FROM THE INDUSTRY
I took this picture as I was leaving IBC last year; it has become something of a defining image for me of the TV Media and Entertainment world, as it stood in late 2023. Now, it is not that IBC2023 was broken, but the media and entertainment industry at that time was struggling through transformation, financial and economic upheaval. After several ‘good years’ of expansion and change, we had run up against the buffers and with every week that passed we received yet another negative financial report from another media entity. Of course as seasoned professionals we recognised all the usual euphemisms, from ‘identifying synergies’, to ‘efficiencies’ to the much more straightforward ‘cost cutting’. Cost cutting (into the bone) defined 2023 for pretty much everyone. Unfortunately, that trend continued into 2024, making it the longest period of downturn that I have ever experienced, going all the way back to the late 1990s (beating even the dot com crash and the banking crisis of 2008). Now some say the layoffs are a correction - returning employment levels to pre- lockdown levels (there is some truth in that) - but the defining issue is the lack of new developments and product launches, and a focus on trying to cut costs and conserve revenues, whether new or traditional operators. Across every part of the industry, every company has been optimising and cutting costs. IBC2023 saw little or no discussion of new things. This was even more evident during NAB2024, notable for little to no talk
about new developments - the emphasis was only on further cost cutting. Additionally the surprise fall in numbers from the post-Covid high of 65k to 61k in 2024 - lower than even a year ago - raised further questions about where the industry was going. Since NAB, my ears have been close to the ground and I have been trying to detect green shoots of recovery in the industry but frankly, it is hard to tell if anything is happening. MPTS, a show focused very much on the UK industry did show an increase in attendance from 10K to 12K, with a groundswell of activity around the show with the addition of the SMPTE component, with possibly some green shoots emerging out of the UK. However continuing on from IBC2023, both NAB and MPTS saw growth in ‘partnership’ development, with company X making announcements about working with company Y, to generate new opportunities for both. Even though some of those partnerships were somewhat interesting (even including partnerships between otherwise competing companies in some categories), partnerships are often a cynical exercise in ‘looking busy’ at a time when new customer acquisition is low. Going into IBC2024, I was looking to see if that positivity would continue, and we continued to see green shoots appearing. The IBC show was certainly bigger again, with IBC opening Hall 14 for the first time since lockdown, and we went into it with expectations of more attendance. It certainly was a busy show, with a great deal of growth in engagement through the
DECEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.4
31
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker