HbbTV Symposium in Istanbul highlights global expansion and developer momentum

The 13th HbbTV Symposium and Awards, held on 12–13 November 2025 in Istanbul, marked another significant step in the global growth of HbbTV. For developers, engineers and technology innovators working across HbbTV, the event offered not only a snapshot of where the market is heading but also a clear signal of how HbbTV is defining the next generation of Connected TV (CTV) services.

Co-hosted by the HbbTV Association and Turkish addressable advertising specialist TVekstra, the Symposium gathered an international audience of broadcasters, manufacturers, platform operators, ad-tech companies, tool providers and researchers. The discussions reflected an ecosystem that is expanding geographically and technologically, while maintaining a commitment to open standards and interoperability, values that remain central to the HbbTV developer community.

A CTV landscape defined by fragmentation and the role of HbbTV

One of the persistent themes throughout the two-day programme was the growing fragmentation of the CTV environment. Developers today face a market with more than a dozen widely used TV operating systems, each with its own application framework, capabilities and quirks. The resulting complexity increases development time, testing effort and ongoing maintenance costs.

Against this backdrop, the Symposium showcased HbbTV’s function as a unifying layer. With a standardised and consistently implemented API surface, HbbTV enables developers to build applications that run reliably across a broad spectrum of devices, including hybrid and, in the future, IP-only TV sets, without the need to create separate versions for each operating system.

This message was reinforced by HbbTV Chairman Vincent Grivet, who emphasised the importance of stability and uniformity:

“The standard now goes well beyond the red button into advertising, measurement, analytics and consent solutions. In today’s highly fragmented CTV environment, HbbTV provides a unifying framework that allows a single application to run reliably across diverse operating systems and devices, reducing complexity, saving time and costs while improving efficiency.”

For developers building addressable advertising, interactive services or advanced analytics integrations, the Symposium made clear that interoperability continues to be one of HbbTV’s strongest strategic advantages.

Strong growth in Europe and MENA creates a larger addressable market

A major highlight of the event was the demonstration of HbbTV’s accelerating geographical expansion. Europe surpassed the 100 million reachable homes milestone earlier this year, and the Symposium revealed a significant leap forward in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with an additional 34 million reachable households.

Turkey stood out as a central focus of the discussions. Its broadcasters, operators and technology providers are rapidly deploying HbbTV-based services at scale. Attendees heard insights into advanced Turkish ad-tech workflows, consent mechanisms, audience measurement tools and broadcaster-led innovation projects, all contributing to a dynamic local ecosystem.

Merve Eraslanoğlu, CEO of TVekstra, summed up the region’s energy:

“The CTV ecosystem is maturing rapidly across MENA, and interoperable standards are essential to unlocking its full potential. We were proud to co-host an event that fostered collaboration, aligned industry expectations and set the foundation for the next stage of CTV growth in the region.”

For developers, this growth translates into more devices, more markets and more opportunities to deploy HbbTV-based applications that reach broad audiences without platform-specific development overhead.

Innovation on display through the HbbTV Awards

The 8th HbbTV Awards, presented during the Symposium, celebrated the spectrum of innovation happening across the standard. Categories ranged from advertising and accessibility to content discovery.

For a developer audience, the finalists and winners offered concrete examples of advanced HbbTV implementations, including:

Dynamic and personalised advertising powered by real-time data
Accessibility features that leverage standardised APIs and adaptive user interfaces
Enhanced analytics pipelines using HbbTV’s measurement capabilities
AI-enabled applications introducing new interaction models
FAST-channel enhancements and DVB-I trials supporting hybrid and IP-only deployments

The submissions collectively demonstrated that HbbTV remains a vibrant ecosystem where technical creativity is both possible and encouraged. They also served as useful reference points for developers looking to understand best practice across complex areas such as performance optimisation, UX design and multi-device compatibility.

Key technical themes for developers

While the Symposium covers strategic and commercial topics each year, much of the value for the developer community lies in the practical, implementation-focused themes that emerge across the conference and unconference sessions. Key topics in Istanbul included the following.

Addressable advertising at scale

Sessions explored the rapid growth of HbbTV-based addressable advertising and the models developers can rely on to deliver reliable ad experiences.

Audience measurement and analytics

With more regions adopting HbbTV for large-scale measurement, developers learned how the latest HbbTV and DVB specifications support privacy-aware data collection and analysis.

FAST channels and DVB-I

As more services shift toward IP-only delivery, HbbTV’s integration with DVB-I is providing a scalable future pathway for service discovery, channel listings and harmonised user experiences.

A recurring theme was the need for transparent and user-friendly consent mechanisms.

Developer tools and testing

Participants also discussed improvements in automated testing, interoperability validation, and reference applications, all essential for delivering high-quality applications across diverse devices.

Looking ahead to the 2026 Symposium in Spain

The next HbbTV Symposium and Awards will take place in Spain in 2026, continuing the event’s rotation across major HbbTV markets and providing further opportunities for the developer community to collaborate, benchmark and innovate.

Developers can access the presentations, event brochure, photo gallery, speaker details and full list of Awards winners on the official Symposium website.

Symposium