CSTB Report 03 February 2015
News
Events
CSTB 2015
27 - 28 January 2-15
Crocus Expo Centre, Moscow, Russia
Report by Martin Salter
Now, in what I believe is it's sixteenth year, CSTB was, as in previous years, located at the modern and well equipped Crocus Expo Centre. Although some distance from the city centre, it is readily accessible by the fast and efficient Moscow Metro, in most cases only a single line with no interchanges required. The journey does take some time at a little over 45 minutes from the city centre. The cost is extremely low at approximately 35pence per journey, if the ten trip (including a bonus additional trip) multiple use card is purchased. The station is adjacent to the Expo Centre and only requires a few minutes' walk. For exhibitors not wishing to stay in the city centre and take the Metro journey there is a hotel (The Aquarium) on site. Reports indicate that it is clean and efficient but rather basic with many rooms having a view over exhibition halls it was once described to me as the only Shell Scheme hotel that they had encountered, but it is more than adequate for a few days stay.
Admission to the exhibition is free of charge upon presentation of the individual being an industry professional, very important as many shows in Russia are made ineffective by significant numbers of sightseeing visitors including school students and the general public at large. This year, for the first time, a small and very affordable charge was introduced to permit access to the conference; this did not seem to have affected the numbers attending.
The exhibition is spread over three large, interconnecting, halls that are broadly themed into three main categories. The largest hall is predominantly equipment manufacturers, system providers and software companies serving the delivery aspects of broadcast, cable and satellite delivery. The show, largely, does not cater for the production elements of the industry. The smallest hall is occupied by satellite (up-link) equipment and service providers. A third, medium sized, hall is almost exclusively taken by content providers and channel operators.
Observations
Organisation and Quality of Exhibition
As in previous years the organisers received very high marks for their communication, efficiency and delivery of exactly what was advertised and expected, this is reflected in the show survey forms. One IABM exhibitor commented that even items of stand furniture that they had overlooked to order were delivered very promptly after a request to the organisers office, which is very well staffed throughout the show.
The exhibit areas comprised some 225 stands. The majority of which were free standing and of outstanding quality and innovative design that would not in any way be out of place at IBC. These were complemented by a number of shell scheme booths of varying sizes, also of a high standard.
Some of the 225 exhibitors represented several companies so the total number of individual companies present exceeded the number of booths. A full list of exhibitors is available from the CSTB web site www.cstb.ru
All of the IABM members that I spoke to at length were satisfied with their participation and all indicated an intention to return in 2016.
An issue experienced by all non-Russian companies is the detrimental effect of the fast falling value of the Rouble (yes it did make hotels and subsistence 40%, or more, less than 2014) with uncertainty of being able to budget, in Roubles, for orders placed now in Euros, Dollars or other stable currencies with payment to be made upon delivery in those currencies but converted to Rouble within their own budgeting procedures. Maybe some advice could be offered by the IABM of ways for customers to either pay on order (with probably the need to purchase a performance bond ), at a known exchange rate, or to buy forward Euros etc. at today exchange rate. There is, however, optimism in Russia that the Rouble will recover, this in my opinion will not be for some years, and even then it is unlikely to return to its original rate of, for example 45 Roubles to the pound, whereas it is today at 102 roubles to the pound with only small and occasional downward trends. As an extractive economy, Russia's wealth is largely reflected by oil prices and the indications are that oil will not see prices of 100 USD per barrel for several years.
Never the less, this current economic problem did not seem to detract from the activity on all exhibitor booths, including international IABM members. Indeed, meetings were so frequent that in many cases multiple returns had to be made to IABM members to meet members and complete the survey. The majority of IABM members indicated that they were there to continue contact with existing customers and current contacts but few were expecting new business this year.
The current economic situation did, however, prevent any foreign companies from sending speakers to the conference and I got the impression that some had sent the minimum of foreign (non-Russian) staff as possible.
It was noted that a few members had not engaged the services of a local translator (usually language students). These are relatively inexpensive (as usually paid in cash, Roubles, to the translator) and essential as many within the industry in Russia do not speak English.
The only common negatives were that the large, self-service, restaurant, although improved from last year was still rather basic, but never the less of a very high standard of hygiene, but the food may not look so attractive . Regrettably, this is not within the domain of the organisers to directly improve as it is a part of the Crocus complex services. There is an alternative restaurant with the pavilion The Monteux but somewhat more expensive and far from fast service.
In the Media/Content Provider
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
CSTB Report 03 February 2015
