Back to Blogs

Has anyone ever known a time like this in the industry? What I perceive...speaking as a freelance consultant (and therefore at the real bleeding edge of the crisis)...is that people are not so much unwilling to buy as afraid to spend. A kind of "weeding frenzy" has descended as people pull costs up by the roots, and it is a rare enterprise in the sector...broadcaster or supplier...who sees the current situation as an opportunity or even a driver to invest in the future. And yet such investment is desperately needed.

If this crisis is like many others...from the Black Death to Global Warming...it will precipitate and greatly accelerate a period of headlong change, and the likelihood is that once the green shoots DO start to grow again, they will sprout into a broadcast and electronic media landscape which will have changed for ever and in which the "good old days" will be a distant memory. This applies to everybody, from broadcasters whose scheduling skills are now redundant in the bellyvision era, to advertisers who are turning to social networking and viral marketing to win new customers rather than the centre break on News at Ten,  to manufacturers who must realize that interoperability between systems is now much more important than video quality.

So EVERYONE has to invest in understanding this new landscape, researching how post-crisis business models will operate, and working out how to transform their businesses and remain both viable and profitable. The trouble is that many companies, having been through quite a few years of great success, have lost the appetite for beneficial change and the ability to implement it..."if it ain't broke don't fix it" was their motto. And when the crisis hit them their instinct was to cut, cut, cut...not just the fat, but in many cases right down to the bone, impacting their ability to deliver the products, services and customer experience that will lead them out of the mire. A few have actually increased their spending on R&D, and marketing, and customer satisfaction. One suspects they are the ones who will achieve business transformation, and who really will take wing when the upturn arrives.

So...what can we expect at IBC? A lot of nervous people looking for light at the end of the tunnel (myself included!). Whether there will be enough genuine business activity is anyone's guess, although there are some indications that things may not actually be all that bad. Apart from a few high-profile defectors, there will be a pretty solid exhibitor presence on the show floor. Delegate registrations are at last year's levels already. At BVE earlier this year, at what was arguably a low point in business terms, everyone was pleasantly surprised at the level of visitors and business. Although numbers were down at NAB, for many people interest was solid and there was business to be done, in a more focused way in the absence of tyre-kickers. Anecdotal evidence indicates that unlike in Las Vegas, cheap IBC hotel rooms are not that easy to find...but maybe that's just Amsterdam.

So we'll see! I look forward to meeting everyone in the IBC pub...let's just make sure we're celebrating and not drowning any sorrows!

Adrian Scott

 Facebook     Delicious     Digg     reddit     StumbleUpon