IBC2024: How the Numbers Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Behind superficial headlines pointing to growth, the broadcast industry is looking in a precarious state.
IBC took place at its usual location, the RAI Amsterdam during September 13-16. The event organisers claim that more than 45,000 people from 170 countries attended the show. In an effort to demonstrate some growth:
Visitor numbers were up around 2k to 45,085
There were over 1350 exhibitors – up 100 from 2023
Exhibition space grew from 44,500 square meters last year to 46,000 square meters
All of this seems to paint a rosy picture, but it covers up the harsh challenges the industry is facing as I covered in my preview piece. In fact, I could almost copy and paste my LinkedIn post from last year’s IBC here, as the single biggest key takeaway is the disconnect between perception and harsh market reality on all levels.
Starting with the visitor numbers, it is unclear whether this excludes people registered as exhibitors, as I saw many of them walking the floor show. Friday and Saturday were noticeably the busiest days, with a significant drop off on Sunday. Monday’s attendance was inflated with students.
More stands seemed emptier than usual as I walked the show floor numerous times at different points of the day. Instead, there was no shortage of posts on social media with plenty of selfies being taken. This is nothing new and consistent with last year’s event; people seem to have more time for this than anything else.
Unquestionably, it remains a good networking event to meet and connect with people. However, given the widespread cost-cutting measures and drive towards efficiencies, there were more people on the show floor looking for jobs.
While encouraging to see more floor space, the new tech AI area had dedicated speaking areas, a couple of larger big tech companies, and some companies who didn’t show up.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really worry about the majority of the companies exhibiting given that they are financially strapped. Despite lots of good meetings onsite, deals are not getting done, and when they are they’re taking much longer. There is no new conference content and a lack of innovation. Nothing changes except that the costs of attending shows such as IBC are heading in the wrong direction.
In its current form, the industry will NOT survive and something must give. The industry is NOT growing; it is shrinking despite all of the forecasts. Having said that, some aspects of the industry are thriving and there were huge volumes of people in the AV-focused halls.
As I’ve heard from many, if the industry is genuinely serious about its future then operating costs need to be slashed drastically and it needs to adopt new telecoms IP-based cloud architecture rather than simply sticking to old-school SLA. It was good to see some companies return as exhibitors, but I do expect many to scale back or even decide not to exhibit next year.
Some companies showcased joint collaborative solutions thanks to being acquired, yet the show kicked off with a dark cloud over it given the news that Edgio had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Putting all of this into context, compared to the many other events I’ve attended this year (CES, MWC, NAB, IFA, and others) this IBC was a huge disappointment. The entire industry continues to adopt a wait-and-see approach with nothing moving forward.
Some of my other observations are below. Associations and companies mentioned include: Accedo, Anthropic, AWS, BBC, BT & Media Broadcast, Brightcove, Broadcast Partners, Dolby, Fraunhofer, Google, LG, Microsoft, Netgem, NHK, NPO, Orange, ORS Group, Samsung, Sony, Synamedia, Tiledmedia, and Verizon.