IBC2025: Why Supply Chain Fixes Can’t Save Legacy Media
▼ Summary
– Efficiency and AI-driven cost-cutting are the main focus for legacy media at IBC2025, as they struggle to compete with streaming and social platforms.
– The streaming wars have concluded with Netflix as the dominant winner, prompting traditional broadcasters to form partnerships like TF1’s with Netflix to reach younger audiences.
– Cloud-native agile production is proposed as a solution to modernize media delivery and reduce costs, though the industry is still transitioning from legacy hardware systems.
– AI is being used to improve supply chain efficiencies, such as scaling subtitling and metadata extraction, leading to significant time and cost savings without heavy reliance on generative AI for content creation.
– There is cautious and limited use of generative AI in content creation due to sensitivities around job losses and respect for creative talent, despite potential future cost reductions in production.
The broadcast industry finds itself at a critical inflection point, where supply chain efficiencies and technological upgrades alone cannot reverse the fortunes of legacy media. Conversations at IBC2025 revolved not just around artificial intelligence, but around a deeper, more systemic struggle for relevance in an audience-driven landscape.
Delegates arrived amid palpable uncertainty, with economic pressures and rapid technological shifts reshaping the foundations of traditional broadcasting. According to industry analysis from IABM, market confidence has softened significantly, reflecting a second consecutive year of decline after a brief peak in 2023. External factors like global conflicts and tariffs have certainly played a role, but many see these as accelerants rather than root causes.
As media strategist Evan Shapiro starkly put it, the streaming wars have concluded with a clear victor. Legacy players now face a dual challenge: competing not only with dominant streamers but also with what Shapiro terms the “big tech Death Stars”, platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Amazon. In this new reality, content accessibility matters more than exclusivity, and younger audiences prioritize what they watch over where they watch it.
Reaching these fragmented viewers demands a fundamental rethink of production and distribution. Lewis Smithingham of Monks emphasized that media production hasn’t evolved meaningfully in decades, yet delivery requirements have transformed entirely. The solution, he argues, lies in cloud-native agile production, adopting software-driven workflows that offer speed and scalability without prohibitive cost.
Vendors across the industry are already moving in this direction, transitioning from hardware-centric models to cloud-based solutions. This shift isn’t merely about disaster recovery or remote operations; it’s about reinventing what broadcast means in an IP-first world. Still, hesitation remains, underscoring the scale of change required.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly central to this transformation, though its application remains carefully focused. Warner Bros., for instance, uses AI to streamline subtitling and translation, dramatically reducing time and cost while improving accuracy. Similarly, Tubi employs multi-modal AI to generate rich metadata, enhancing content discovery and viewer retention. In both cases, the emphasis is on operational enhancement rather than generative content creation.
That distinction is crucial. While AI-driven efficiencies are widely embraced, the use of generative AI for original content remains a sensitive, largely avoided topic. Studios are treading carefully, aware that their relationships with creators and performers are irreplaceable. Yet the financial reality is undeniable: production costs continue to climb, placing immense pressure on traditional funding models.
Some industry voices, like former Sky executive Mike Darcey, suggest that AI could eventually democratize high-quality production, making it accessible to a broader range of creators. Whether that future materializes remains uncertain, but what is clear is that legacy broadcasters can no longer rely on incremental improvements alone. To survive, let alone thrive, they must reinvent not just their supply chains, but their entire relationship with the audience.
(Source: NewsAPI Streaming Technology)