2010 Broadcast Technology Market Research — Another Record Breaker

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 09 2010

After many months of work, I am pleased to announce that the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) has officially closed.

The 2010 BBS is another record-breaker.  More than 5,600 broadcast professionals in 120+ countries participated in the study, making it the largest ever and most comprehensive study of the broadcast industry.

This study was huge not only in terms of the industry support, but also in terms of its scope.  The 2010 BBS studied the opinions and attitudes of key technology buyers about a broad range of issues industry trends; budgets, plant infrastructure, purchase intent and buying behavior; major project plans; products being evaluated for purchase; and detailed opinions of vendor brands.  The study covered 148 broadcast technology vendor brands in 27 separate product categories.

Over the coming months I will be publishing highlights from the study here as well as in a number of industry trade publications.  These articles will most likely be published once a week (usually on a Monday), so please check back regularly.  This is highly relevant information for broadcast professionals that cannot be found anywhere else.

Three types of reports 2010 BBS data will be available for purchase. 

Available Reports Derived from 2010 BBS Data:

There are three types of reports available, each of which provides deep insight into the broadcast industry.  The information in each report is presented through a series of charts and tables, which are segmented by geography, organization type and organization size.  Custom segmentation of the data is also available from Devoncroft Partners.

The 2010 BBS Global Market Report is the broadcast industry’s first global demand-based study of the purchasing habits of technology buyers.  This report includes the following information:

  • Industry trends
  • Purchase intent and behavior
  • Current and projected plant infrastructure (analog, SDI, HD, 3Gbps and file-based)
  • Budget size and percentage increase / decrease versus previous years
  • Products currently being evaluated for purchase
  • Overview of major projects being planned by technology buyers
  • HDTV equipment upgrade plans

 

The 2010 BBS Global Brand Report provides a comprehensive overview of the market perceptions of more than 100 broadcast vendor brands.  This report provides detailed information about how the market perceives the strengths and weaknesses of broadcast technology vendors; thereby enabling them to make informed corporate strategy decisions.  This report includes the following information:

  • A series of industry “league tables”­ and “brand scorecards”  that enable users to benchmark their brand against the entire industry or specific competitors
  • Brand rankings for awareness, overall opinion, change of opinion and advocacy 
  • Rankings for five separate brand drivers and fifteen separate brand attributes
  • Detailed comparisons between positive and negative opinions of brands, enabling users to analyze their market position and make strategic decisions regarding customer engagement

 

Twenty-seven separate 2010 BBS Product Reports provide detailed vendor brand ranking for individual product categories (see below for a breakdown of product categories and vendors). These reports enable users to benchmark their brand directly against specific competitors through a detailed understanding of the opinions of technology buyers who purchase, specify or use each product type.   2010 BBS product reports include the following information:

  • Detailed rankings of how vendors are rated by customers– from best to worst – for each product category
  • Detailed brand rankings for awareness, overall opinion, change of opinion and advocacy  for each vendor in the product category
  • Detailed brand drivers and attribute ratings for each vendor in the product category

 

For information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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2010 Syndicated Broadcast Technology Market Research Now Available

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 05 2010

Reports from the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), conducted by Devoncroft Partners, are now available for purchase.

The 2010 BBS is the largest ever and most comprehensive market study of the broadcast industry. More than 5,600 broadcast professionals in 120+ countries participated in the project.

Reports derived from BBS data deliver insight into the opinions and attitudes of key technology buyers including broadcasters, playout centers, cable/satellite/ IPTV operators, radio stations, recording studios and more. This includes industry trends; purchase intent and buying behavior; major project plans; products being evaluated for purchase.

2010 BBS reports also provides detailed opinions of 148 broadcast technology vendor brands in 27 separate product categories (see below for details)

For more information about the available reports and their contents, please follow this link.

 

Product Categories Covered in 2010 BBS reports:

 

Vendor Brands Covered in 2010 BBS reports:

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Evertz Reports Q3 Results

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 05 2010

Broadcast technology vendor earnings season continues with Evertz reporting their Q3 results yesterday for the quarter ended January 31, 2010. 

Here is a link to the earnings press release. 

Revenue for the quarter was C$66.2m, which is a drop of 17% versus the same period last year, and a 9% drop versus the previous quarter. 

The company’s gross margin dropped to 57%, which is below the historical 60+% that Evertz has posted in the past. Gross margins have deteriorated from 61% during the same period last year, and from 58% during the previous quarter of this fiscal year. 

EBIT margins were also lower, but still strong versus most broadcast technology vendors. 

Unlike close competitors Miranda and Harris who have both already released their latest results, Evertz did not make a comment about the market bottoming in their press release.  However, the company’s results are not bad given the current environment and their heavy exposure to the North American market.  Speaking of which, while North America has slowed, the company has made good progress in the international markets, which were up 25% versus the previous year.  International markets now account for around half of the company’s revenue.

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Vizrt Posts Q4 and FY09 Results

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Feb 25 2010

Today broadcast graphics, asset management (and now streaming technology for mobile) provider Vizrt posted their results for Q4 and FY09.  

Revenue for the full year was down 13% versus 2008, but revenue in Q4 was up 26% versus the previous quarter, and up 11% y/y versus the same period a year ago. 

In the earnings announcement (link below) the company attributed some the increase in Q4 revenues to an improvement in market sentiment, saying “The end of the year revenues came back as it used to be some years ago. The “Christmas shoppers” showed us signs that the media houses once more feel comfortable with the markets going forward.” 

Also in the announcement, company CEO Bjarne Berg issued a relatively upbeat statement that touched on all aspects of the company’s business including graphics for HDTV & 3D, MAM, online and streaming.  Berg finished by saying “Overall, the company’s immediate goal is to return to the kind of revenues and multiples that we used to achieve before the collapse of the financial markets. It is not an easy task but it is certainly possible and, though perhaps too early to be firm on this, the signs are positive.” 

   

 
And a link to the full management presentation to investors, which provides in-depth financial detail as well as an outlook for each of the company’s businesses. 
   
 
 

 

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Miranda Posts Results for Q4 and FY09

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Feb 24 2010

Miranda reported its results for Q4 and the full year 2009 this morning.

Here’s a link to the press release 

 Highlights:

* 2009 revenue was slightly up for the year, but net income of C$5.5m was way down versus C$22.7 last year

* Q4 revenue of C$35.7m was up 9% y/y, driven largely by last year’s acquisition of NVISION

* Q4 net income of C$2.1m down 72% y/y

* Q4 gross margins of 53%, down from 63% in 2008 — big ForX impact here.

* In 2009 the company did well in international markets, which for the first time surpassed the US in total sales.

 * For the year, international revenues were up 16%, while sales in the US were down 7%

Miranda CEO Strath Goodship summed up the announcement as follows: ”We are cautiously optimistic that we are in the early stages of a gradual recovery and there are a number of sporting and political events in 2010 which should help support sales and position us for growth. Furthermore, we will continue to launch new products, to maintain and increase our competitiveness. Broadcast markets appear to have bottomed and sales activity has been increasing steadily during 2009, the pace and magnitude of any recovery remains uncertain, particularly in North America where sales have been hardest hit by the economic downturn.”

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Avid Posts Results for Quarter and Year Ended 12/31/09

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jan 28 2010

Today Avid announced its results for the quarter and year that ended December 31, 2009.

You can find Avid’s earnings press release here.

Here’s a quick recap of the release:

* Revenue for the quarter was $174.7m, 15% lower than the same quarter a year ago.

* The company reported a GAAP lost of$17.9m for the quarter.  This includes charges of $16.5m for a variety of items including stock, acquisition costs and restructuring.

* Product revenue in the quarter declined 19% y/y, while services revenue increased slightly.

* Revenue from video in the quarter declined 21%, and revenue from audio declined 5% versus the same period in 2008.

* R&D and marketing & selling expenses were lower in the quarter versus a year ago, while G&A increased by about $1m.

* Revenue for the year was $629m, 26% lower than revenue for 2008.

* Product revenue in 2009 decreased 29% versus 2008; and services revenue in 2009 declined 8% versus 2008

* Video revenue for the 2009 declined 32% versus 2008; and audio revenue for 2009 declined by 13% versus 2008.

* The company reported a GAAP loss of $68.4m for the year, which includes $55.7m of charges.

The earnings release quotes Avid CEO Gary Greenfield as saying: “Avid has made good progress this quarter. Our revenues were up sequentially and we believe our markets are stabilizing with some signs of recovery.  We reported a non-GAAP operating profit for the quarter and with the majority of our cost structure transformation complete we feel we are well positioned for margin expansion.”

This echoes the remarks made by Harris CEO Howard Lance during the announcement of their results.  Lance said: “The sequential flattening of revenue and the rebound in orders in this still very tough market environment were both encouraging and are hopefully signs that we are in fact beginning to see a recovery in the global broadcast markets. As the economy improves and advertising revenues begin to improve, we should see some acceleration in capital spending by global broadcast and media networks.”

Everyone is glad to put 2009 behind them and is looking forward to better things in 2010.

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Harris Corporation Posts Results for Q2 of FY10

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast industry technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jan 28 2010

Last night Harris Corp reported its Q2 results for FY10. 

Although Harris is considered by most to be a defence company this post looks only at the performance of the company’s Broadcast Communications division.

For those who would like to see information about how the entire Harris business performed, here is a link to the company’s earnings press release.

Here are the highlights of the broadcast communications division for Q2 FY10:

* Broadcast orders orders were $139m, a 12% increase over the previous quarter

* Broadcast revenue was $116.8m, a 2% decrease versus the previous quarter, and a 28% decrease versus the same quarter last year.  For the first six months of the FY, Harris broadcast comms revenue was $235.5m, versus $321.2 for the first two quarters of the previous year (a 27% decrease).  

* The broadcast comms business reported a $4.8m operating loss for the quarter, versus an operating profit of $12m a year ago. For the first six months of the FY, the Harris broadcast communications division has made an operating loss of $4.5m versus a profit of $17.3m for the first two quarters last year.

On the earnings conference call, Harris CEO Howard Lance said the following about the Broadcast Communications division:

“The sequential flattening of revenue and the rebound in orders in this still very tough market environment were both encouraging and are hopefully signs that we are in fact beginning to see a recovery in the global broadcast markets. As the economy improves and advertising revenues begin to improve, we should see some acceleration in capital spending by global broadcast and media networks.

“Operating performance was impacted by product mix, combined with our increasing investments in new media initiatives, including markets such as mobile TV and digital signage, and higher investments in international markets. These are all areas we believe critical to the future success of this business. We were encouraged by several new wins in the quarter and other initiatives that are underway.”

Interestingly, Lance also again mentioned the company’s VAME (Full-Motion Video Asset Management Engine) initiative, which apparently uses number of broadcast products and technologies to enable government customers capture, store, retrieve, analyze and distribute video intelligence information.  Lance says that Harris now has a VAME opportunity pipeline totaling $250 million.

In summing up the outlook for the broadcast business, Lance said that the q/q ”flattening of revenue and the rebound in orders in this still very tough market environment were both encouraging and are hopefully signs that we are in fact beginning to see a recovery in the global broadcast markets. As the economy improves and advertising revenues begin to improve, we should see some acceleration in capital spending by global broadcast and media networks.”

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Impressions of CES 2010 — 3D and ATSC Mobile DTV

broadcast industry technology trends, content delivery, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jan 12 2010

Last week I made my annual winter pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the 2010 CES exhibition.

Walking the crowded show floor was like being inside of a giant Best Buy with 100,000+ other people. 

I spent most of my time at CES at the conference, and I have mixed feelings about the sessions I attended. While there were some quite good panels — particularly in the USC Emerging Tech and the excellent Arlen / Greenwald “UpNext” tracks — I found many of the sessions to be disappointing. Many sessions were long on commercial plugs and short on new information.  I also found the multiple concurrent sessions difficult to navigate, something that was not helped by CEA’s show guide / conference program, which was poorly laid out and confusing.

As most know by now, the big topics at CES were 3D, think TVs, mobile broadcasting and making money (or  not) from online content.

3D was everywhere at the show, and there have been countless reports of how many companies are betting their future on 3D.   In many of conference sessions, panelists expressed optimism for 3D — tech vendors talked about how they will have the products available, while broadcasters & content owners talked about the amount of 3D content they are going to produce / broadcast.  Personally I am skeptical about near-term consumer take-up of 3D.  Consumers who have recently upgraded to HD are unlikely to re-up for 3D any time soon, and even my early-adopter friends have said they are unlikely to put on 3D glasses to watch sports or movies.  Time will tell, and I am sure we will all be hearing much about 3D between now and the NAB show in April.

Other than they hype surrounding 3D the most interesting aspect of CES for me was a small group of booths that were showing off ATSC mobile DTV broadcasting.  US broadcasters are serious about mobile, and they were there in force along with some well established (Harris, LG) and new technology vendors.  According to several of the broadcasters and exhibitors I spoke with, there are already 30 broadcasters on the air with mobile ATSC DTV. 

More significantly according to these sources however, is that there are 200+ more local broadcasters who are planning to launch a mobile service in the near future.  These broadcasters have already spent a significant amount of money to convert to DTV, and the incremental cost to also broadcast to mobile is very small (the maximum number I heard was $150,000, with many broadcasters saying they could do it for much less).

This low cost of entry, combined with a potential of new revenue as well as the political controversy about use of spectrum is sure to make ATSC mobile DTV one of the major topics at NAB this year.  Whereas 3D is a future possibility for broadcasters, it seems to me that ATSC mobile DTV is going to happen in the near term. Broadcasters such as Sinclair, ION and others are absolutely committed to the technology, and there are many vendors on board — with more undoubtedly to follow — despite the fact that there are very few receivers and even fewer viewers at this time. 

It remains to be seen whether ATSC mobile DTV can be developed into a viable commercial offering, but this will not stop a great deal of hardware and software being sold to US broadcasters.  The barriers to entry are low (in terms of incremental cost), and the potential political victory with regard to spectrum, not to mention a new potential revenue stream practically guarantees that ATSC mobile DTV  will be coming soon to a local broadcaster near you.

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Back Online After the Holidays

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jan 11 2010

I decided to take it easy over the holidays, so I have not been posting for a while; but I am now back online and will resume posting.

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How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Reliability

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Dec 07 2009

This is the fourth in a series of posts that discusses how a global sample of more than 325 systems integrators (SIs) who participated in the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS)* ranked broadcast technology vendors in a variety of measures. For information about how these results were collected, please see the bottom of this post**.

In an era when many broadcasters are shedding technology positions, SIs have become an extremely important part of the technology value chain.  Broadcasters now routinely outsource their project work to SIs, who are called in for their expertise and experience.  Thus the relationship that vendors have with their SI partners is very important to their business. 

Previously I have looked at How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Great Customer Service; and How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Innovation; and How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Vendors for Quality.  This post looks at how the global sample of systems integrators ranked vendors for reliability.

This is the third time I have written about how broadcast technology vendors have been ranked for reliability.  Previous posts include Reliability Rankings for Broadcast Technology Vendors, which looks at how the overall market ranks vendors for reliability, broken down by geography; and How Broadcasters of Different Sizes Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Reliability.

The chart below shows the responses from more than 325 SIs.  It is broken out by geography to show the responses of the global sample of all SIs who participated in the study, as well as the responses of SIs in EMEA and the Americas.  Due to a small sample size, SI rankings for Asia-Pacific have not been included as a separate column.  For the sake of comparison, I have also included in this chart the rankings of all respondents (regardless for organization type, geography etc), and all broadcasters (regardless of size or geography), in the first and second columns respectively.

 

Please note that in all cases, these brands are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order of their ranking in the study

 

Question: How would you rate [Brand X] on the following attribute [Great Customer Service] where 1 = very poor and 10 = best in the market?

Reliability -- by Systems Integrators

 

As always these findings are extremely interesting.  Here are a few quick observations about this table:

 

* There are 9 vendors on this list (out of 25 studied), the same number as in the innovation rankings.  This makes innovation and reliability the least varied and most concentrated of the metrics in this series of posts about perceptions of systems integrators. 

 

 * The complete list of vendors in this table (in alphabetical order), and how many times they appear is as follows: Evertz (2), EVS (4), Harris (1), Miranda (1), Omneon (2), Snell & Wilcox (5),  Sony (5), Thomson / Grass Valley (3), Utah Scientific (2)

 

* As always, there are some interesting differences in the rankings of vendors by SIs versus the rankings by other organization types such as broadcasters, and even the overall market. 

 

* Out of the 9 vendors in this table, only Snell & Wilcox and Sony made the top 5 list for reliability in all five categories (the overall market, the global sample of all broadcasters, and the three SI categories).

 

* EVS appears four times in this table.  The company made the top 5 list for reliability for all categories except systems integrators in the Americas.

 

* Utah Scientific and Omneon each appear twice in this table – in the Global SI and EMEA SI lists.  However, neither company is listed in the top 5 reliability for the overall market or the sample of all broadcasters. Interestingly, these results for Utah and Omneon go against the geographic bias exhibited for other metrics.  Both Utah and Omneon are based in the Americas, but neither company makes the top 5 reliability list for SIs in the Americas.  Instead, both companies are listed in the global SI and EMEA SI categories.

 

* One company that does make the top 5 reliability list for SIs in the Americas is Thomson / Grass Valley, which also appears in the top 5 reliability list for the overall market and the sample of all broadcasters.

 

* Other companies that make the top 5 reliability list for SIs in their home territories are EVS and Snell & Wilcox (EMEA) and Miranda and Evertz (Americas).

 

* Harris appears in the global sample of all respondents, but not in any of the SI samples.

 

* Appearing two times in this table, Evertz makes the list for the global sample of all broadcasters as well as SIs in the Americas.

 

* Miranda makes one appearance in this table – in the SI list for the Americas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 * The annual Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) is the largest and most comprehensive studies of broadcast technology vendor brands and industry trends.  The BBS provides insight into market trends and the perceptions of leading broadcast industry vendor brands by practitioners across the world.  It also delivers vendor brand ranking “league tables” in a variety of product categories; all of which can be segmented by geography and customer type.

 

** Respondents to the BBS were asked to rank their opinion of twenty-five broadcast technology vendor brands in a variety of categories including awareness; overall opinion; change of opinion; recommendation; and a variety of brand attributes and brand drivers such as innovation, reliability, quality and great customer service.  The responses were then aggregated into a series of industry “league tables” that rank each broadcast technology vendor brand against the metrics mentio

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