IBC 2026 Preview: Streaming’s next fight is over discovery and sustainability, not channel count

Streaming has become central to media distribution strategies, and coverage of the segment at IBC 2026, running Sept. 11-14 in Amsterdam, is expected to examine channel operations, FAST, OTT platforms, content discovery, metadata, advertising technology and the infrastructure supporting streaming services.

The discovery problem

With households already subscribing to five or more streaming services, several executives said viewers are struggling to find content rather than lacking options.

“Households already subscribe to five or more streaming services, and viewers are giving up on the hunt for content,” said Karl Tempest-Mitchell, executive vice president of Setplex. “The real fight isn’t Netflix vs. Disney+, it’s discovery. The winners will be operators who solve it, not the ones launching app number six.”

Nelson Hulett, regional vice president for the Americas at Setplex, said that competition is playing out less inside individual apps and more at the device and operating system level, where platforms including Apple TV, Fire TV and Roku stitch content across services using authentication viewers already have.

“This also creates an opportunity for Tier 1 operators,” Hulett said. “Comcast Xfinity and Sky are proving that operators can own this unified experience too rather than ceding it to device makers.”

Metadata as a commercial layer

FAST continues to expand, with Amagi data showing roughly 6,500 channel deliveries in the past year, with global viewing hours up 55% year over year. But audience growth alone does not guarantee revenue growth.

“Metadata has become a critical operational and commercial layer because poor or inconsistent information can weaken content discovery, advertising performance and platform visibility,” said Srinivasan KA, co-founder and president of global business at Amagi. He said buyers should pay closer attention to metadata standardization, AI-assisted distribution workflows and the connection between channel operations, audience data and monetization.

Closing the gap with linear playback

As streaming distribution matures, Yang Cai, chief executive and president of VisualOn, said the focus at IBC is shifting from basic content delivery toward edge-level playback optimization. Cai said reducing viewer churn and maximizing ad monetization depend on a client-side player’s ability to handle dynamic ad insertion across a fragmented device ecosystem.

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“The future of sustainable streaming relies on closing the quality gap to ensure digital playback feels as fluid, instant, and dependable as traditional linear television,” Cai said.

Stephan Nicolas, chief commercial officer at Viaccess-Orca, said many operators still run separate infrastructure for each brand or delivery channel, which slows how quickly they can bring new ad formats to market, particularly for live sports where frame accuracy has to hold up across large, simultaneous audiences.

“The shift we’re watching is toward hybrid ad insertion, both client and server side, that can deliver that kind of frame-accurate advertising across live, catch-up, and on-demand content without a separate ad stack for each environment,” Nicolas said. He pointed to the company’s work with operator MasOrange as an example of consolidating three consumer brands onto one backend with consistent ad behavior across more than a dozen devices.

Flexibility over one-size-fits-all packages

Sahil Dhar Hakim, chief business officer at Evergent, said viewers are not losing loyalty so much as becoming more deliberate about where each service fits into their overall media mix.

“The strongest streaming propositions will give people more control over how they access content and what trade-off they make between price and advertising, rather than forcing everyone through one expensive package,” Dhar Hakim said. He said commercial models should reflect how engaged a given viewer actually is and be able to change as that relationship develops.

From a launch economy to an operations economy

“The strategic question is no longer simply, ‘Can we launch another channel?'” said Jon Cohen, chief revenue officer at Frequency.

“It is rather: can a media company operate a growing portfolio efficiently, adapt it for different audiences and territories, incorporate live programming and produce sustainable returns?”

Cohen said that requires rights, metadata, scheduling, graphics, live-event control, advertising and distribution to function as a single connected workflow, rather than cloud playout alone. He said metadata quality increasingly determines discoverability and monetization opportunity, and that buyers should evaluate how easily a platform integrates with existing broadcast operations, automates repetitive work and provides visibility from ingestion through delivery.

Dimitri Tarassenko, senior vice president of product management at LTN, said rights holders are managing more events, more distribution partners and more versions of the same content, adding pressure to network infrastructure. He said acquisition, master control, customization and distribution are increasingly becoming part of a single workflow rather than separate processes, making it easier to move content between teams and create different versions from the same production without rebuilding workflows for each event.

“IP transport is becoming the enabler for the entire production chain, rather than simply another way to transport video,” Tarassenko said, pointing to alternate language tracks, pop-up sports channels for FAST and platform-specific versions of news channels as examples of the “more with less” approach operators are taking.

Personalization at scale

Jean-Christophe Perier, chief marketing officer at Globecast, said audience fragmentation across screens will continue to drive demand for personalized content experiences, which he said depend on advanced analytics, metadata management and discovery tools.

“Within this user-centric era, balancing content appeal with easy discovery is crucial, and effective advertising technologies are essential for monetization and revenue growth,” Perier said. He said the industry is seeking integrated solutions that support tailored viewer experiences alongside sustainable business models.

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