IBC2026: broadcasters warn of ‘decisive decade’ as AI and IP upend the media value chain
Across Europe, North America, and the UK, the transition from DTT to IP is already underway. But at the IBC Show in Amsterdam this week this is being framed as a fight for relevance, visibility, and trust in a world dominated by YouTube and consumption algorithms.
“The polarisation between broadcasting and IP is completely wrong,” said Antonio Arcidiacono, Director of Technology & Innovation at the EBU. “It goes against the laws of physics.”
He described a historic shift from the one-to-many broadcast era to the “many-to-many social media matrix” that now sits in every pocket. The next frontier, he said, is many-to-one: personalized, citizen-centric media experiences powered by edge AI.
“AI is going to be absolutely central in how content is surfaced and how audiences are enriched,” Arcidiacono said. “If broadcasters want to stay relevant and visible, we must capture the interface between the citizen and the engine that serves them.”
Arcidiacono argued that public service media must invest “in layers of intelligence” rather than surrender that space to Apple, Google, or any other platform owner. Edge intelligence, he said, is not only technically feasible but more sustainable and more controllable than cloud-only models.
“The cards are being reshuffled, and we can redistribute them if we’re courageous enough,” he said.
ATSC 3.0, trust, and the AI threat
Broadcasters in the US don’t see IP or over-the-air delivery as an either-or, said Rebecca Hanson, Director-General of the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA). Speaking on the same panel she said ATSC 3.0 is the American answer to the broadcast/IP debate.
“It’s a system that preserves the reliability of one-to-many transmission while enabling the personalisation and interactivity of IP.
Hanson was frank about the need for the FCC to sunset ATSC 1.0 to accelerate adoption — something the regulator has been unwilling to do. Meanwhile, spectrum continues to be auctioned off, shrinking the space broadcasters rely on, she said.
“Over-the-air audiences remain significant in the US, and in some regions they are even growing. But the clock is ticking. We need to get to where we want to be before the majority reaches a point of no return in the digital space.”
She warned of the risk to democracy if local cable TV stations are left to die. “No streamer is going to replace them with local content or local carriage,” she said.
She also fired a broadside at Big Tech calling its use of AI a direct threat to journalism’s financial and trust foundations.
“AI is not a friend of broadcasting,” Hanson said. “They’re stealing the content. They’re taking your journalism without paying for it, and they’re doing it with impunity.”
She cited studies showing click-through rates dropping by 43–47% when AI summaries appear above news links in search results. “When those summaries are wrong — which happens frequently — the reputational damage falls on the original outlet. Whoever captures the AI layer captures the entire market and the entire financial value chain,” she said. “That’s the danger. It’s on us to push back against this and solve it.”
TV’s moonshot moment
Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO of the Digital TV Group (DTG), brought the UK perspective. The UK government has mandated transition to IP distribution by 2034, with a backstop in 2044.
“This transition isn’t about replacing television. It’s about making sure TV takes its place in a software-defined, data-driven future,” he said. “But there’s a risk: while focusing on the transition, we forget the destination.”
Fast-forward to 2034 - “that’s day one of a new era of television,” he said. “It will be collective, data-driven, and constantly evolving.”
He predicted that AI will reshape everything from content creation to user interfaces. “AI-driven and AI-curated experiences will create entirely new commercial opportunities. There will be formats that we haven’t even imagined yet.”
The biggest risk, he cautioned, “is that we don’t think big enough.”
“We need to think of the scale of the opportunity, not the scale of the obstacles,” he said. “Media is heading toward a data-driven, generative future whether we like it or not. We need to be bold. We need to organise ourselves with a coordinated, efficient, effective transition.
“If we do that, we’ll hit that moonshot moment for TV at the end.”
Their comments followed a presentation by YouTube which as good as told broadcasters that their day in the sun was over.
Broadcasters, operators and platforms should “rethink collaboration” with Google’s video site, Marc Heufelder, Country Manager, YouTube Product Partnerships DACH told the IBC Show.
“Massive opportunities are only available for those willing to integrate YouTube natively into their ecosystem,” he said.
The TV is officially YouTube’s leading and fastest-growing platform globally, he added. Every day, users stream more than one billion hours of YouTube content on living-room devices. Every minute, 500 hours of new content are uploaded.
“The question is not whether we compete on the same screen,” Heufelder said. “It’s whether we collaborate to create more success for everyone.”
YouTube is rolling out Multiview, a feature that lets users drag and drop multiple live feeds into a single TV screen.
It is also testing Conversational AI, powered by Google’s Gemini models, allowing viewers to interact directly with content on their TV.
Heufelder said YouTube would give broadcasters the tools for audiences to find their content.
“If audiences can’t find the content they want, you lose discoverability, metadata, engagement — and potentially the customer relationship,” he said.
Its solution is native integration including a feature called Dynamic Content Rails.
“We allow partners to integrate YouTube content as a carousel directly into their UX,” Heufelder said. “Every minute, 500 hours of new content are uploaded. We give partners full control to programme that catalogue for their audience.”
“We are part of the game,” Heufelder. “But we need to co-service our content natively in your system.”
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