Seven questions IBC might answer this year

Last year we wrote a blog called 5 Questions IBC 2018 Might Answer This Year! But there are more questions to answer every year so we’ve returned with seven more!

1.  Will AVOD keep growing?

Good question! Although the first should actually be: why is AVOD so trendy these days with the most powerful example now 14 years old, called YouTube?

A graphic paints a thousand words.

In other words: the money coming from video ads keeps growing.

Not only are these overall numbers very exciting, there are also notable specific success stories. There’s nothing quite like a real success story to give encouragement to companies and people. Tubi, the AVOD platform, reached 20 million subscribers in May 2019 and it also has achieved profitability in 2018.

IBC 2019 could help us to see more clearly the future of AVOD, especially with a conference session called AVOD, SVOD Or Both? where business models will be discussed, including the freemium model that could represent the best of both worlds.

We may also learn more precisely Where’s The Money Coming From as a wider session on revenue generation and changing business models. That should be helpful in answering at least some key questions about AVOD.

2.  Will Disney eat the world?

We have a launch date and a price for Disney+. The question is: will Disney eat the world?

To try and answer this question, check out The Creative Challenges And Digital Giants conference session. This will look at the changing production environment and will ask whether we have reached “peak content”, exploring rising content spend and the level of competition.

Looking at the options for other OTT platforms, The Competing In OTT Beyond The Big Brands conference should be very insightful. With platforms like Disney+ in the picture, are differentiation, regional content and local responses a key to competing?

Meanwhile, if you can’t wait for IBC to give you answers, you should read this: The Streaming Wars. It comes with the at least the beginnings of an answer to the question we just posed.

“To view Disney+ as a Netflix killer is thus to misidentify its business model, ambitions and role. The real casualties from Disney+ are likely Netflix’s competitors (new, such as Apple and Warner Media, and old, such as Starz and Showtime), which have undoubtedly been forced to lower their launch prices and/or long-term pricing as a result of Disney+’s $6.99 monthly (and $5.8 annualized) subscription fee.”

3.  Is there a future for linear broadcasters?

Though we talk about Media Entertainment and Technology to describe the broader industry, the “B” from IBC still stands for Broadcasting.

Is There Still Life In Linear Broadcasting asks this article from IBC365. Whether you’re talking free-to-air or pay-TV, everybody’s concerned about the ongoing disruption.

As the article states, “The BBC (has) admitted that young people spent more time watching Netflix than all of its BBC TV services each week.”

But it’s not the first time broadcasters have faced challenges: when the industry moved from five channels to 500, it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

Three conferences will help with answers: Is There Still Life In Linear Broadcasting?; Digital Publishing: The New Broadcasters; and Content Beyond Broadcast should generate useful insights.

4.  Will the industry suffer from an AI fatigue?

With only a few weeks to go before IBC, if there’s fatigue around AI, no one in the industry seems aware of it. With hundreds of companies with AI offerings, maybe we should pay attention to the AI washing before the AI fatigue.

We should be able to add use cases to our 10 Powerful Applications For AI In Broadcast thanks to the conference session AI – More Ways It Will Revolutionise Our Industry, or 8K And AI. Not to mention more in-depth and technical sessions: Artificial Intelligence, Naturally Smarter Cable Networks by SCTE and AI/ML Fffect

If you can’t wait for IBC, you can have a look at the IABM report on AI.

5.  Cloud: is the storm over?

To put it mildly, cloud use is expanding across our industry and at every level: people, technology and businesses are all impacted.

Conference sessions dedicated to the “Visual Cloud” back this up, along with Seeing Clearly In The Cloud Strategies For Business Transformation. In the latter session, the IABM will “explore the challenges and opportunities of transformation to a cloud media ecosystem.”.

The cloud is important to us, as the launch at IBC2019 of our Globecast Managed Cloud Network (Globecast MCN) service for sports feeds shows. Talking about Globecast MCN, another conference should be of interest: SCTE: Building Data-Driven, Cloud-Based, Click-To-Deploy Video Delivery Solutions By Leveraging The Advances In Artificial Intelligence. Click-to-deploy is at the heart of our new solution.

So the storm keeps growing and should keep growing until IBC and after.

6.  Is Cooperation the new competition?

We have to admit we’ve seen no real proof that IBC will answer this question, but as colleague Alan Hird Noticed Last Year, collaboration is more critical than ever.

We’ve seen signs of this in the past year: UK broadcasters or Nordic broadcasters joining forces on VOD; 5G trials bringing together multiple companies/technologies too, not to mention potential collaboration between sports and eSports.

So we think cooperation should be on the table at IBC.

Maybe this keynote on The Future Of Media Technology will gives us a few answers.

7.  Will the next IBC be in Amsterdam?

Michael Crimp answered the question while we were writing this article in this must-read interview from IABM. Yes, IBC 2020 will be in Amsterdam.

In just a few weeks, we hope to see you at stand 1.A29 to discuss your needs. You can book a meeting here or just show up at the booth!

PS: IBC should answer many more questions related to 8K, AR, VR, MR, 5G, IP and eSports, but that’s enough from us for now.