With the upcoming NAB Show attracting radio and TV industry leaders and ISE 2026 offering new opportunities for U.S. companies to tap into the creator culture with tools that can benefit them, 2026 is poised to be a transformative year for U.S. over-the-air media.
RBR+TVBR went behind the scenes to provide C-Suite leaders overseeing radio and TV stations a clear picture of the tools and “solutions” that could power up new revenue opportunities and future-proof free over-the-air media.
At IBC2025, correspondent Brian Galante spoke with representatives about some of the key offerings they’ll be promoting at the 2026 NAB Show. Four of these companies were also on the NAB Show New York expo floor.
Switchin’ To Glide
It is a pacesetter among North American companies, as it had a presence at IBC before many of its peers. This year, Geeter Kyrazis, the Strategic Sales Lead for the company with a name pronounced “switch-I.O.,” couldn’t have been more pleased with swXtch.io’s presence in Amsterdam and, in October, at the NAB Show New York.
“There is a seven-month window between IBC and the NAB Show in Las Vegas, and it’s a fertile period to understand how some of the concepts that emerged at the previous NAB or at IBC have progressed on the road to the next NAB,” Kyrazis says. “We find that there is a lot of overlap between the needs of our customers in North America, Europe and Asia, but there are different supply chains. European integrators tend to have a big presence at IBC, and it’s helpful to learn how integrators and other channel partner do things in comparison to their North American peers. It helps us bring more of a global perspective to how we position our solutions and serve our customers.”
While swXtch.io doesn’t favor launching a product at one conference and expo over another, his team does take advantage of where swXtch.io is in the development life cycle. “We introduced our SRT Gateway and groundSwXtch on-prem network overlay at IBC this year because they were ready to show,” he says. “The upside of launching at IBC is that it can be easier to find early adopters. By the time NAB season comes around, we will have experience to draw from and understand how these products are performing and evolving in the field.”
Where is the North American marketplace today regarding cloud adoption, a primary lure for swXtch.io? “Broadcasters have been seriously talking about and working through the IP transition for 15 years, which is a prerequisite to cloud migration. That puts swXtch.io in the sweet spot, since our core mission is to help broadcasters transition their live production workflows to the cloud while maintaining the familiarity of their on-prem networks.”
For Kyrazis and his team, the cloud is thought of as “the room next door” and simply another production facility that broadcasters can use in addition to their on-prem facilities. “It’s still maturing, but there are real-world examples of very large cloud deployments that function very reliably and with high performance,” he says. “There is still a level of conservatism, often for valid reasons, but we are no longer in the realm of early adoption. We are in the realm of widespread interest for using the cloud as a global production and distribution mechanism and being a source of content for distribution into ground networks.”
Could the launch of groundSwXtch as an on-prem overlay network inspire broader cloud adoption? Kyrazis says yes, as it could solve on-premise networking challenges broadcasters face today. “This frees their in-house IT teams from burdens with broadcast engineering problems,” he says.
Opening The Gates
Enjoying an appearance at both IBC2025 and NAB Show New York this autumn was GatesAir, which was acquired in mid-October by Saothair Capital Partners from France-based Thomson Broadcast. For VP of Technology Ray Miklius, being at both affairs is integral to GatesAir’s global customer base, with activity in more than 100 countries. In Amsterdam, a large contingent of African consumers are present, with interest in FM radio needs and their own transition to digital TV. GatesAir recently won a large FM contract with one African nation, with more details coming in a few months.
Then, there’s DAB+, the digital radio off-band solution that has grown significantly across Europe and the UK, with Norway and Italy key markets. “At IBC it is among our busiest sections of the booth,” Miklius says. “We rolled out a new high-efficiency DAB transmitter line at IBC this year, and that proved to be a timely launch that captured strong interest.”
Milkius was also asked about RF, which remains a crucial part of the broadcast air chain. Yet RF engineering appears to be a fading talent. The executive office should pay attention to the changes, he says. “U.S. broadcasters are faced with a shortfall of RF-specific talent as legacy RF engineers retire or leave the industry. TV stations are also faced with the challenge of modernizing or designing new plants for ATSC 3.0 but lack the in-house resources.”
Milkius believes GatesAir can help fill the gaps through outsourcing of those needs to the company. “From our Quincy manufacturing center, we can monitor transmitter health, analyze RF conditions, and offer a proactive response to problems that affect uptime and quality of experience.”
Unleashing A Raptor
ENCO President Ken Frommert and his colleagues always learn a great deal at IBC — arguably more than at any other show they attend. That’s because the Amsterdam affair each September attracts a diverse range of clients and partners from across the globe. “This exposes us to an intriguing variety of use cases, workflows and opportunities,” Frommert notes. “That global diversity helps us understand how needs differ from region to region and gives us insight that directly shapes our product development and overall business strategy.”
With European clients quicker to embrace cloud-based workflows, this influenced ENCO in how to bring to market its new Raptor platform, which brings on-prem SDI workflows into the cloud through a virtual encoding environment. “This enables broadcasters, and any organization managing live video feeds, to operate entirely in a cloud-driven environment,” Frommert says.
Being at NAB Show New York and IBC also allowed ENCO to differentiate how it serves clients internationally from those stateside. “Captioning is an ideal example,” Frommert continues. “The United States uses the CEA-608 and CEA-708 broadcast captioning standards that define how closed captions are encoded, transmitted, and displayed on television and digital video systems. In Europe and other places, EBU standards for captions and subtitles is Teletext. The structure of Teletext standards is very different, and without that compatibility we would have no viability in that market.
With budgets ever under the microscope, given macroeconomic uncertainty impacting revenue for both radio and television stations in the U.S., doing more with less is a reality Frommert and ENCO are hearing from clients. That’s why live virtual production is gaining interest among cost-conscious broadcasters. “The investment is a fraction of the price that it would cost to create multiple physical sets,” Frommert concludes. “It requires less space in the studio, so any station can have the appearance of a large network broadcaster without consuming sizable real estate.”
