MediaTech Radar is a monthly newsletter authored by IABM’s Business Intelligence Unit. It focuses on a spotlight topic in MediaTech and reflects on a series of past, present and future business developments in the industry. In this edition, our spotlight topic consists of experiences and insights gathered by the IABM team at major international trade events – CABSAT, Broadcast Asia and InfoComm 2025 – which took place in May and June. At these events, IABM not only supported members in the IABM Member Lounge, but also curated stage programming ranging from business intelligence briefings and panel discussions to editorial IABM TV interviews.
At CABSAT and InfoComm, IABM collaborated with AVIXA by co-hosting panel discussions to inform members about recent trends in Pro AV verticals and other adjacent markets. At Broadcast Asia, IABM hosted a pre-show welcome and networking event, sponsored by the UHD World Association, which was attended by international and regional members to connect and share expertise. The convergence of broadcast, AV and IT technologies was evident at InfoComm 2025 – organized in Orlando in early June – which gathered approximately 30,000 attendees, as IABM hosted a series of presentations and panels on the event’s new Spotlight Stage.
MediaTech Spotlight: CABSAT, Broadcast Asia and InfoComm 2025
A spotlight topic in MediaTech.
CABSAT:
According to CABSAT, the 2025 editions of CABSAT, Integrate Middle East and the debut edition of SATExpo Middle East – all organized simultaneously in the same hall in the Dubai World Trade Centre on May 13th-15th – were attended by over 32,000 professionals from over 120 countries. At CABSAT, IABM and AVIXA co-hosted an UpStream Dubai, providing a regional outlook of the Middle Eastern market as well as an update about the latest trends in both the global media & entertainment and the broadcast AV markets. IABM’s Industry Impact briefing highlighted that the ongoing streaming boom, especially in the Gulf countries and media businesses’ increased focus on content production for digital platforms and social media, are cannibalizing tech investment that has formerly been allocated to physical infrastructure, making the overall investment landscape relatively flat in the region. While the adoption of IP and cloud is gradually taking off, some major sales channels challenges are slowing down adoption. Challenges include government-funded media businesses’ difficulties with migrating to OpEx payment models for new investments. However, the Saudi Vision 2030 initiative is catalyzing several new greenfield projects, including installs that integrate with cloud architecture in Saudi Arabia, where both AWS and Microsoft Azure are going to launch new data centers in 2025. Our conversations with members in the show confirmed this – several vendors said that they are currently screening opportunities as well as looking for local partners in the Saudi Arabian market. Members’ optimism is stemming from the fact that the Gulf countries are investing heavily in Tier 1 and Tier 2 sports, driving demand for new technologies such as IP and cloud. For more insights, please view IABM’s presentation and watch catch-up videos from the event here.
BroadcastAsia:
In late May, IABM attended BroadcastAsia in Singapore, supporting members in the IABM Member Lounge, featuring members in IABM TV interviews and providing a half-day stage programme for the BroadcastAsia Conference, in collaboration with Asia Tech x Singapore. The event included two presentations and three technology panels with themes ranging from technology standards to piracy and immersive formats. IABM’s observations and conversations with a wide range of regional industry stakeholders confirm that the business environment outlook in the APAC region remains stable, but increasing geopolitical tensions and trade restrictions – especially those related to the semiconductor industry – are translating into economic uncertainty and growing supply chain risks. Also, the slowdown of the Chinese economy is having a negative spillover effect on other countries in the region. IABM’s Industry Impact briefing noted that the APAC region accounts for about 75% of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity, making the region a key player in the global AI chip race and AI-related exports. The region’s significant consumer market is embracing mobile streaming with social media platforms dominating audiences’ media consumption, especially in China. These platforms are also investing in Tier 1-2 sports, driving media businesses’ move to remote production and hybrid cloud production as the connectivity gets better. However, the region remains vulnerable to piracy as many media companies still rely on satellite uplinks making the “first mile the weakest mile”. Overall, conversations with members and regional stakeholders highlighted that there is still growth in the region, but that each local market has its unique characteristics that affect customers’ investment priorities (e.g. weak currency in Japan or cheap mobile data in India). More conversations with members at BCA can be found here.
InfoComm 2025:
At InfoComm 2025, IABM and AVIXA continued their collaboration launched in Q1 2025 at ISE. In addition to supporting members in the IABM Member Lounge, IABM hosted three insight sessions at the event’s new Spotlight Stage exploring Technology Democratization and Industry Convergence, Automated Production and Skills Augmentation, as well as Selling Professional Video Products as Solutions. Conversations at InfoComm reflected the diverse range of perspectives in this expanded addressable market. IABM members expressed positivity due to the opportunity for new lead generation that industry convergence has opened up, however longstanding Pro AV brands noted many of the same issues IABM members had faced at NAB Show Las Vegas in terms of international customer attendance and the challenges of the current geopolitical climate. From a technology standpoint control and orchestration was front of mind as vendors seek to provide simplified management and interaction with increasingly sophisticated inventories of devices that customers are building out across multiple sites and campuses thanks to the benefits of networked infrastructure. For vendors strategic partnerships, interoperability, and certification are evidently vital to ensure their products are specified by systems integrators or included in product bundles used by dealers and resellers to market to the many different user profiles and use cases. Over the past six months, IABM’s Business Intelligence Unit has extended its research offering to increasingly capture trends related to convergence and opportunities in new markets. IABM’s Democratization of MediaTech report was published in December 2024 and a dedicated chapter on the migration to IP will feature in the forthcoming TechTracker™ report due for publication in September 2025.
MediaTech Watchlist: Disney, CPB, Sinclair, Creator Television, and others…
A watchlist of selected past, present and future business developments in MediaTech.
- On June 2nd, Disney announced that it is laying off several hundred employees in its global marketing for film and TV, publicity, casting and development as well as corporate finance teams to improve operational efficiency. The new job cuts come on top of a series of layoffs announced earlier this year and last year equating to approximately 700 roles, of which the majority have been in TV and ABC News operations. At the same time, Disney has chosen an alternative strategy in terms of its linear business compared to competitors that are spinning off legacy linear services into separate companies, such as Comcast. The company announced on June 10th that it will integrate its linear networks and streaming services together. Bob Iger said in a CNBC interview: “I think there’s a lot more value in a broadcast network if it’s paired very seamlessly with a streaming business. ESPN will be fully connected with ESPN’s digital offering. Disney Channel is connected seamlessly with Disney+. FX and ABC have fed Hulu programming very effectively […] It actually provides us an opportunity not only to grow but also to grow margins in the process as well.”
- In early June, Warner Bros. Discovery – which also announced the layoffs of approximately 100 employees – plans to split its linear networks and streaming business into two separate entities, as its cable TV business – including TNT, TBS, CNN, Food Network, Discovery, TLC, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies – continues to struggle in terms of revenue and viewership. The announced job cuts aim at improving operational efficiency after the process of reorganizing the company into two divisions: one comprising production studios and all streaming business and the other consisting of its cable TV business. A similar announcement was made by ITV at the end of May, when it revealed plans to halve the number of roles at ITV Studios https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/may/20/itv-to-cut-jobs-slash-budgets-daytime-shows-including-good-morning-britainequating to over 220 of its 440 staff involved in ITV’s biggest daytime shows to improve operational efficiency.
- In early June, France Televisions and TDF continued their 5G Broadcast trials during 2025 Roland-Garros tennis championships. The partnership between the two companies also included smartphone reception tests inside the stadium and broadcasting the game in native UHD by using TDF’s 5G Broadcast technology. The partnership aims at enabling viewers to watch TV outdoors on their smartphones free of charge without using public internet or mobile data. Amazon Prime Video – sharing the domestic TV rights to Roland-Garros with France Televisions – is also now offering AWS Private 5G as a managed service, but it was not part of the trial.
- On June 4th, the Trump administration asked Congress to repeal $9.4bn in previously approved funding, which includes $1.1bn in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which in turn provides funding to BBS, NPR and public media. The government has issued proposals that would stop all CPB funding permanently, except a sum of $30mn required to shut down the agency. Kate Riley, CEO at America’s Public Television Station said: “This proposed elimination of CPB funding will result in immediate and serious cuts of stations’ local services and in some cases the total closure of stations, particularly in rural communities.”
- On June 5th, SMPTE introduced the initial documents defining the new Catena control plane standard, which is an open source, vendor and platform agnostic solution for control of media devices and services. Chris Lennon, Director of Standards Strategy at Ross Video and a SMPTE Fellow described: “With media workflows now spanning on-prem, cloud and hybrid environments, the need for a unified, secure and vendor-agnostic control plane is more urgent than ever. By introducing the initial Catena documents into the SMPTE Standards Community, we’re inviting the broader industry to help shape a solution that works for everyone, regardless of where their services reside or what platform they use.”
- On June 11th, Sinclair reported record-breaking growth and new content acquisitions for its free, over-the-air multicast networks Charge (+21% YoY in terms of viewership), Comet (+17%), Roar (+40%) and The Nest over the past five months. According to Sinclair, the growth stems from the acquisition of key series, increased distribution in major market areas, the rebranding of its networks (e.g. TBD to Roar) and various multi-platform events like CHARGECON and Comet Fest. The growth figures reflect the importance of content offerings, expanded reach and free content when attracting new audiences.
- In June, Creator Television – a new FAST channel targeting YouTubers launched in January 2025 – announced that it is currently in the FAST channel lineups of Sling’s Freestream, Plex and Anoki Live TVx. Creator Television is an interesting example of how FAST channels can aggregate original content by collaborating with the creator economy. Creator Television already covers content from several top influencers like Nigel Ng, Q Park, Jenny Lorenzo and Evan Yee. Joe Ochoa, co-founder at Creator Television said: These creators already know how to command attention and build community. We are just giving them a new platform to grow. This content hasn’t been seen anywhere else – it’s made for TV, but with the tone and authenticity of social.”
Thank you for reading this newsletter. If there are topics you would like us to cover or if you have information/ideas that you would like to share, please get in touch with us.
The IABM Business Intelligence Unit
