IBC always has a great buzz to it, but seeing the event through the eyes of someone brand new to both the IBC and the industry gives a unique perspective. This year, we asked our colleague Connor Buckley, Sales Executive at Wiztivi, to share his first impressions.
Connor joined Wiztivi earlier this year, and IBC 2025 was his first opportunity to meet operators, developers, and product managers face-to-face on such a global stage. What stood out in his conversations wasn’t the size of the show, but the urgency of the challenges being discussed: user experience, monetization, and time-to-market.
“What struck me was how consistent the conversations were,” says Connor. “Everyone I spoke with — telcos, developers, product managers — kept coming back to the same three things: delivering a great UX, finding new ways to monetize, and getting products out faster.”
User experience used to be considered a differentiator. Today, it’s a baseline requirement — and the cost of getting it wrong is immediate.
“Before joining Wiztivi, I probably took good video UX for granted — the same way end users do,” Connor said. “You only notice when something goes wrong. And when it does, people don’t wait around. They close the app and move on to the next platform. That’s a real risk for operators.”
That reality came through in many of Connor’s booth conversations. “Operators want to unify their front end across devices, ensure brand consistency, and deliver a seamless experience that reduces churn.” Wiztivi’s Timeless UI solution has been helping operators achieve exactly that, and IBC 2025 showed just how high UX now sits on the industry’s priority list.
If UX was the recurring theme, then technology was the enabler. And that’s where Wiztivi’s DANA Framework comes in. We’ve been using DANA to develop apps for clients for many years, but now it’s available as a SaaS solution and we’ve recently opened up our Beta program for registrations. Many of the product managers and developers we spoke to at IBC described DANA as something they have been waiting for.
“Customers kept saying they’ve needed this for a long time,” Connor recalls. With multiple development teams spread across different projects, operators often end up relying on third parties to fill the gaps. The result is slow, complex, and expensive. “What clicked with people was that DANA strips away that complexity. With a small team who knows JavaScript, you can code once and deliver a unified front end across every device.”
For operators under pressure to roll out new features faster, that message resonated strongly. Speed to market and simplified operations aren’t just technical benefits — they’re strategic necessities in a competitive video landscape.
Alongside UX and speed to market, monetization came up again and again in Connor’s conversations. Many operators still rely on subscription-only models and feel they’re missing opportunities to grow through advertising. “One customer told me they’d never really moved into AVOD,” Connor says. “They could see they were leaving money on the table by not offering a free, ad-funded option alongside subscription.” But while the discussions highlighted the importance of flexible monetization strategies, at Wiztivi we know it’s not enough to just roll-out advertising; it has to be integrated in a way that complements the viewing experience. As Connor put it, operators want “new ways to increase ad revenue, but the art is to grow revenue without disrupting the viewer journey.”
That’s where Wiztivi’s design expertise plays a role. By making advertising placements part of a seamless interface, operators can protect their brand while unlocking new revenue streams. For many visitors at IBC 2025, that balance between user experience and monetization was a critical talking point.
Overall, what struck Connor most from his first IBC was not the noise and buzz of the show floor, but the clarity of the conversations. Across regions and company types, operators and product managers are facing the same challenges: keeping UX consistent, speeding up app development, and finding smarter ways to monetize.
For Wiztivi, those challenges are exactly where our solutions are designed to deliver impact. Timeless provides the unified UX operators need to protect their brand and reduce churn. DANA, now available as a SaaS framework, helps teams accelerate development and simplify operations. And our design expertise ensures that advertising is integrated smoothly into the experience, so monetization opportunities don’t come at the cost of user satisfaction.
Connor’s first IBC may be over, but the themes he heard will define the industry for years to come. At Wiztivi, we’re ready to turn that buzz into real business impact.
Explore how DANA can accelerate your next video app launch — request access to our Beta program.