IBC has announced the projects nominated for the 2026 Innovation Awards, which are setting new standards across media and entertainment.
The nominations recognise collaborative projects that are solving real technical challenges and delivering measurable impact across the industry. Spanning Content Creation, Content Distribution, Content Everywhere, and Social Impact, the awards celebrate the teams behind the technologies, workflows, and initiatives shaping the future of media and entertainment.
In the Content Creation category, the nominees included: an AI multi-camera sports production system developed by DMC Production and Studio Automated; a live production editing model by NEP Europe, ITV Studios Netherlands, and Limecraft; Österreichischer Rundfunk’s cinematic live production of Eurovision Song Contest 2026; BBC India’s Collective Newsroom; the AI-enhanced AutoCut audio highlights system created by WDR/ARD Sportschau, deliver.media, and the EBU; the NEP Automated Reality Workflow production architecture developed by NEP and built on AirFrame Fabric; the EBU’s and NABA’s Media eXchange Layer (MXL); RTL Deutschland's story-template-driven news production; Formula E’s Strategy Agent powered by Google; the JioStar India Private team’s comprehensive VOD Configuration Engine; Bardel’s global animation production infrastructure; and Vivid Broadcast’s audio infrastructure for remote production.
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The Content Distribution nominations included: Media For Europe’s OneOTT project; Reuters’ and TVU Networks’ cloud-native media workflows; Radio Televisyen Malaysia’s digital contribution and workflow orchestration platform; Crunchyroll’s migration of more than 50,000 episodes and 400,000 localisation components; SPOTV’s IP-based, cloud-optimised distribution network; the International Olympic Committee’s Sports AI; MasOrange’s multi-brand TV expansion; UVOtv’s free delivery of FAST and AVOD service to 70 million North American diaspora viewers; RTL Audio Center’s real-time scheduling for live radio; and the Oceania Football Confederation’s remote VAR.
Next, the Content Everywhere nominations recognised: PHXAM 2026; Globo’s DTV+; Indian Premier League's AI-powered replay system; KAON Group’s AI-powered solution that transforms live horizontal broadcasts into real-time vertical feeds; Comcast’s and MediaKind’s multi-view system; the dynamic event marker system for live sports broadcast developed by Big Blue Marble and Sportradar; the Premier League Companion by Copilot; the Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF), developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia); Morgan Murphy Media’s Newspulse, a policy-driven agentic AI platform; and Particle6’s AI-generated performer Tilly Norwood.
Finally, in the Social Impact category, the nominees included: Unified Streaming’s verifiable authenticity for streaming video system; DeviceAtlas’s Sustainability Properties to measure environmental footprints; Clear-Com; the Crystal Clear IBC Accelerator; the Group for the Implementation of the TV Channel Redistribution and Digitalisation Process (GIRED); AI for Good; Greener Streaming; IOC Cyber Abuse Protection Service (CAPS); KMS Media Network; and G&L Systemhaus’s AI-powered sign language system for live and on-demand streaming.
“For the 2026 Innovation Awards, IBC received over 120 completed entries by deadline across the four categories,” Chair of Judges Fergal Ringrose tells IBC365. “The quality of entries was sky-high right across the categories, making the job of choosing nominations very challenging for the judging panel.
“These are completed, deployed projects, within our required timeline of 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026. One very striking realisation, going through the entries, is international spread; across the categories we have nominated entries from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, United Arab Emirates, USA, and the UK, as well as global and regional media organisations.
Ringrose adds: “It is also good to see projects that started life as part of the Accelerator Programme graduate to now become IBC Innovation Award contenders. Across electronic media production, we are seeing dramatic changes being driven by software-defined, virtualised, 5G-based, and agentic AI advances. Intelligent new technologies are changing the way real-world innovation partnerships are delivering breakthrough workflows and consumer experiences in 2026.”
To find out more about the awards, click here.
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