This year's IPTV World Forum defied the current economic malaise being seen globally, with a vibrant show floor and packed conference rooms indicating a sense of commercial well-being rarely seen elsewhere, so much so that event attendance grew compared to last year, before the recession hit.


Over 5,650 visitors from 82 countries passed through the doors of London's Olympia on March 25-27th, up 3% from last year, making the fifth IPTV World Forum the biggest one yet.  Also notable was the number of operators and ISPs visiting the show, making up 26% of attendees at the conference sessions and outnumbering the press, which came in next highest in terms of conference presence.  IPTV News was pleased to catch some of the headline speakers at the conference sessions, such as Richard Halton of the BBC's Project Canvas initiative, Christopher Schläffer of Deutsche Telekom, Christophe Forax of the European Commission and Paul Berriman of PCCW.

(Christopher Schläffer, Chief Innovation Officer, Deutsche Telekom)

This year also saw a new format for the IPTV World Series Awards, which were hosted at a gala dinner ceremony at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in Kensington on the evening of Day 1, compèred by journalist and actor Tom Mitchelson.  Among the winners was PCCW with 'Best Quad-play Service' and their CTO Paul Berriman, who won 'Outstanding Industry Contribution', as well as AT&T, which picked up two awards for 'Most Innovative New Service' and 'Best Subscriber Growth Achievement'.

"This year's event has been an outstanding success," said Gavin Whitechurch, Conferences Director of the IPTV World Series at Informa Telecoms & Media.  "Our push to make the conference streams inclusive of all elements of the IP video industry has meant that we have heard from some of the very best minds in the business, and made the show even more bleeding edge than ever.  The exhibition continues to be the only must-attend event for those involved in IPTV from around the world, and is typified by the seniority of its attendees, with over 55% of visitors being Director level or above this year."

Speaking to some of the operators circulating on the show floor, many were happy to see the event continuing to grow in size, with Victor Belov, CTO of Russia's Comstar-UTS saying: "We've been coming here since the first event, it's much bigger than previous years [...] we've seen a lot of good presentations, especially from service providers, and I think one of the key differentiators of this particular event is that service providers can meet and discuss."  Peter Li, Vice President of Chinese IPTV operation BesTV, told us: "This is my first time to the Forum, I'm very impressed.  In the economic downturn, I'm seeing so many people interested in the industry, so this is very encouraging."

Informa Telecoms & Media, organisers of the IPTV World Forum, reports that next year's event is on track to increase in size, with 73% of this year's exhibitors rebooking 82% of next year's floor space before the event had concluded.  Let's hope that the IPTV industry is still enjoying rude health when it comes around.

For a complete summary of the event, including breakdown of attendees by geographical origin and sector, please click here

The remaining events in the IPTV World Series for this year will be:

IP&TV Forum North America (www.iptv-northamerica.com)
21-22 July 2009, New York, USA

IPTV Forum Central & Eastern Europe (www.iptv-easterneurope.com)
20-21 October 2009, Prague, Czech Republic

IPTV Forum Middle East & Africa (www.iptv-mea.com)
3-4 November 2009, Dubai, UAE

IPTV Forum Asia (www.iptv-asia.net)
1-2 December 2009, Hong Kong, China