Pierre Hunter, Custos EVP Sales & Marketing, attended this key industry event in Amsterdam and provides his post-event review.
We are at the end of September and IBC has once again come and gone. The organisers reported “over 43,000” visitors. This compares to 37,000 visitors in 2022. The last event prior to COVID (2019) attracted 56,000 visitors. So, although visitor numbers showed an increase over last year, we are not yet back to pre-COVID levels. It should also be noted that since 2022 IBC has been a 4-day instead of a 5-day event.
The stated focus of the event was across three main subjects - Transformative Technologies, Shifting Business Models and People & Purpose. Following the current trend, several presentation stages were set up in the exhibition halls; these attracted a good level of interest (at least the ones I noted in Halls 1 and 5). Content Anywhere also graduated from Hall 14 to Hall 5 this year.
IBC 2022 is well remembered for the travel chaos at Schiphol Airport when everyone was heading home. Fortunately, staffing and infrastructure have been addressed in the interim, and this experience was not repeated this year. Coupled with the good weather we experienced for most of the event, this made IBC 2023 a most pleasant event to attend.
A Custos watermarking demo was prepared for the event and was shown on the stand of EZDRM, our Multi-DRM partner, in Hall 5. This demo attracted attention, and several follow-up discussions are being planned. As this is the first time that Custos has been presented on a stand at IBC, this is a milestone for us.
The combination of DRM and Watermarking continues to be an important topic of conversation. Forensic Watermarking remains a key requirement for identifying sources of illegally distributed content, more particularly content related to live sport. Custos’s anti-piracy approach ensures the quick and cost-effective detection of such content and remains unique in the industry.
Although there was much discussion around technologies such as AI and 5G broadcast, I did not detect any groundbreaking technologies being or planning to be introduced that could revolutionise the industry over the next few years. There was much discussion about industry consolidation and operators working under severe budget constraints. This continues to put everyone in the industry under strain. So, the bottom line is that in the absence of dramatic new developments that will help our industry onto the next wave of development, we will all have to focus on pushing for higher efficiency and lower costs, and on helping operators make a return on current and past investments.
One lesson that COVID has taught us, is that the level of business travel we all did in the past is not always necessary. I personally do the bulk of my current business activities virtually. This makes an event such as IBC even more important as an opportunity to network. It’s an opportunity to interact not only with customers and partners, but with colleagues and industry friends as well.
