I had not initially planned to write another article previewing ISE 2025, but the feedback on my previous piece about convergence changed my mind. Many readers appreciated the analysis, for which I am grateful, and suggested exploring additional facets of convergence relevant to ISE visitors, including the key drivers of this trend. This input inspired me to delve deeper into the topic in this follow-up article.
Let’s start with some contextual information about the makeup of the ISE visitor base.
ISE Visitor Profile
ISE published some information about the profile of its 2024 visitor base on its website (click on the link towards the end of the page to access the full report on this).
The report has many useful data points, including some demographic information (e.g., age, gender, etc.). However, I wanted to dive deep only into the section “Business Focus - End-User,” which provides more details about the main areas of focus for ISE end-user visitors. I turned this data into a chart below (note that I scaled the data so that it adds up to 100%):
You can see that there is some degree of overlap between broadcast and pro-AV as 12% of end-users attending the show in 2024 identified themselves as “Broadcast/Media.” 22% identified themselves as “Entertainment (includes cinemas, theatres, museums, theme parks).” This is not broadcast, though some of it is closer to broadcast compared to other corporate organizations attending the show. The rest of the show is split between corporate buyers (these buyers add up to almost half of total end-users) and users from the education sector (almost one-fifth of buyers). It is a mixed audience!
This audience has been fluctuating in the last few years. The data on this is not as straightforward though we know that ISE has consistently delivered a significant number of first-time attendees over the last few years. About a third of the 2024 attendees were first-time attendees, like in 2019, highlighting that the audience attending the show may be in flux. Of course, first-time attendees are bound to be correlated with the growth of the show (I looked at this in my previous article), though these numbers suggest that interest in ISE is coming from a variety of sectors and that the demographic attending the event is evolving.
The show is becoming more diverse from a job role perspective as well. I briefly mentioned this point in my previous article, but I will explain it in slightly more detail here. Conversations with regular ISE attendees have highlighted that AV users visiting the show are no longer coming solely from technical departments such as engineering, but increasingly from non-technical departments such as marketing and communications.
The ISE visitor audience's mixed nature reinforces the relevance of convergence at the show. The broad range of attendees from different industries and backgrounds underscores the demand for solutions that can be applied across disparate sectors and teams. We will come back to this later in this article.
The fragmentation of investment power is akin to the trend we are witnessing in the broadcast sector where non-technical departments such as creative and editorial teams are becoming more important decision-makers.
Technology investment decisions are now dispersed across different teams due to the increasing accessibility of technology tools and their closer relationship with business outcomes (e.g., consumer experiences), which has led to a gradual deterioration of siloed decision-making.
This is a key trend that applies not only to the people making the decisions. Why is technology becoming more accessible?
Why Broadcast Technology is Becoming More Accessible
A clarification. When I use the word accessibility in this article, I mean the usability of broadcast technology by non-technical users.
Several trends have been driving the increasing accessibility of broadcast technology in the last few years, and I will focus here on some of the main ones
Arguably, the main driver of technology accessibility in broadcast has been the rising importance of general-purpose technologies (e.g., cloud, AI, etc.) coming from the IT and software industry. This trend is relevant to most sectors that, like broadcast, were used to a specific set of technologies designed to please (only) them.
In the last few years, both broadcast and AV technology infrastructures have gradually converged with IT technology, which has in turn favoured a gradual cross-pollination between these sectors. This AV-IT-Broadcast triangle is best exemplified by the transition to IP-based media that has become a major feature at both AV and broadcast trade shows over recent years.
This trend has also favoured the adoption of concepts, principles and practices from the IT and software industry, including an increasing focus on intuitive user experiences, which has strengthened technology accessibility. Recently, the rise of low-code and no-code solutions in the software industry, which has influenced broadcast as well, has taken this concept of accessibility to an extreme.
Accessibility has also been favoured by IT technology lowering the cost of producing content, which has plummeted in the last few years thanks to the economies of scale provided by the IT sector. This has enabled smaller players and even individuals to produce higher-quality content at a fraction of the cost compared to just a few years ago.
This brings me back to cloud and AI, as lowering barriers to entry is one of the things they have in common. For example, while the cloud made post-production accessible to editors working from home, AI is making video creation more accessible to non-expert users. The consensus is that creativity is (fortunately) still needed, though the rules of the game are undoubtedly changing. AI is leading to even more technology democratization, making professional content production more accessible.
General-purpose technologies have also contributed to lowering the barriers that historically separated different sectors.
Think about B2B and B2C, which are not as separated as they used to be. For example, video cameras could be neatly separated between B2B and B2C use cases, though technology development has gradually blurred the lines between these two categories, making this separation less easy today. Moreover, consumer gadgets such as smartphones and drones have been increasingly used to shoot professional content and news coverage. Applications of products more fluidly move from one industry to another, influencing various areas such as marketing and communications.
Think also about interactive user experiences and social media platforms. Our increasing usage of social media platforms has contributed to making the definition of and demand for interactive experiences increasingly similar across different sectors. Broadcasters, universities and employers are all trying to interact with viewers, students and employees, respectively, in increasingly similar ways, even though differences remain across these sectors. The business objectives these companies are talking about are increasingly resembling each other, which has inevitably driven convergence between the technology tools they use (back to the point I made earlier).
Why Visitors Are More Interested in Broadcast Technology
The supply of technology becoming more accessible would not be enough to sustain convergence if demand was not there. However, a range of demand-side trends has gradually made broadcast technology more attractive to AV users looking to upgrade the quality of their systems.
As I said in my previous article, the pandemic was definitively an important catalyst for this. The rising investment in corporate video and communications caused by the move to remote and hybrid work environments led AV users to double down on broadcast technology to produce content of higher quality.
However, there is more to this. Arguably, the pandemic accentuated some trends that were already at play before its advent. The trajectory of ISE attendance explored in my previous article reflects this, as attendance was growing even before the pandemic, with patterns resembling its post-pandemic growth (e.g., a similar percentage of first-time attendees).
Which trends were already at play? Streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon were already pushing the quality of streaming video even before the pandemic, which gradually influenced consumer expectations.
However, I would focus on social media video as the key trend. Social media has made video more ubiquitous than ever before. While YouTube pioneered this trend, social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok (and now even LinkedIn!) have followed, and are now heavily dependent on video. Money was the next thing to follow, with ad dollars shifting to social media platforms. This led corporate organizations to look at video with increasing interest.
This intricate web of trends has driven a proliferation of both video content and the number of platforms through which is distributed to us viewers. As a result, standing out in a crowded marketplace and increasing engagement with viewers have become more important to most, including non-media organizations. They are not just looking for functional solutions anymore. They want to create compelling stories about their brands. This is perhaps the main reason why they are looking for broadcast-quality technology.
More recently, the combination of drivers such as the creator economy and AI-driven content creation has pushed this trend to an extreme. More creators are sharing professionally produced videos with their followers while AI-driven content creation is flooding our social media timelines. Note that this trend goes well beyond video and applies to other sectors such as content marketing (see this as an example). Of course, this is further shifting consumer expectations, making differentiation through broadcast technology more attractive to AV users.
Finally, the impact of social media distribution has made video delivery more interactive, which is perhaps one of the improvement areas for corporates and broadcasters alike.
What About Broadcasters and AV Technology?
Convergence is not a one-way street, and the visitor profile of the ISE audience shows that even a few broadcast professionals are starting to attend the show.
Conversations with broadcasters on this topic have highlighted that ISE is one of their “fringe shows,” events they attend to benchmark technologies and trends beyond their core industry. ISE is arguably not as important as consumer shows like CES or SXSW, but it may slowly gain traction due to the trends mentioned earlier (i.e., technology and business outcomes converging).
Broadcasters are keen on learning how non-media companies are using collaboration technologies as well as interacting with their customers and employees. For example, understanding how corporate organizations are using AI chatbots to interact with their customers in different industries can inspire broadcasters to explore new use cases in content personalization.
Broadcast and media businesses are also interested in monitoring technology developments that AV has in common with broadcast. Not just IP-based video but also other trends such as virtual production and collaboration systems. For example, if I am a broadcaster interested in IP-based video, I might want to check out what suppliers focused on IP are doing at ISE, as the penetration of a supplier’s products in the AV industry might be a proxy for their versatility. It is no coincidence that an IP standard like NDI has gained traction in broadcast as well.
After this long reflection on the main trends that are driving convergence between broadcast and pro-AV, let’s move to some practical guidance.
ISE Visitor Checklist
To conclude this article, I wanted to provide some practical advice to ISE visitors. Arguably, this applies not just to ISE but to other shows that present crossovers with your main industry.
This checklist is designed to help them navigate the convergence between broadcast and professional AV technologies effectively (feel free to add any additional suggestions or insights):
Spot technology trends: Identify key technology trends that AV and broadcast have in common (e.g., IP networking, virtual production, AI, etc.), differentiating the trends that are media-specific and those that are general-purpose.
Understand use cases & business objectives: Identify overlapping use cases and business objectives. For example, interactivity and personalization are use cases and objectives in both broadcast and some AV sectors.
Rank your interest areas: Rank your interest areas (in both technologies and use cases) in order of strategic importance. If possible, identify the relationship between technologies and use cases as well.
Map your interest areas: Map your interest areas with suppliers, halls and activities (e.g., conference streams) at the show, identifying your show hotspots. Mark these against your own objectives (e.g., learning, networking, etc.).
Build & prioritize your agenda: Use the output from the two previous exercises to build an agenda and/or prioritize your most important areas of interest, if there are any conflicts in your plan.
Document your findings: Use the framework above to document your findings according to your interests. For example, report on the most promising use cases, their maturity as well as the suppliers and technologies enabling them.
This should provide a useful mental framework to navigate shows like ISE.
Conclusion
The convergence between AV and broadcast offers exciting learning and business opportunities for visitors coming from both industries. Trends like the rise in corporate video and general-purpose technologies are breaking down barriers between sectors, intensifying the cross-pollination between them.
Whether you’re from the AV or broadcast sector, ISE 2025 is the place to see technology convergence in action. For AV users, the show is a chance to explore tools that can up their game in communication, collaboration, and storytelling capabilities. For broadcasters, it’s an opportunity to broaden their horizons and uncover fresh ideas from the AV world.
I will be at the show so feel free to contact me if you’d like to meet there.
Our objective at Dovetail Pulse is to help companies navigate this convergence by providing a deep understanding of market dynamics and audience needs through data.
See you in Barcelona!
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