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Comparing numbers to last year, IBC2024 grew from all points of view: +4.6% on visitors, +8% on exhibitors and +3.3% on exhibition space. Visitor attendance clocked up more than 45,000, with the usual peaks on Saturday and Sunday but with noticeably increased attendance on the remaining two days. Furthermore, the event clearly hit the nail on the head of the technology trends and the now ubiquitous (sometimes nebulous) AI presence.
Radio and audio gear featured a sound presence — the show hosted many new products and further enhancement of existing ones. Rather than a big new thing in hardware, the prevailing trends raised the bar in terms of easiness of use, flexibility, operational efficiency and value for money. The bedrock of almost any new product at the show was the ability to fit multiple applications and workflows, at the same time sharply squeezing users’ learning curve.
AI was a common theme across the show floor: IBC2024 evidenced how AI has leaped from theory to real-world applications, probably not by chance.
After the customary welcomes, the first session at the IBC Conference was a keynote by behavioral expert Thimon de Jong, who explored dealing with human AI-related fears. He suggested we think as if we were back in 1997 when the Internet became increasingly accessible. At the time, we felt we were at the frontier of a dramatic revolution that would have a massive impact on our jobs and everyday lives. At the same time, none of us could imagine what would really happen in the coming years until now. De Jong said that we are at AI’s 1997: We sense it will be a big thing, but cannot imagine where and what it will bring us.
Bach to the future
RTVE Lab, part of the Spanish public service broadcaster RTVE, disclosed how it pioneered the creation of the first classical musical piece composed by AI and then secretly included it in the program of a public concert of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra alongside a version of the same piece arranged by a human composer. The results of this double-blind trial and the reactions of both the orchestra players and the public before and after knowing the composer’s “identity” were intriguing.
Carbon footprint was another commanding subject at IBC2024. U.K. network operator Arqiva came out with a dramatic engineering mindset U-turn. In its challenge to reduce the energy consumption of its DAB+ transmitter network, it turned its back on the iconic “up to best possible level” benchmark, switching to a more suitable “good enough.” In doing so, it reduced energy costs by 12% on the existing network without affecting its audience’s listening experience.
Various sessions examined how the audio broadcasting industry is fighting disinformation in the news, including the recently standardized Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), which groups many key players from the media and technology industries. C2PA fosters an open technical standard, providing publishers, creators and consumers with the ability to trace the origin of different types of media, including still pictures and audio files.
IBC2024 showed that AI is no longer an outlier, although we may yet discover what changes it will bring to audio broadcasting. Mostly, the new technology on offer promised what we’ve come to expect: Greater flexibility, improved efficiencies and better value for money.
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