FROM THE INDUSTRY
You’ll clearly be missed at IBC after 10 years as Chair. What will you miss? Certainly it will be the people; the team at IBC are fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed working with them over the last 10 years. There’s quite a lot of interaction throughout the year at different events and different occasions, so just that ability to get together and talk about what’s going on in the industry and hear about new things and share. People in the media industry tend to be really smart, very engaging and interesting; they’re fun to be around. Being the chair of the organisation has given me a platform to engage with everybody as well as permission to reach out and talk to anyone and everyone. You must have seen a lot of changes over the last decade in that role. The industry’s definitely evolved. The definition of the media industry has broadened, it’s moved away from just being about broadcasting; we’re into cable, satellite and now streaming. And as more and more businesses have become involved in the media landscape, as we’ve seen more involvement from big tech: Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook are involved which is exciting. It means that the industry has constantly been reinventing itself, and that’s always a good thing.
Plus the subscription model has changed things completely, it’s given power to the public. Instead of being passive recipients, they’re actively influencing the direction of travel. Exactly. The economics and business dynamics have changed, impacting every aspect. Production, distribution, contribution. They’ve all significantly evolved over the last 10 years. By and large that’s resulted in more choice for the public and more interesting, more exciting things for people engaged in the industry to pursue. It feels like right now we are going through something HISTORIC in terms of reinvention and consolidation. There will be a lot of casualties by the time we get out the other side of this. Yes, I think so. We mustn’t forget that every time we live through significant change, it always feels as though it’s the most change, the most catastrophic change, the most impactful change. And we forget about the change that happened a couple of years ago, which may have felt just as impactful at the time. That’s what’s so refreshing; the industry is
MARCH 2025 Volume 47 No.1
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