After 2 years of virtual events, the annual International Broadcasting Conference was back for an in-person event and the location was no other than beautiful Amsterdam! A charming city, nice people everywhere, and a lot of luck with the weather! Yes, it did rain a bit but Codavel’s team managed to enjoy the city in its full splendor for a few hours.

IBC is the world's most influential show on Media, Entertainment & Technology. This year’s edition counted more than 37.000 visitors and 1.000 organizations sharing demonstrations and concrete examples of leading-edge technologies in the broadcasting and video streaming industry. IBC definitely is an exciting live event that gives every attendee the chance to gain valuable insights, share expertise and unlock new opportunities. Codavel attended in force, bringing our solution and expertise in content delivery to the public eye.

Codavel’s mobile CDN attracted the interest of many visitors and exhibitors at the event. In particular, our custom-made protocol for fast and more resilient content delivery, Bolina, gathered a lot of curiosity from technical experts in the industry. The quality of mobile user experience (QoE) is a pivotal dimension in content delivery, so the industry is always on the look for any solution that helps improve the QoE and outperforms the traditional technology.

For 4 days we walked through the many stands, visited (and revisited!) some fascinating booths, and left Amsterdam absolutely amazed with everything we learned and saw at IBC. Here are our top 3 takeaways from IBC2022 so you can stay on top of the trends of an industry that keeps evolving every day.

#1. OTT is everywhere and booming

OTT has long taken over linear broadcasting and this trend shows no signs of stopping. In fact, the number of increasingly specialized OTT services, regardless of the business model, advocates the growing predominance of streaming services. OTT has forever redirected the course of broadcasting from what was once nation-based TV services to global media groups, which control the whole content value chain. 

OTT does represent the future of entertainment and figures stand out: revenue in the OTT video segment is projected to reach $275.30bn in 2022, with an annual growth rate of 11.60%, projecting a staggering market volume of $476.60bn by 2027.

Viewers are becoming more demanding and always looking for what’s relevant and new in store for them, leading OTT players to leave no stone unturned when it comes to providing the best service.

#2. Hyper tailoring the user experience is key

With the growth of the OTT industry and the number of streaming providers increasing by the day, staying relevant is decisive. For consumers, finding new content is not an issue - there is an immense array of content available that matches the interest of nearly every audience. The challenge viewers face is finding the best and most relevant content for them in the vastness of online content - and keep finding it consistently.

This is a concern for OTT providers that have begun to hyper-tailor the experience to the individual level. Recommendation engines are becoming more complex and might represent one of the most competitive assets against linear broadcasting and competing OTT service providers. It’s important to note that personalization doesn’t mean just content recommendations, but also personalized ads displaying. The potential of OTT advertising has become incredibly clear for many service providers, but customization must also be taken into the equation.

#3. Improving content delivery is more important than ever

OTT services rely on content delivery networks (CDNs) to ensure a quality streaming experience for viewers. A CDN can provide the bandwidth and performance needed to deliver an optimal viewing experience. By distributing content across multiple local servers instead of one origin server, it is possible to handle traffic spikes and guarantee scalability.

From a user experience perspective, CDNs allow OTT providers to reduce buffering and latency issues, which impair the user experience. With competition becoming fiercer by the day in the OTT industry, and service providers need to provide a top-notch user experience and latency still is the number one frustration when watching video online.

Closing Thoughts

These are just a few insights of 4 intense days at IBC 2022. Codavel networked with industry experts, learned and saw first-hand the latest industry trends. We reencountered old friends, established new partnerships, and shared our expertise on how to deliver the best and most resilient video streaming experience with reduced latency. Next year’s IBC will most likely show the growth and innovation of the industry in the upcoming year and we are already looking forward to it.