While some might believe that the streaming wars are over, Jonas Engwall, CEO at Bedrock, believes there are still opportunities for European broadcasters to fight back.
Bedrock creates and operates full-scope streaming services for leading media companies in Europe, delivering on-demand video, linear channels and live sport to more than 50 million viewers.
“Scale and tech are super important,” Engwall told TVBEurope at IBC2025, “and that’s really where Bedrock comes in.
“Everyone is chasing to become profitable. Increasingly, we talk about streaming platform ratio, which is basically streaming cost versus streaming revenues. And no surprise, the best in class is Netflix. They’re at 8 per cent, which is obviously amazing. Bedrock is getting our clients to 10 per cent. Yes, we’re not as good as Netflix, but we’re not far behind.”
“We are really enabling European players to have a platform that intends to be on the same level as the global giants. And at the same time, we’re doing that in a financially sustainable way. So 10 per cent is good.”
The company employs the same tech stack behind the scenes for each of its clients, but for the user experience is based on where they live. “We operate across several markets, and we have a highly configurable platform that makes the user interface look how our clients need, but at the same time, we’re reaching that very important scale behind the scenes,” explained Engwall.
One of the biggest talking points at IBC2025 in terms of technology was the ongoing adoption of artificial intelligence within the industry. Engwall explained that he believes agentic AI is revolutionising how people build and engage with streaming services. “It is obviously helping on the end consumer side and creating an easier way for users to discover the right content, but it’s also enabling us behind the scenes to build our services and platforms in a more efficient way,” he added.
“Streaming is clearly here to stay,” said Engwall, and he sees a future where subscribers don’t just access a traditional streaming service to just watch content. “We’re adding other types of content categories, radio, audio books, and podcasts. Everything is coming to streaming and that’s going to continue in the future as well.”
