IBC 2023 : Sunny or Stormy ?

Visitors were up 16% from last year’s “recovery" edition and IBC has announced further extending the real estate for 2024. So, if proof was further needed, this means that Zoom has not killed face to face meetings, it might even have made them more necessary (and enjoyable) !

The storm behind the sun

Increased participation is the sunny side of this year’s edition of IBC, the most international Media, Entertainment and Technology trade show which took place last week-end in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Sunny as were the first two days of the show.

But in the same way as thunderstorms broke on Sunday morning, if you looked a little closer, you might have noticed that the layout of the booths tells the story of an industry on the verge of disruption : huge lavish booths were paired with micro-stands in Hall 1, some companies had disappeared from the floor to have a presence only in the suites up-stairs or in Hall4 (did anyone even know Hall 4 existed ?) … . The logos on AWS’s ever larger booth looked like a 2015 who’s who of broadcast vendors, indicating that all vendors have now embraced the cloud (and transferred part of their value-add to its leader …). Finally my greying hairline looked perfectly at home with that of most participants : no new blood is never a good sign !

Whereas last year a lot of consolidation had happened in the 12 months leading to the show, this year the tightened financial conditions did not offer such an exit for smaller companies. So behind closed doors, many people were acknowledging that business was bad and that layoffs had started.

WHO is most at risk ? And who has a good chance of making it ?

In my opinion, small companies (less than 50 people) doing a good job but not identified as an unconditional leader in their domain are most at risk. Examples abound in the end-to-end OTT platform provider segment for example. If one or two of their main clients disappears or changes provider, they are very much at risk of going under.

To survive the storm ahead, you need to be well capitalised (and if you are not already, it is probably too late) and/or be a clear leader preferably in a part of the business which helps your clients make or save money.

WHAT are the 2023 BUZZWORDS ? And which new products caught my attention ?

IBC is first and foremost a tech show, so what would I pick as the main subjects of 2023 ? In 2018, I had picked “AI” and “Live”; in 2019 “Low latency” and “data”; in 2022, I had had difficulties picking a winner but FAST was already the acronym of choice.

This year I would say “gen AI” and “Advertising”. This reflects well the preoccupations of IBC exhibitors’ clients. After some years of focusing on client acquisition, 2023 has seen a clear change of focus towards profitability and ARPU. The much touted genAI, has indeed many possible applications all along the media workflow, bringing cost savings, speed and new creative (and therefore revenue) possibilities along the way. As for advertising, in a time of subscription fatigue, every streamer has introduced a dose of advertising to its revenue mix. IBC’s tech vendors have accompanied this move.

Some genAI (or simply AI) fueled novelties which caught my attention :

-????? AI-Media’s AI powered live-automatic-captioning solution : LEXI.

-????? Magnifi’s AI-infused application for speeding up the edition of clips.

Some Advertising related developments worth mentioning :

-????? Broadpeak’s next-gen SSAI solution (broadpeak.io) solving the device fragmentation difficulties for advertising formats.

-????? Harmonic’s targeted advertising ecosystem with the integration of VOS360 and Google Ad Manager.

-????? Synamedia’s partnership with supply-side platform Index Exchange for their Iris advertising platform.

And while I am at it, a few more new products which caught my attention :

-????? Wildmoka (now part of Backlight)’s Live studio and Tellyo’s (interestingly presented at IBC as an Amagi “strategic partner” …) cloud-native live video production platform (seriously reducing costs compared to more traditional solutions),

-????? Teravolt (acquired by Qvest during the show)’s award winning interactive sports experience TVXRAY aiming at getting a younger audience interested in sports.

What’s next ? My expectations for IBC 2024

In my last year IBC report, I had announced the beginning of?a new fundamental transformation of our industry?which will govern the next ten years or so. Gaming, social media and TV/Video will start to converge.?Blockchain,?Web3?and the?Metaverse?will fundamentally change the Media Technology industry, technically but also in terms of business models.

I have to say that not much of this was visible at this year’s IBC. GenAI and a focus on advertising stole the show. I would say that these are quick and easy tentatives to fix the current model.

Will they be sufficient ? Seeing how FAST channels are failing at attracting enough advertising, I would say … no !

As for GenAI, it has a huge number of applications which can be relatively easily implemented in the current structure of the media workflow, so its uptake can be fast. At first it will provide welcome savings, but longer term it will carry the seeds of the major disruption I am envisaging ! Imagine the time when the equivalent of today’s Tik Tok creator will have the tools to create content as entertaining as Hollywood’s … .

So I am keeping last’s year prediction for the next ten year ! I will simply add that the path to it will probably involve Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” !

If you want to make sure you to?have the right Strategy, GTM and Technology stack to be well positioned in this new fundamental transformation of the Media Tech market, I would be happy to help. DM me.

Also please do not hesitate to comment to enrich the IBC 2023 report?!