MainStreaming and Deutsche Telekom are extending their partnership with an on-demand approach designed to help broadcasters cope with the sharp traffic peaks generated by major live events.

Speaking to Broadband TV News at IBC 2026, Dan Racioppa, SVP of Revenue at MainStreaming, explained how the company’s “Better Together” approach brings broadcasters, ISPs and infrastructure providers closer together. By placing streaming infrastructure directly within ISP networks, MainStreaming says content can be delivered closer to viewers, improving quality of experience while reducing reliance on conventional CDN delivery.

Racioppa pointed to ITV’s addition of MainStreaming to the multi-CDN strategy supporting ITVX as an example of broadcasters seeking greater resilience across live and on-demand streaming.

“If you want true resilience, you need to make sure that you’re covering all angles and having the best vendors all working together in order to give the best experience to the customers,” he said.

The discussion also highlighted the relationship between streaming performance and piracy. Racioppa explained that infrastructure is dimensioned around expected legitimate audiences. Unauthorised redistribution can therefore introduce additional traffic and potentially affect service quality, making stream protection an operational issue as well as a matter of protecting content rights.

MainStreaming is now taking its collaboration model further with Deutsche Telekom, developing infrastructure aimed specifically at broadcasters facing occasional, exceptionally large streaming audiences.

Sahler Salem, Team Lead, New Business & Innovation Sales at Deutsche Telekom, said broadcasters traditionally have to provision infrastructure capable of handling their largest audiences even though that additional capacity may be needed only a handful of times each year.

The new model instead allows broadcasters to reserve dedicated streaming infrastructure and egress capacity within Deutsche Telekom’s German network for individual events, potentially for just three or four hours.

“For these special events, which happen a few times a year, we are providing a complete technology stack, from the connectivity up to the streaming software,” said Salem.

Capacity can effectively be booked by the hour, removing the need for broadcasters to invest permanently in infrastructure that may remain idle for much of the year.

MainStreaming provides the servers, software and streaming technology, while Deutsche Telekom supplies the network connectivity. The companies already work together on MagentaTV, with the new live streaming project representing an extension of that relationship.

Broadcasters are increasingly embracing vertical video as both an editorial format and a new source of advertising revenue, according to Backscreen CCO Jan Frelek.

Speaking to Broadband TV News at IBC2026, Frelek said demand is coming from both broadcasters looking to reclaim younger audiences from social platforms and advertisers already prepared to spend against vertical content.

He cited the example of a Backscreen broadcasting customer in Lithuania that approached the company after receiving advertiser demand for vertical advertising.

“There are already funders, sponsors and advertisers who say, ‘Broadcasters, we have money for you, just do it’,” said Frelek. “This combination of strategic and operational cash works and makes this change happen.”

Frelek expects broadcasters to develop vertical video in two directions. The first is standalone programming, including the rapidly developing microdrama format. The second is short-form content designed to engage viewers and lead them towards longer programmes.

Producing for both vertical and traditional 16:9 screens presents challenges, although Frelek said broadcasters have already developed many of the necessary workflows through their social media operations. Existing programmes can also be repurposed using a combination of AI-based tools and human editorial input.

The greater challenge is creating a coherent experience in which audiences can move between short and long-form video.

“What broadcasters and service providers require is a platform which consistently manages video assets, making short and long form a single experience,” he said.

Younger viewers are central to the development of the format. Frelek estimated that younger audiences spend around six hours a day with video, with approximately half of that time devoted to short-form content.

“If you don’t do it, you will not see the money which follows the attention,” he said.

Frelek also argued that the opportunity extends beyond conventional video advertising. Vertical experiences could connect advertising directly with actions such as purchasing merchandise or other retail transactions, creating additional revenue streams.

He expects this to require a wider ecosystem encompassing content production, personalisation, commerce, advertising and video platforms capable of supporting both horizontal and vertical formats.

“It’s not just a format,” Frelek said. “It’s a complete and quite complex ecosystem which needs to be defined and developed with new players and new roles.”

He expects vertical video and its monetisation to remain an important industry development over the next three to five years.

ThinkAnalytics is extending its use of agentic AI beyond consumer recommendations into the tools used by operators and editorial teams to manage and promote their content.

Speaking to Broadband TV News at IBC2026, Founder and CTO Peter Docherty told Julian Clover that the company has already had agentic AI-based solutions in production for more than a year, describing the technology as a continuation of ThinkAnalytics’ work in machine learning and AI rather than an entirely new development.

Its Metadata AI technology uses AI to enrich metadata and establish what Docherty describes as the “DNA” of individual pieces of content. Combined with viewing behaviour, this can help operators understand not simply what subscribers watch, but why particular programmes appeal to them.

Docherty said deployments with operators had produced increases of more than 30% in viewing from personalised carousels after enriched metadata was introduced. The objective is to broaden viewing across a catalogue, increase time spent with a service and ultimately improve retention.

ThinkAnalytics is now applying similar technology to editorial and content management. Rather than requiring editorial teams to manually search large catalogues and hundreds of linear channels, natural-language instructions can be used to create campaigns or rails around subjects, events or particular moods.

An editor might ask the system to create a collection around a topical event, with an AI agent identifying relevant films, programmes, documentaries or other content and preparing the campaign. Docherty said work that could previously take editorial teams weeks could potentially be completed in minutes.

Natural-language interaction is also being extended from the viewer-facing interface into the operator’s back end. Consumers can already make conversational searches based on partial memories of a programme, while editors can now use similar techniques to describe the collection or experience they want to create.

Docherty said this could enable services to react much more quickly to real-world events and continually change their interfaces, while personalisation can also determine the ordering of both individual titles and entire content rails.

The technology is also being applied to short-form content, including clips and micro-dramas, where rapid feedback about what viewers watch or reject can be used to adapt recommendations.

Advertising represents another area of development. ThinkAnalytics is using viewing behaviour and its understanding of content to reduce the disconnect between programmes and the advertising shown alongside them.

This can include considering the tone of both the programme and advertisement, as well as identifying likely household characteristics and interests. Docherty said ThinkAnalytics can infer household composition and create IAB-style audience segments, such as health and fitness or personal finance, without requiring additional third-party data.

The models combine viewing behaviour, enriched content metadata and individual profiles. Docherty said they have been trained using datasets containing hundreds of billions of viewing transactions from hundreds of millions of viewers.

The aim, he said, is to make advertising more relevant while reducing the interruption it creates within the viewing experience.

Dotscreen is addressing growing fragmentation in smart TV operating systems while helping broadcasters introduce targeted advertising and interactive multiview experiences.

Speaking to Broadband TV News at IBC2026, Vincent Gattone said new entrants such as Titan OS and Amazon’s Vega OS reflect manufacturers’ ambitions to control monetisation and app partnerships.

He argued that well-structured applications can make expansion manageable, with some HTML5 and JavaScript apps transferable between platforms in days rather than months.

Dotscreen has also worked with Bitmovin, Ad Insertion Platform and Red Bee on a server-guided ad insertion deployment for Belgian public broadcaster RTBF. Gattone said its role included integration, testing and ensuring a consistent viewing experience across devices.

Meanwhile, a partnership with Broadpeak brings multiview to smart TVs with limited processing power. Viewers select their preferred feeds and layout through Dotscreen’s interface, while Broadpeak combines the streams remotely, delivering them through a single video player.

Gattone sees applications in sports, including racing and simultaneous matches, alongside news coverage during elections.

Customer projects include Samsung and LG apps for Canada’s TV5+, automotive expansion for France 24, and an RMC+ rollout across 19 platforms, illustrating how broadcasters are extending their reach and building relationships with audiences across connected devices.

Scalstrm demonstrated how it can deliver 110 broadcast-grade HD channels from a single 1U server at IBC 2026, combining its software platform with dedicated video processing hardware from NETINT.

Speaking to Broadband TV News, Jon Haley, Chief Revenue Officer at Scalstrm, explained how the approach helps broadcasters and pay-TV operators expand services while reducing infrastructure costs.

NETINT’s video processing units handle decoding, scaling and encoding, while Scalstrm’s software provides the control needed to manage large numbers of simultaneous channels. This includes workload balancing, performance optimisation and recovery from errors during operation.

Haley sees demand from operators managing hundreds of channels, alongside broadcasters seeking affordable ways to launch temporary services for smaller sports competitions, weekend fixtures and other events.

Deployments can run on premises, in the cloud or across hybrid environments. Haley highlighted VPU availability through providers including Akamai and NetActuate, with some broadcasters and sports providers choosing to operate the technology in their own data centres.

He cited Dutch public broadcaster NPO and Ziggo Sport among customers benefiting from the company’s approach.

Further development will focus on greater channel density, support for new codecs and additional features, including AI optimisation, as Scalstrm looks to drive down the cost of delivering video.

At IBC2026 Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) was focusing on practical applications of artificial intelligence as broadcasters and content providers look to simplify increasingly complex media workflows.

Speaking with Broadband TV News, VP of Product and Marketing Peter Gibson said the industry had moved beyond theoretical discussions around AI towards applications capable of delivering measurable benefits. CTS has introduced tools covering video verticalisation, smart chaptering, ad-break detection, metadata enhancement and automated quality control.

Gibson identified three significant trends: practical AI, simplifying content distribution and hyper-personalisation. He said the proliferation of FAST channels, direct-to-consumer services and third-party streaming platforms had created considerable complexity, increasing demand for workflows where content can effectively be ingested once and distributed and monetised across multiple destinations.

AI is also playing a growing role in localisation, including creating language versions that retain the characteristics and intonation of the original performance, making it easier for content owners to distribute programming internationally.

CTS recently signed a multi-year agreement with A+E Global Media to manage distribution to streaming platforms including Amazon and Apple Channels, handling platform-specific processing and metadata.

Gibson also highlighted CTS’s collaboration with Ateme, combining its Cloud Video Platform with Ateme’s live linear video compression technology.

IBC2026 attracted 41,225 attendees from 170 countries to the RAI Amsterdam, alongside more than 1,300 exhibitors.

The four-day event recorded an increase in new exhibitors, with 256 companies making their IBC debut, 36% more than in 2025.

However, the number is significantly less than the 43,858 visitors who attended in 2025.

IBC said emerging technologies and practical applications of AI were prominent across this year’s exhibition and conference. The Future Tech area included the new Future Tech Ignite programme, which brought together more than 70 start-ups and emerging companies with investors and established media businesses.

The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme featured nine projects covering areas including agentic AI, immersive experiences, private 5G, accessibility, content provenance and live-event streaming.

The three-day conference included speakers from broadcasters, streaming platforms, technology companies and sports organisations including BBC Studios, CNN, FIFA, Globo, ITV, JioStar, Netflix, UEFA, Warner Bros Discovery and YouTube.

“IBC’s superpower is the power to convene our industry,” said IBC CEO Mike Crimp. “Our industry has always been at its best when people come together, embrace new technology, and work through challenges to create real opportunity.”

IBC is approaching its 60th anniversary and will return to the RAI Amsterdam from 10 to 13 September 2027.

IBC has announced the winners of its 2026 Innovation Awards, recognising collaborative projects that address major challenges across content creation, distribution, delivery and accessibility.

The awards, presented at the RAI Amsterdam, celebrate projects involving broadcasters, technology companies and industry organisations working together on practical deployments rather than standalone products.

The content creation award went to Media eXchange Layer (MXL), an open-source media workflow initiative established by the European Broadcasting Union and the North American Broadcasters Association, hosted by the Linux Foundation and deployed by CBC/Radio-Canada.

Reuters won the content distribution category for replacing fixed-capacity news infrastructure with a Global Shared Memory ecosystem based on TVU Networks’ MediaMesh, enabling event-driven live news distribution with support from partners including Sony, TAG Video Systems and Elecard.

In the content everywhere category, Globo’s implementation of Brazil’s DTV+ platform was recognised for combining free-to-air television with broadband services to add personalisation and measurement capabilities while maintaining broadcast reach.

The social impact award went to G&L Systemhaus and partners Signapse, Norsk/id3as and Akamai for an AI-powered sign language system designed for live and on-demand streaming.

Fergal Ringrose, chair of the Innovation Awards jury, said this year’s winners had broken down geographical, language and organisational barriers to create collaborative, cloud-native media ecosystems.

IBC also presented its International Honour for Excellence to Olympic Broadcasting Services in recognition of its contribution to live sports production and broadcast technology.

The Best Technical Paper award went to researchers from i2 media research for work examining how age-informed interface design can make internet-delivered television easier for older viewers to use.

The IBC Accelerator Project of the Year 2025 was awarded to AI Agent Assistants for Live Production, a project led by ITN, the BBC and Channel 4 with technology partners including Google Cloud, EVS and CuePilot. The project developed an AI-assisted framework to support live production workflows while keeping editorial control with human operators.

The Digital TV Group (DTG) has welcomed video delivery specialist MainStreaming as its latest full member, with the agreement signed during IBC2026 in Amsterdam.

MainStreaming provides broadcast-grade content delivery technology for broadcasters, streaming platforms and internet service providers, supporting the delivery of live and on-demand video services at scale.

Richard Lindsay-Davies, chief executive of the DTG, said MainStreaming would bring valuable expertise in broadcast-grade video delivery to the organisation’s work on the future of television.

Paul Martin, senior vice-president of business operations at MainStreaming, said the transition to IP-delivered television required collaboration across the industry.

He said joining the DTG would allow the company to contribute its experience in scalable video delivery while working alongside other members on technologies shaping the future of television.

Dolby has announced a series of enhancements to its Dolby OptiView live sports platform, introducing AI-powered audience analytics, Dolby Vision support and expanded advertising capabilities ahead of IBC2026.

The headline addition is Dolby OptiView Sports Intelligence, an AI-powered analytics tool that combines live match data with viewer behaviour to identify which moments generate the greatest audience engagement. The system enables broadcasters, leagues and streaming services to automatically create personalised highlights, catch-up content and tailored viewing experiences.

Dolby says the platform can anticipate when viewer interest may begin to fall and respond by surfacing relevant statistics, switching fantasy sports fans to key moments across multiple matches or providing additional context for newer viewers.

The company has also added Dolby Vision support to OptiView, bringing HDR picture quality to live sports streamed through the platform. The Seattle Seahawks are the first sports organisation to deploy the technology, using it for live programming through the club’s app and website.

Kenton Olson, Vice President of Digital & Emerging Media at the Seattle Seahawks, said the deployment would deliver richer visuals, lower latency and a more immersive streaming experience for supporters.

Dolby is also expanding Dolby OptiView Ads beyond its own player, allowing the advertising technology to work with additional video players. The server-guided ad insertion platform is designed to improve monetisation while keeping live action visible during commercial breaks.

According to Dolby, one deployment with a major sports organisation delivered a 76% increase in effective CPM (eCPM) and a 132% increase in ad fill rates.

Giles Baker, Senior Vice President of Dolby Cloud Solutions, said understanding what resonates with sports fans has become increasingly important as audiences consume live events in more ways.

He said Dolby OptiView enables rights holders and streaming providers to build stronger audience engagement while creating new opportunities to increase revenue.

Dolby will demonstrate the latest OptiView capabilities at IBC 2026 in Hall 5, Stand F86.