At IBC2026 in Amsterdam, Paul Martin, SVP Business Operations at MainStreaming, sat down with IAMT to discuss some of the biggest questions facing the broadcast and streaming industry. These included government plans to move from digital terrestrial television (DTT) to all-IP delivery, the growing importance of digital sovereignty in video distribution, the role of fully managed edge networks, and the latest trends in piracy.
From DTT to all-IP: getting the infrastructure ready
Governments across Europe are exploring what a future beyond DTT could look like, with the UK among those already assessing a transition to IP-based television. For Paul, the real question is whether the video delivery infrastructure is ready to carry the entire media industry.
Moving national television to all-IP delivery means building for the viewer first. The infrastructure must have the capacity to handle everyday demand as well as the audience peaks generated by major live events, when millions of people tune in at the same moment. It must be resilient enough to keep services running whatever happens, and it must scale in a sustainable way, without simply adding more energy-hungry capacity. Paul was clear that none of this can be achieved by a single player: collaboration across broadcasters, technology providers and network operators is what will make the switchover a success.
Digital sovereignty: control, compliance and quality
The conversation then turned to digital sovereignty, a topic rising quickly up the agenda for European broadcasters. Paul explained that sovereignty is first and foremost about compliance, privacy and control: media organisations need to manage how and where their content is distributed in order to respect national and European regulation.
It is also about quality. Where content is streamed from has a direct impact on the viewing experience, which makes geographic location a strategic consideration as well as a regulatory one. Localising infrastructure within Europe is one part of the answer. The other is using the edge itself as the means of localisation, placing delivery capacity close to viewers so that control and performance stay where they belong.
Private edge networks: control without complexity
Private edge networks sit at the heart of this conversation. Through our fully managed private edge service, broadcasters gain the control, quality and visibility they need over their delivery infrastructure, in line with sovereignty requirements, without taking on the operational burden of running it themselves. The result is an infrastructure that is secure, easy to manage and built around the needs of each broadcaster and its audiences.
Piracy: a shared concern with new dimensions
Finally, Paul discussed how piracy is evolving. For subscription-based services, the primary concern remains revenue loss. Free-to-air broadcasters are facing a newer challenge: the risk that their content is manipulated with AI tools and redistributed, undermining editorial integrity and public trust.
Addressing these threats requires collaboration and coordinated enforcement across the ecosystem. As Paul explained, because MainStreaming actually distributes the streams, we have real-time visibility into how content moves across the network. That puts us in the best position to help broadcasters detect illicit activity and intervene quickly, protecting both their content and the experience of legitimate viewers.
As Paul's conversation with IAMT shows, capacity, resilience, sovereignty and content protection are no longer separate challenges. They are all part of building a video infrastructure that is ready for the future and designed around the viewer.
