Written by: Roshan Dwivedi
The IBC Conference is an unrivaled global destination for networking, discussion and debate, presenting a mix of visionary keynotes, panel discussions and master classes with the most influential thought-leaders and innovators in their fields. With the rapid convergence of broadcast, IT and telecoms, this year’s conference theme ‘The Future of Media in an Age of Disruption’ provides the forum to explore new strategies, gain insight into business disruptors, chart future technological progress and examine how the industry can seize the new opportunities being created by the explosive growth in the consumption of TV and video content on smartphones, tablets and laptops.
Each day of the conference will address the myriad issues facing the industry, prefaced by a keynote address that will set the stage. Attracting top-level executives, technical experts and visionaries from over 170 countries, with business interests spanning the full spectrum of content creation, management and delivery, as well as emerging markets and key industry disruptors, the conference ensures valuable access to insights and contacts.
The opening IBC Forum session, ‘Broadcasting in an Age of Challenge’, will reveal how four top media power houses are solving the challenges they face. Fran Unsworth, the first woman to run the BBC World Service, will explain how she plans to use technology to expand despite squeezed budgets and well-funded opponents such as Russia Today and China Central Television. David Butorac, who runs 146 pay TV channels in the Middle East and North Africa will show how quality content always wins in the end. Philip Luff, Managing Director UK and EMEA for Scripps Networks Interactive will explain how the Knoxville, Tennessee company is expanding around Europe – the latest deal winning control of Poland’s TVN. The big online players such as Google and Amazon are increasingly expanding into OTT TV platforms with Amazon’s deal with Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame simply the latest. In the shock of the new the three “traditional” broadcasters in the opening conference session with be joined by Thomas Riedl to explain Google’s latest forays into TV. Riedl is head of Android TV Global Partnerships at Google in California.
In Thursday afternoon’s keynote ‘Is TV facing up to the Internet Era?’ Andrew Neil will be posing the big questions to industry leaders most affected by the connected era. How will the TV industry transform itself to ensure it delivers on this internet era of television? Will new entrants with no legacy but an internet background take over? How fickle is the TV consumer and just what are the positions of leverage to combat the players with nothing to lose and everything to gain? With the future of all video delivery shifting towards IP, is the internet a distribution system capable of delivering to everyone, in high quality, the TV experiences they demand? And who ultimately pays for that infrastructure, given the recent moves in the Net Neutrality debate. In the meantime, how well are broadcasters, platforms and content owners embracing the big issues of content rights as the EU looks towards a Digital Single Market?
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