IBC2026: Content Can Travel Faster Than Ever. Is It Ready for the Journey?

I've just got back from four days at the RAI in Amsterdam, where more than 41,000 people came together for IBC2026, and I'm still working through my notes. Some shows leave you with a list of product launches. This one left me with a change in thinking that I believe will shape the next few years of our industry.

The mood: less spectacle, more practical

A few years ago, IBC was about what might be possible. This year, it was about what works. Almost every stand talked about AI, but the conversation had grown up. The industry has moved on from asking whether AI belongs in the workflow. The questions were practical ones: where does it save time, where does it save money, and where does human creative judgement remain essential?

“Practical innovation” was a phrase I kept hearing, and it fit. Many of the demos that drew the biggest crowds were the ones that showed a real before-and-after on a real workflow.

Takeaway 1: Distribution has come a long way

Walk through the playout, cloud and asset-management halls and you see an industry that has become very good at moving content. Cloud-native playout, automated packaging, metadata-driven personalisation and multi-platform delivery have all matured. A title can now reach a dozen platforms in a day.

That's a real achievement, and it raises a question I kept thinking about in the aisles: with delivery this fast, what else determines whether a title succeeds in a new market?

Takeaway 2: Readiness matters as much as reach

More and more, the answer is readiness. A title can reach a platform in a new country very quickly, but whether it connects with audiences there depends on a different set of things: the language, the accent, whether the performance carries through in the new version, and whether the trailer speaks to that market.

Many conversations came back to the same point. The industry has built an excellent motorway, and the next opportunity is making sure every title is prepared for the journey.

Takeaway 3: Business models are being rewritten

The business track was one of the busiest. FAST channels, hybrid ad tiers, library monetisation and co-production deals all pointed the same way: catalogues are being asked to work harder, in more markets, for longer. When the aim is to give a library title a new life in several new territories, localisation becomes a central part of the business case.

Takeaway 4: Collaboration is the way forward

Collaboration came up again and again. Broadcasters and platforms are looking for partners that fit smoothly into the pipelines they already run, and many conversations on the floor were about how different specialists can work together to deliver a better result.

What it means from an operations desk

I look at every show through the operations and finance lens, and here's how I'd sum it up. Localisation used to be a cost added at the end. It now belongs in the pipeline from day one.

Planned early and done well, it can pay for itself through wider reach, longer library life and stronger engagement in each market.

That's the part of the chain we focus on at Ant Systemz, with voice and creative localisation built into the production pipeline from the start. But the bigger point applies to the whole industry: treating readiness as seriously as delivery is how we all get the most from the remarkable infrastructure on show in Amsterdam.

Who should be at IBC2027?

If you're thinking about next year, here's who I think gets the most from the show:

1. Content owners and library holders. If you're sitting on a catalogue you want to earn from globally, IBC is the one place where distribution, packaging and localisation partners are all in the same building.

2. OTT, FAST and broadcast operations leads. The playout, cloud and automation halls alone justify the trip. Come with your pain points written down.

3. Heads of strategy and finance at media companies. The business-model sessions were some of the most useful of the week. It was valuable to hear so many operators share what's working for them commercially.

4. Post-production and localization professionals. New tools are opening up new creative possibilities for your work, and seeing them first-hand on the show floor is the best way to understand them.

5. Regional and local-language broadcasters. Your audiences are central to where our industry is heading, and your voice in these conversations matters more every year.

6. Start-ups and innovation teams. Between the accelerator projects and the tech showcases, IBC is where new ideas get tested in front of the people they are built for.

One tip for first-timers: book your meetings before you land. The best conversations of my week were planned weeks ahead, and some of the best chance encounters came from leaving a little room in the diary.

Until next September

Thank you to everyone who made time for us in Amsterdam, to the IBC team for running such a well-organized show, and to the many people who shared ideas and perspectives with us over four very full days. I'm leaving with more questions than answers, and that usually means it was a good show.

See you at IBC 2027.

#IBC2026 #MediaTech #Localization #ContentDistribution #Broadcast