IBC 2026
11-14 September, 2026Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam, Netherlands
IBC 2026: The Questions Already Circulating Among Media Software Leaders
Article Summary
What questions are media software leaders asking ahead of IBC 2026? Across customer conversations, acquisitions, and growth initiatives, several themes continue to surface: AI’s role in production workflows, managing growth without unnecessary complexity, the demands of live content, and the impact of regional market dynamics. In this article, members of Lumine Group’s Corporate Development and M&A team react to themes already surfacing ahead of the show and on the industry discussions they expect to hear in Amsterdam.
Perspectives from Corporate Development and M&A
Contributors:
Elliot Yunger
SVP, Head of Corporate Development · Lumine Group
Arjan Stroomberg
SVP, Head of Mergers & Acquisitions · Lumine Group
Connor Ennis
Sr. Director, Corporate Development · Lumine Group
Darren Smith
Sr. Director, Corporate Development, EMEA · Lumine Group
IBC is the annual meeting point for broadcast, streaming and media technology professionals. Lumine will be there throughout the week.
Across Lumine Group’s media software portfolio, we see a number of questions show up in real customer environments, acquisition conversations and post-acquisition growth plans.
The themes coming up at IBC are shaping how media businesses think about production, distribution, monetization and long-term resilience.
From what we’ve been reading and hearing ahead of the show, here are the themes expected to stand out: AI’s growing role in production workflows, how media businesses manage growth without adding unnecessary complexity, live sports pushing technology to its limits, how content companies package and monetize their work, and how regional market differences shape investment, timing and customer priorities.
Our presence in media keeps growing, through new acquisitions and the continued growth of businesses already in our ecosystem. The latest examples are Imagine Communications and Quortex.
Imagine brings deep expertise in broadcast automation, playout and advertising technology, including its Landmark™ Sales AI-enabled advertising product, while Quortex adds cloud-native video processing, broadcast delivery and live streaming that runs across cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments. Quortex joined us through a carve-out from Synamedia.
These businesses, along with the others in our media portfolio, give us a practical view of the opportunities and pressures facing media companies today. We look forward to continuing those conversations at IBC.
Ahead of the show, we asked members of Lumine’s corporate development and M&A team what they expect to come up in their conversations at the show. Here’s what they shared.
Click below to scroll ahead to each topic.
01 / 04
How can AI create value in real production environments?
AI is already part of the IBC agenda, including sessions exploring how near-live content generation can create new revenue opportunities. For media businesses, that raises a more practical question: when does AI move beyond a product feature and begin to create measurable value across how content is produced, managed, distributed or monetized.
From an M&A perspective, the question is not only whether a company is experimenting and or applying AI in their product development and implementation, but whether those capabilities can make media workflows more efficient, help customers better monetize their content, or create new products and services they are willing to pay for.
For Arjan Stroomberg, SVP, Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, that distinction matters.
“Companies exploring new AI-supported revenue streams may have an advantage if those efforts are connected to a real customer need and can be supported inside the customer’s business. But in media software, core mission-criticality still matters. The strongest businesses are often the ones that can protect the workflows customers rely on while finding practical ways to enhance those workflows and make them more productive, scalable and commercially useful.”
Arjan Stroomberg · SVP, Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, Lumine Group
When AI helps teams move faster, reduce manual bottlenecks, improve content workflows or open new monetization opportunities, it can influence both customer value and the long-term strength of the company.
02 / 04
Can media businesses grow without adding unnecessary complexity?
Shifting Business Models is one of IBC’s three conference themes this year, reflecting a broader question facing media businesses: how do you pursue new sources of growth without introducing complexity that outweighs the opportunity?
For media software companies, a new product, market or customer segment can open meaningful opportunities. It can also place new demands on teams, infrastructure and operations. Growth therefore becomes as much a question of focus as expansion.
Connor Ennis, Sr. Director, Corporate Development, Americas, sees that same dynamic playing out across media companies, as leadership teams choose where to spend time, where to invest and how much complexity the business can reasonably absorb.
“There’s always something new capturing the industry’s attention. What’s interesting is how leadership teams decide where to focus their time and resources. Many of the businesses we speak with are thinking several years ahead while also managing the realities of today. That’s true whether the topic is AI, audience behavior, infrastructure or product strategy. With something like AI, for example, the opportunity is significant, but that doesn’t mean every application creates meaningful value. The strongest businesses tend to be thoughtful about where new technology can genuinely improve their products, operations or customer outcomes.”
Connor Ennis · Sr. Director, Corporate Development, Americas, Lumine Group
That question matters in M&A conversations. A company does not need to chase every new idea in the market. It does need a clear view of the customers it serves, the problems it solves and the investments that can strengthen the business over time.
03 / 04
What happens when live content becomes a technology challenge?
Live content doesn’t wait. A delay, an outage or poor viewing experience is what audiences will notice right away.
For Elliot Yunger, SVP, Head of Corporate Development, live sports remains a useful signal emerging ahead of IBC. Broadcasters, leagues, platforms and technology providers are not only demonstrating new tools. They are showing where customer priorities are moving. Remote production, cloud workflows, dynamic advertising and connected-TV experiences all point to the same question: which companies are solving high-pressure problems in ways that can be repeated, supported and monetized?
“Live events, especially sports, have a way of exposing both the opportunities and the challenges facing the industry. Audiences expect high-quality experiences wherever they’re watching, whether they’re streaming on their phone or watching in their living room. These expectations create pressure across the ecosystem, from production and distribution through to monetization.”
Elliot Yunger · SVP, Head of Corporate Development, Lumine Group
The 2026 FIFA World Cup put that pressure on full display. A larger tournament, more matches and global audiences meant technology had to perform reliably across both traditional broadcast and streaming environments.
Across Lumine’s ecosystem, there are many examples of media software businesses addressing different parts of that challenge, from production and delivery to monetization. WideOrbit, for example, has highlighted how the growth of live sports across broadcast and streaming is increasing the need to manage inventory and revenue across platforms rather than in silos. As audiences fragment, capabilities such as unified forecasting, dynamic ad insertion, cross-platform packaging and real-time yield optimization become increasingly important to capturing the value of premium live content.
Further along the delivery chain, Velocix is addressing another challenge inherent in live sports: sudden and significant changes in viewing demand. Its hybrid-cloud content delivery technology enables operators to draw on cloud capacity during major traffic spikes while using on-premises infrastructure for more predictable demand, helping balance scale, reliability and infrastructure cost.
These are two examples within a much broader ecosystem. Whether the challenge sits in production, distribution or monetization, live content puts technology under immediate pressure. The opportunity for media software businesses is to solve those high-stakes problems in ways that remain reliable, scalable and commercially sustainable.
04 / 04
How do media conversations change across markets?
IBC may be hosted in Amsterdam, but the conversations happening on the show floor are rarely limited to local impacts. Many involve companies that sell, operate or invest across more than one region.
Darren Smith, Sr. Director, Corporate Development, EMEA, splits his time between M&A conversations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and lives in Amsterdam, which puts him right in the middle of things every IBC week.
“Same question, different market and you see it over and over. A business in Europe and a business in South East Asia can be chasing the exact same problem, but the customer base, the regulations, how mature the market is, it’s all different. That changes how you think about growth, about investment, about timing.”
Darren Smith · Sr. Director, Corporate Development, EMEA, Lumine Group
He sees some of the most valuable IBC conversations happening outside formal sessions, in meetings with exhibitors, customers and founders across the show floor.
“Half of what you actually learn isn’t on the show floor. It’s grabbing a coffee, going for dinner, walking between halls with someone. That’s where you get a real sense of who’s behind a business, how they think, what they’re trying to build.”
That’s true whether you’re building the business, running it, advising on it or backing it — the details rarely match the regional headline.
In Amsterdam
The formal agenda is only part of IBC. Much of the value comes from the conversations around it. This year, we expect those conversations to come back to practical questions. What is useful? What can scale? What are customers willing to pay for? Which businesses are built to keep adapting as the market changes?
We’ll be in Amsterdam throughout the week, working through these same questions with the people we meet. If any of it resonates, we’d enjoy comparing notes.
Let's talk at IBC 2026
IBC brings together broadcast, streaming, and media technology leaders from across the industry. We'll be there talking with operators, partners, and peers about what's ahead for the space. We look forward to the conversations in Amsterdam.
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