This is the second in a series of articles that discuss findings from Devoncroft’s 2026 Market Sizing Study.

The Devoncroft Market Sizing Study offers decision-makers a more constructive reference than the feel-good market sizing that has become one of the discarded salutations of investor communications – satisfying protocol, yet it no way informing a productive dialogue with stakeholders.

Many of the uncomfortable conversations in the global media technology sector are downstream from the observation informing all serious discussions with stakeholders: industry revenues are relatively flat.

The above excerpt from the latest Market Sizing Study (as referenced at our Las Vegas Executive Summit), illustrates the year-over-year revenue growth recorded in product and managed service aggregates, as well as the compounded annual growth rate for the prior six calendar years. Please note these rates are calculated from nominal USD values (i.e. before adjusting for inflation).

We are talking in terms of aggregates. Yes, adjacent use cases (like Corporate/Enterprise) and spending for new categories (like all things AI) are counted. It isn’t that those segments (or others) aren’t growing, instead growing segments aren’t large enough or increasing fast enough to substantially offset other portions of the market in decline.

Businesses at or approaching maturity or exposed to large portions of the value chain (like the trade exhibitions) must manage this reality. Even smaller businesses, enjoying strong growth given exposure to faster-growing segments, will eventually become subject to the ceiling of industry growth rates. As such, inescapably, aggregate growth rates still inform capital needs, investor exit timing, and various other strategic considerations.

Considerations for Media Technology Suppliers and Investors

There is a certain trauma to internalizing the reality of operating in a low growth environment. Often, parties are prone to expend unconstructive energies in reimaging their addressable market, searching for increasingly dubious adjacent verticals, or just employing good old-fashioned hope.

Ultimately, even if you can run (for a short while), you can’t hide, because setting realistic goals is a foundational input into vendor strategic planning, investor diligence, or really any stakeholder relationship.

A mismatch between investor growth expectations and market realities is increasingly manifesting in a series of rushed restructuring and M&A events with media technology suppliers. Those corporate transactions are often the most expedient way to reset expectations with stakeholders.

We attempted to capture this characteristic at our Las Vegas Summit by contrasting media technology supplier growth expectations against aggregate product revenues recorded in the Devoncroft Market Sizing Study.

The left column in the above slide lists the percentage of media technology vendors (executives) in each year since 2021 indicating (in Devoncroft’s Big Broadcast Survey) an expectation of double-digit revenue growth next year. The right column shows the recorded aggregate product revenue growth in that (next) year.

In plain language, except for 2024, in each of the past five years roughly two-thirds of vendors have expected more than 10% revenue growth. While over the same period aggregate revenue product revenues have been flat to negative. We have arrived at a mathematical unlikelihood, either that, or vendors have set unreasonably revenue growth goals throughout their organizations (or somewhere in between).

Private equity investors are a good stand-in for one of the stakeholders many vendors have chosen to set unreasonable growth expectations. (The right-hand portion of the above slide includes the illustration accompanying a Forbes digital article by Hank Tucker in late January 2026.)

A growth-oriented Private Equity firm will typically have a target annual return level on the order of 20 – 25% per year for every dollar it invests in a portfolio company. Firms with a technology focus have been investing against the backdrop of the NASDAQ-100 registering a ~15% CAGR over the time frame from 2021 – 2025 (aligning with above). Meaning, return levels at or below large public technology businesses are not attractive to the investor community.

Given these expectations, once you call a growth-oriented private equity firm an investor, you have established an implicit annual growth expectation (i.e. more than 20% per year, every year). Best of luck.

The phenomenon is highlighted with a private equity stand-in, but vendors can set unreasonable goals without outside assistance. As outlined earlier, growth rates more than 20% are incongruous with the aggregate levels observed in the global media technology sector. Such growth rates are supportable (for mature businesses) with exposure to faster growing segments of the market or through taking substantial market share or both. Absent one or both of these strategic qualities, double-digit growth rates are at best unconstructive and more usually a justification for unjustifiable levels of investment and risk chasing dubious growth targets.

Nothing in this post is an argument for underachievement. Rather, it serves as a statement on the market environment, and the critical need to set realistic goals in strategic planning.

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