Company contribution
Company contribution
Beyond Innovation: Simplifying the Future of Television at IBC 2026
José Gozalbo, Chief Product & Technology Officer, AgileTV, shares a sneak preview of what to expect at Amsterdam RAI in September.
Every edition of IBC reflects the state of an industry in transition. Some years are defined by breakthrough technologies, others by new viewing habits or major shifts in content distribution. IBC 2026 arrives at a moment where the conversation is becoming less about what technology can do and more about how the industry can make that technology work efficiently, sustainably and profitably.
The television ecosystem has never been more sophisticated. Operators are expected to deliver seamless experiences across IPTV, OTT and hybrid platforms while supporting an ever-growing range of devices, integrating multiple streaming services, protecting premium content, managing increasingly complex CDN strategies and continuously improving the customer experience. At the same time, expectations around personalisation, accessibility and service quality continue to rise.
Innovation has undoubtedly expanded what operators can offer. Yet it has also introduced a level of operational complexity that is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Every new platform, workflow, AI capability or vendor relationship has the potential to create additional layers of integration and management.
That is why one of the defining themes at IBC this year will not simply be innovation itself. It will be operational excellence.
AI moves from promise to productivity
Artificial intelligence remains one of the industry’ s biggest talking points, but the nature of the discussion has changed considerably. Twelve months ago, much of the focus revolved around experimentation and identifying possible use cases. Today, operators are asking a much more practical question: where can AI create measurable business value?
The answer increasingly lies behind the scenes.
Rather than replacing people, AI is becoming an operational accelerator. It helps enrich metadata, improve content discovery, automate repetitive tasks, detect service anomalies, assist engineering teams during incident resolution and provide greater visibility across increasingly distributed infrastructures.
The same shift is taking place across customer-facing services. AI-powered recommendations, intelligent search and personalised user experiences have become expected capabilities rather than optional innovations. The challenge is no longer deploying AI. It is integrating intelligence throughout the entire operational lifecycle without adding further complexity.
This pragmatic approach to AI reflects a broader transformation taking place across the television industry. Operators are investing less in isolated features and more in platforms capable of bringing automation, observability and intelligence together within a unified operational model.
Consolidation becomes a competitive advantage
Another major conversation shaping IBC 2026 is platform consolidation. Over the past decade, many operators have assembled their TV ecosystems by combining specialist vendors for content management, CDN delivery, monitoring, device management, security, analytics and customer experience. While this modular approach has encouraged innovation, it has also created increasingly fragmented operational environments.
Managing numerous suppliers, coordinating upgrades, integrating data across systems and maintaining multiple operational teams inevitably increases both cost and complexity.
As a result, many operators are now looking to simplify their technology landscape. Rather than asking how many new tools they can introduce, they are asking how many existing ones they can eliminate.
Consolidating technology into unified platforms reduces operational overhead while improving visibility across the entire service
chain. It enables faster decision making, more efficient troubleshooting and greater automation, allowing engineering teams to focus on service quality instead of managing fragmented infrastructures.
Operational simplicity is rapidly becoming a competitive differentiator in its own right.
Growth requires looking beyond traditional television
While operational efficiency remains a major priority, commercial growth is equally high on the industry’ s agenda.
Pay television markets have matured across much of the world. Subscriber growth has slowed, competitive pressure continues to increase and operators are under constant pressure to generate new revenue without significantly increasing operational costs.
As a result, many providers are exploring opportunities beyond their traditional consumer TV businesses.
Enterprise video is emerging as one of the most compelling of these opportunities. Hotels increasingly view in-room entertainment as part of the overall guest experience. Healthcare providers require secure and engaging video services for patients. Sports
organizations are expanding digital fan experiences, while media companies continue diversifying their distribution strategies across multiple platforms.
For operators, these adjacent markets represent a natural extension of capabilities they already possess. The infrastructure, operational expertise and service management required to deliver consumer television can also support managed video experiences for enterprise customers.
The challenge is making this expansion commercially attractive without creating an entirely new operational burden.
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