21923 - SCTE Broadband Aug2023 COMPLETE v1 (1)

46 Vol. 45 No. 3 - September 2023 Issue from the industry of the market in backing the right horses. Sometimes you’re having to go out slightly on a limb; start talking about a subject which maybe isn’t that topical yet. But hopefully by the time the show comes, people have started hearing about it. And we’re thinking, actually, that is becoming quite important. Presumably sometimes contentious subjects come up that aren’t easy to discuss, like Brexit, and it’s up to the show to address it. It’s the elephant in the room. RC: Correct. Obviously supply chain issues being a big one. And they’re still rattling around. Obviously, the impact of doing less business with some of the Chinese companies is hitting a lot of the operators quite hard. Confidence in our industry currently is maybe not quite what it was two years ago. There is a lot of talk of consolidation now, investment drying up. The economy is shaky. I wonder how that might impact you as a provider of an event that you’re trying to scale up. How might that impact your show? RC: There’s consolidation in two areas. On one hand, you’ve got the one that everyone’s talking about. You’ve got consolidation amongst the alt-nets, inevitable in some ways. There were so many of them. On the other hand, there were smaller alt-nets that emerged out there, some of which could almost be seen as opportunistic. They were probably always going to find it harder to raise finance, especially if they were going into areas that are already being well-built by some of the bigger players. Or they haven’t got a clear point of differentiation as to what they’re offering, compared to competitors out there. Costs of finance are obviously going up. People are being more cautious about what they invest in. And as for the future? RC: People will continue to invest in companies where there is a good long-term business model. I don’t think that it’s going to directly impact on the event, or the number of people who come to the event. There’s more caution, rather than things not happening. The industry will continue to be driven forward