tiers
CTO Advisory $4,500/mo — 1 to 2 days per week. Strategic input, vendor decisions. Fractional CTO $8,500/mo — 3 days per week. Deep CTO role for publishers or broadcast operators without senior tech leadership. 14-day money-back guarantee. Cancel anytime. US LLC invoicing.
Case: Cuez — broadcast-SaaS performance leadership
Cuez: broadcast-SaaS API from 3 seconds to 300 milliseconds, 10x faster, ~40 percent infra cost reduction. Stack: Laravel, Vue.js, TypeScript, AWS, FFMPEG. Broadcast-SaaS at live-event scale shares performance and reliability challenges with publisher and broadcaster tech. CTO work at Cuez translated directly to architecture decisions, vendor management, team leadership. Same CTO approach applies to publisher and broadcaster engagements.
When a VP of Engineering is right
Publishers or broadcasters with engineering teams of 10+ often benefit from VP Engineering for team leadership alongside CTO for strategy. For smaller operations, fractional CTO covers both. I help structure the transition when the team grows beyond fractional-manageable scale. For broadcast specifically, OT/broadcast-engineering specialists handle device-side work; fractional CTO covers software and integration.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
Rescued a slow API that was blocking user growth
Refactored the backend architecture, making the system far more responsive and scalable for the growing user base.
Frequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
- Should we replatform our CMS?
- Depends on current pain. WordPress with performance hardening works for publishers under 500k monthly pageviews. At higher scale or with complex editorial needs, headless (WordPress as CMS plus Next.js) or full replatform (Sanity plus Next.js) may pay back. Replatform decisions high-risk and expensive — I evaluate ROI carefully. Often the honest answer is 'stay with WordPress plus optimisation' even for publishers who think they need replatform.
- How do you handle ads integration?
- GAM integration with Prebid.js wrapper for header bidding. Ad slots reserved with sizes to prevent CLS. Defer below-fold ads until scroll. Critical path content server-rendered before ads load. For publishers with complex yield optimisation, I wire infrastructure and work alongside your yield-management partner. Ad strategy stays with revenue team; CTO ensures technical delivery preserves Core Web Vitals.
- Can you handle video infrastructure?
- Yes. Mux for professional video delivery. Cloudflare Stream for budget alternative. For live streaming, RTMP ingest to AWS IVS or dedicated live platforms. FFMPEG experience from Cuez for processing pipelines. For publishers with serious video investment, dedicated video architecture significant CTO work. Budget specialist video engineer at scale; fractional CTO covers foundational decisions.
- What about paywall integration?
- Piano, Pico, Memberful, Substack — each has integration paths. For publishers building custom paywall logic, Stripe Subscriptions plus custom metering. I set up the integration; your product team defines paywall business rules (free article limits, tier unlocks, exceptions). Full custom paywall is Applications-scope work typically, not CTO-alone deliverable.
- How do you handle audience data?
- Unified audience data across web, email, app, and subscription systems. CDP (customer data platform) considerations — Segment, mParticle, self-hosted. For publishers without dedicated data team, architecture decisions matter more than platform choice. Privacy compliance (GDPR, CCPA) layered into consent management. For publishers monetising through both ads and subscriptions, unified data powers both sides.
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