The DPP has published IBC 2025: Demand v Supply, a report looking at some of the key themes from this year’s show.
The report aims to give DPP members a snapshot of both major industry trade shows, detailing how end-user needs are evolving and how suppliers are responding.
“IBC2025 underscored the shifting dynamics of an industry caught in a cycle of perpetual transformation,” states the report.
The IBC 2025 edition focuses on three themes that the DPP says were driving conversations at the show: Agentic AI, AV broadcast, and data-driven content.
“Agentic AI is forcing vast changes in how work is executed and governed,” says the report. “Pro AV convergence is challenging long-held assumptions of production and broadcast. And data is displacing instinct as the basis for future strategy.
“The long-running trend towards software has also accelerated, though not entirely in the cloud,” it adds. “Hybrid strategies have reinforced the importance of scalable, elastic, software-led models. Commodity hardware remains—although it is software that defines the innovation.”
However, the report warns that the industry’s “relentless transformation” has consequences, with change now becoming “endless”. It adds that the burden on people, processes, and budgets is evident, and transformation fatigue is now openly discussed.
“At IBC2025, we found an industry where vendors are trying to meet their customers’ needs—but those customers are held back by their own challenges around confidence, cost, and change management,” said David Thompson, technology strategist at the DPP and the report’s author.
“IBC2025 confirmed that the media ecosystem is no longer defined by traditional broadcast alone. New players are entering, expectations are changing, and the relationship between demand and supply is being renegotiated in real time—dramatically reshaping both investment and innovation.”
The report is available for DPP members to download here.
