This is the first of a series of articles that discuss select findings from Devoncroft’s 2026 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), the largest annual global study of media technology industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of technology vendor brands.

One of the key outputs from the BBS is the annual BBS Global Trend Index. This is a ranking of the media industry trends that are considered by technology end-user respondents the most commercially important to their businesses in the next 2-3 years.

The 2026 BBS Global Trend Index

In the 2026 survey efforts, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 23 industry trends and asked them to select the one trend that is “most important” to their business, one trend that is “second most important” to their business, and the other trends (plural) they consider “also very important.”

We then apply a statistical weighting to these results, based on how research participants ranked the commercial importance of each trend.

Please note the goal of this question is to help clients gain insight into the business drivers behind the respondent’s answer.  Therefore, respondents were asked to rank these trends in the context of the commercial importance to their business, rather than “industry buzz,” or “cool technology,” or marketing hype.

The 2026 BBS Global Trend Index is shown below.

When reviewing the data presented above, readers should note the following about the 2026 BBS Global Trend Index:

• It is a measure of what research participants say is commercially important to their businesses in the future, not what they are doing now, or where they are spending money today
• The chart above is visualized as a weighted index, not as a measure of the number of people that said which trend was most important to them
• It measures the responses of all technology purchasers (i.e. non-vendors) who participated in the 2026 BBS, regardless of company type, company size, geographic location, job title, etc. Thus, the responses of any demographic group such as a company type or geographic location may vary widely from the results presented in this report.

For those parties interested in a detailed review of the research gathered in 2026, multiple reports are available for immediate delivery.

How Trends are Selected for Inclusion in the 2026 BBS Global Trend Index

Since its origination, the objective of the BBS has been to measure the market developments most relevant to technology deployment decisions in the global media sector. Each year, before releasing the survey, we spend a considerable amount of time seeking feedback on all aspects of the survey.

As part of this process, the composition of the BBS Global Trend Index is reviewed in conjunction with Devoncroft clients, media technology end-users, and a variety of domain experts.  New trends are added to the BBS Global Trend Index when BBS stakeholders believe that the value of this additional trend information outweighs the resulting distortion of the year-over-year comparisons.

A deliberately conservative strategy is used when considering adjustments to the index.  By keeping changes to a minimum, we allow for a more straightforward comparison of how trends were ranked versus previous iterations of the survey.

Based on discussions with clients, end-users, and experts during the planning stages of the 2026 BBS, a single change was made to the list of trends presented to respondents. The trend of ‘Content Authenticity (e.g. C2PA)’ was added. No trends were removed.

Analyzing the 2026 BBS Global Trend Index

For the sixth consecutive year (and for the seventh time in eight years), ‘IP Networking & Content Delivery’ was the top ranked trend by global media technology buyers. Though, the margin ahead of the second ranked trend of ‘AI / ML / GenAI’ technologies has narrowed versus 2025 BBS Global Trend Index. ‘AI / ML / GenAI’ has received a ranking of second since the 2023 BBS Global Trend Index.

The related trend of ‘Content Authenticity (e.g. C2PA)’ debuted at the ranking of 20^th (fourth from last). A similar level of commercial importance was attributed to ‘Sustainability / Carbon Reduction’ (21^st ranked trend). Those trends are of great importance to select parties in the media technology sector, but as of 2026 there is relatively little collective importance attributed to either of those trends.

Other notable observations include ‘4K / UHD’ dropping out of the top five trends to a ranking of #6. ‘4K / UHD’ had been a top five trend for the past decade.

Further analysis of the results of the 2026 Big Broadcast Survey will follow in subsequent posts.

The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2026 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of media technology industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of technology vendor brands. Several thousand media professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2026 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast and media industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2026 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

Related Content:

2026 Big Broadcast Survey Reports Now Available

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