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Devoncroft Digest — July 30, 2010 – Earnings Season Continues, Grass Valley Finds a Buyer, More Broadcast Industry M&A, Harris Creates New Division, Elemental and Envivio Close Funding Rounds

Broadcast technology vendor financials, Devoncroft Digest, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 30 2010

The Devoncroft Digest provides an overview of and insight into industry news items that I think might be interesting / important for readers and clients. 

Here are a few of the things that have caught my eye this week.

Earnings Season Continues

A number of broadcasters, TV platform operators and broadcast technology vendors announced their earnings this week. With one or two exceptions the results were generally positive.

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Broadcast Technology Vendor Earnings

Harmonic posted strong Q2 results.  The company’s revenue was up 18% versus the same period last year, and up 13% versus the previous quarter.  More importantly, the company’s net income of the quarter was $4.4m vs. a loss of $7.9m during the same period last year.

On the company’s earnings conference call and slide presentation Harmonic executives also discussed the pending acquisition of video server company Omneon, and provided a bit more information on Omneon’s business.  Omneon recorded bookings of $57.8m during the first half of 2010, a 19% y/y increase.  For the full year, Omneon is expected to have revenues of $120-$125m, with (non-GAAP) gross margins of 57-57% and (non-GAAP) operating margins of 6-7%.

The market seemed to like what Harmonic had to say.  On the day after the earnings announcement, Harmonic shares were up by almost 17%.

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Technicolor announced its results for the first half of 2010 this week, which saw revenues decline 18.5% versus the previous year.  The company achieved EBIT of €15m from “continuing operations,” but recorded an EBIT Loss of €109m from “discontinued operations.”  The company attributed this EBIT loss “mostly to Grass Valley,” which found a buyer this week after being for sale for more than a year (more on that below).  More information about Technicolor can be found in the slide presentation that the company used during its analyst earnings conference call. 

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Belden issued strong numbers for Q2, beating the expectation of equity analysts.  Driven by strong results from the Americas (which were up 27% y/y), the company’s revenues rose 24% versus the same period a year ago, and 6% versus the previous quarter.    The company issued an upbeat forecast and raised its guidance for the future.

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Audio (and now video) specialist Dolby Labs delivered strong results for its 3rd quarter.  The company’s revenues rose 34% versus the same period last year, and its net income increased by 25% versus Q3 2009.  Dolby which has been pushing aggressively into the 3D and Digital Cinema markets, recorded a non-cash impairment charge of $9.6 million in cost of revenue related to digital cinema systems provided under operating leases to exhibitors.

Separately, Dolby announced an additional $300m for its stock repurchase program, which has the objective of offsetting dilution from the company’s equity compensation programs.

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Cable technology vendor ARRIS announced its preliminary Q2 Results.  The company’s revenues were up slightly, but its net income and gross margins were both down.  Investors were unhappy with these results and sent the company’s shares down sharply.

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Leading set-top box vendor Pace announced strong results for the first half of 2010.  For the first six months of the year the company’s revenues rose by 21% and profit jumped by 46% versus the same period in 2009.  Separately, the company announced its intention to acquire 2Wire (see below).

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Broadcaster & Platform Operator Earnings

European satellite operator Eutelsat announced this week that it achieved a record year, and that its revenue and EBITDA growth both exceeded 11% versus 2009.  The company’s earnings press release that it now delivers 3,662 broadcast TV Channels, and that the number of HDTV channels had grown by 80% during 2010.

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Belo, one of the largest pure-play TV broadcasters in the US delivered strong results for its second quarter of 2010.  The company’s revenue for Q2 was up by 13% versus 2009, and its net income almost doubled.  Significantly the company’s revenue from the automobile sector was up by 51% and its digital (website) revenues grew by 14%. 

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US cable operator Comcast reported that its revenues increased by 6.1% in its second quarter of 2010/  The company’s operating income and cash flow were both up, but it lost 256,000 basic video subscribers.  The company, which is currently seeking approval to purchase NBC-Universal, disclosed that it spent a total of $59m on the deal during the quarter

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UK-based Virgin Media delivered strong results for its second quarter.  The company’s revenue, operating income and cash flow all increased. 

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Broadcast Industry M&A Continues

Multiple broadcast technology M&A deals were announced today:

  • Grass Valley is to be acquired by Francisco Partners, a private equity firm
  • Ross Video is buying Codan
  • Pace announced  proposed their acquisition of 2Wire

 

Francisco Partners has made a binding offer to buy 100% of the shares in Grass Valley. 

After more than a year on the block, and several rumored bids, Technicolor appears to have found a buyer for Grass Valley – a Private Equity firm called Francisco Partners.    According to Technicolor CFO Stephane Rougeot “This binding offer is a key step in the largest of the disposals we decided to make as part of the strategic refocus of our activity portfolio. This will clarify and solidify our financial profile. This is also positive news for Grass Valley Broadcast employees and customers who will benefit from the engagement of a new shareholder recognized as a leader in technology-based businesses.”

Francisco is buying all of Grass Valley, except for the transmission business, which is being retained by Technicolor.

Technicolor certainly did not get rich from this deal.  It paid $172m for Grass Valley in 2002, and then acquiring multiple companies (including Canopus for more than $100m) over the past few years, the company has now struck a deal with Francisco Partners which according to a Technicolor press release values Grass Valley at $100m.

After reviewing the structure of the deal, one industry insider told me that Grass Valley was sold at what one industry insider described to me a “fire sale.”  In fact it appears that no money will change hands, and that Technicolor will actually pay €20m to Grass Valley in order to fund “ongoing management of the activity.”

For its part, Francisco Partners will sign an $80m IOU, which carries capitalized interest of 5% per year.  This means that Francisco will not pay anything for Grass Valley for at least five years, and that Technicolor will make a large cash injection into the company to keep it going. 

Clearly Technicolor wanted to get rid of Grass Valley and its associated losses so it can focus on its now core business activities.  The only silver lining for Technicolor is that it has the right to “receive additional consideration from the buyer based on the potential future remuneration of the new owners of the disposed entity.”

Grass Valley announced the deal in a press release and a letter to customers.    The company has set up a deal-oriented website where information about the transaction has been published, and has also created an “Ask Jeff.” (as in Jeff Rosica, head of the Grass Valley Broadcast & Professional business) email address where questions about the deal can be sent directly to the company. According to Rosica, who was interviewed by industry website TVNewsCheck, it’s Business As Usual At Grass Valley.

Grass Valley is one of the industry’s great companies and I am sure that the people there are happy to finally have resolved their fate.  Let’s hope they can now focus on making great products – and of course money for their new owners.

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Ross Video Acquires Codan

Ross Video, which is best known for its production switchers and newsroom automation systems, announced that has it entered into a letter of intent to buy 100% of the shares of Codan Broadcast Products Pty Ltd. The sale, subject only to the finalization of due diligence, is scheduled for completion on 31 August, 2010.  The deal will expand the Ross portfolio by adding Codan’s product range of routing switchers, signal processing and audio monitoring.  It also strengthens Ross Video’s foothold in the important Australian broadcast market. This is the second Ross acquisition in the past two years. In 2009 Ross purchased Dutch graphics firm Media Refinery.  

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Pace to Acquire 2Wire

Leading set-top box vendor Pace plc announced its proposed $475m acquisition of 2Wire, a provider of residential gateways and associated software for the broadband service provider market.  According to the press release, 2Wire has established customer relationships in the tier one telco market, including AT&T, which has been a customer of 2Wire for 10 years and uses 2Wire solutions in its U-Verse platform.  2Wire is currently owned by a consortium including Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Telmex, and Oak Investment Partners.

Pace says that following the completion of the acquisition it will be the number one provider of telco residential gateway devices in the US and the number three globally.

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3D News – RealD Insiders Cash in on IPO

The Wall Street Journal reports that following on from their successful IPO, insiders at 3D firm RealD Insiders Made More Money in IPO than Company Did.  A skeptical Wall Street equity analyst is quoted in the article as saying that the only reason for the IPO was to generate liquidity for investors.

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Other Broadcast Technology Vendor News

Harris Creates New Division, Names Means GM

The changes continue at the broadcast communications division of Harris.  The company announced this week that it has created a new “Workflow, Infrastructure & Networking” (WIN) business unit, and named newly hired Doug Means as its General Manager.  According to the company’s press release, Means will lead the newly formed WIN business unit, which encompasses the Harris Broadcast infrastructure, networking, server, automation and asset management product portfolios. WIN was formed as part of an overall strategy to create scale, reduce organizational complexity and deliver more interoperable solutions to address the continually changing needs of Harris Broadcast customers.

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Evertz Lands Big International Order

Canadian infrastructure vendor Evertz, which prides itself on not doing marketing, took the unusual step of issuing a short press release to announce the fact that the company has received orders in excess of C$7m from an unnamed international customer.   

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Elemental Closes $7.5m Funding Round

Video transcoding firm Elemental Technologies, which uses GPU processing announced that it has closed a $7.5 funding round.  The company says it intends to use the capital to expand its business in the United States and internationally.  While this is a good result for Elemental, it appears the company did not fully achieve its goals with this round.  According to an SEC filing, the company had hoped to raise $9m, but it looks like it fell short of that goal.  Transcoding is a tough business as evidenced by the recent sale of Ripcode (who had raised considerable financing) to RBG.  Perhaps Elemental’s unique GPU-based approach will enable the company to thrive – it gets pretty good reviews from broadcasters according to an article about Pitch Blue which appeared in Broadcasting & Cable magazine this week.

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Envivio Raises $15m

GigaOm property NewTeeVee reported this week that Envivio, another player in the video encoding / transcoding space,  has secured $15m in additional funding and shaken up its management team. 

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Other Platform Operator News

Ascent Media Hires 3 New VPs

Ascent Media has appointed three new vice-presidents for its media and digital services operations in Burbank, CA. 

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MobileTV News

The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article about the state of the mobileTV market in the USA, which discusses Qualcomm’s Plans for FLO TV, the US broadcaster-backed Open Mobile Video Coalition and mobileTV operator MobiTV.  The WSJ’s finding?  The picture for mobile TV in the US is “fuzzy.”

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Other News

Broadcasting & Cable magazine’s Glen Dickson wrote an interesting article about the new HD file delivery platforms that are being rolled out by Ascent Media and DG FastChannel. 

According to B&C, Pitch Blue, the new HD file delivery platform from Ascent Media and CBS is now delivering HD content to 1,350 US TV stations, while the new system from DG FastChannel has been deployed in 500 US TV stations.  The B&C article also highlights the need for transcoding systems in TV stations to convert these HD file to house formats.  As mentioned above, Elemental gets a good review from stations.    

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Market Research Note of the Week: Reliability Rankings of Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

Broadcast technology products are purchased by discerning customers for what are often mission-critical applications. Thus, the reliability of products is a paramount concern for buyers of these products.

To measure the rankings of the reliability of vendors, respondents were asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “reliability” on a 10-point scale, with 10 being best in the market and one being worst in the market. The top 30 ranked brands are shown in the graph for the global sample of all respondents. There are a wide variety of vendors on this list, including large and small companies and those who produce audio and video products.

When reviewing these results it’s important to understand how many products are produced by each vendor on this list. This will help us to understand if reliability comes from small, focused companies or large, multiproduct vendors.

The 2010 BBS evaluated 27 separate product categories. As with the previously published top 30 quality rankings, single-product companies (those who were covered on only one product category in the 2010 BBS) dominate the rankings for reliability.

To read the full article, including a breakdown and analysis of the findings, click here.

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Broadcast Industry’s Largest Market Study Reveals Most Important Technology Trends

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 17 2010

This is the first in a series of articles about the findings from the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 5,600 people in 120+ countries participating, the 2010 version of the BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

This article looks at how respondents ranked a variety of technology trends in terms of importance to their business.

 

To determine the most important technology trends in the broadcast industry, respondents were presented with a list of 14 trends and asked to choose which is the “most important,” “second most important” and “also very important” to their business. Respondents could choose only one trend as “most important” and “second most important”, but were able to choose as many as they liked for “also very important”.  Note that this question specifically asks which trend is most important to their company’s business, rather than which is the most exciting technically or is currently generating the most industry “buzz”  in order to gain insight into the commercial drivers behind the respondent’s answer. 

This article presents the answers to this question in two ways – as a global trends index, and by the percentage of respondents who indicated the importance of each trend to their business.

The 2010 BBS Global Trend Index

To create an industry index of trends, the responses to this question were then weighted based on the importance of each trend to the business of the respondents.  Responses that were ranked “most important” were multiplied by 5, responses ranked “second most important” were multiplied by 3 and those deemed “also very important” were multiplied by 1.

The table below shows the industry trend importance index.  Please note that in all cases, the charts and tables in this article show the responses from technology buyers (i.e. non-vendors).

The top three trends (by a good margin) in the 2010 BBS Global Trend Index are multi-platform content delivery, file-based / tapeless workflows, and the transition to HDTV operations.  

The top ranking of multi-platform content delivery in this year’s study is a strong move up from last year’s study where it placed 4th in terms of importance.  In 2009 the top three trends were transition to HDTV operation, tapeless workflows and IP content delivery.

The 2010 BBS Global Trend Index show that the broadcast industry in 2010 is focused on generating new revenue streams (through multi-platform content delivery) and achieving cost savings through operational efficiencies (through file-based / tapeless workflows).  At the same time however, it’s clear that the industry intends to finish what it started by continuing its transition to HDTV operations (the top trend in 2009). 

The trends that rank #4 through #9 on this year’s Global Trend Index all share similar characteristics with the top three trends.  Namely creating efficiencies (e.g. IP networking & content delivery and the move to automated workflows); reducing cost (e.g. centralized operations); and generating new sources of revenue (e.g. VOD and targeted advertising).

Technology-oriented trends (those that require capital expenditure) such as 3DTV and the transition to 3Gbps operations, which are considered to be hot topics in the run up to NAB 2010, are ranked towards the bottom of the index.


 

Ranking Trends by Percentage of Respondents

Looking at this data another way reinforces the finding from the BBS Global Trend Index, and highlights again that the industry is looking for ways to generate new revenues while increase operating efficiencies and reducing operating costs.

The table below demonstrates this by showing the same response data ranked by “most important” and without the 5-3-1 weighting applied.  For the most part, the trends stay in the same position, but there are a few changes to the rankings. 

When the data is presented in this way multi-platform content delivery remains the trend ranked “most important to most respondents.  However, the second and third-ranked trends – transition to HDTV operations and file-based / automated workflows – swap positions in this ranking versus the trend index above. 

Regardless of this subtle shift, one of the most noticeable things about this chart is the how strongly the top three trends were ranked as most important relative to the others.  It’s clear the moving to HD, achieving operational efficiencies and finding new revenue streams are a clear priority for the broadcast industry in 2010.

As with the BBS Global Trend Index above, new technology trends (those that require new investment) such as transition to 3Gbps operations and 3D TV move are lower down the list of priorities.

It’s also worth noting which trends were ranked as “also very important” by respondents, because this is a strong indicator of what will be important over the next few years.  Once again, multi-platform content delivery tops this list, indicating that it is not only important to the broadcast industry today, but that it will continue to grow in importance over time.  In addition to multi-platform content delivery, the trends that were ranked strongly in terms of “also very important” to the businesses of respondents are (in descending order): IP networking & content delivery, improvements in compression efficiency, file-based / tapeless workflows, move to automated workflows, video on demand and the transition to HDTV operations.

Keep in mind when reading this information that, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2010 BBS, regardless of organization type, size or location; and shows the number of respondents that are evaluating products without regard to size of project or value of purchase.  Granular analysis of these results is available as part of the full 2010 BBS Global Market Report, which is available from Devoncroft Partners.

Published by Devoncroft Partners, the annual Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) is the largest and most comprehensive studies of broadcast industry trends and technology vendor brands.  The BBS provides insight into market trends and the perceptions of leading broadcast industry vendor brands by a wide variety of broadcast professionals 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.  More than 5,600 people in 120+ countries participated in the 2010 BBS project. Information about the 2010 BBS can be found at www.devoncroft.com 

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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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How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for “Great Customer Service”

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 30 2009

This is the third 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 Innovation; and How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Vendors for Quality.  This post looks at how the global sample of systems integrators ranked vendors for “great customer service.”

This is fourth time I have written about how broadcast technology vendors are perceived by the market for their customer service.  Previous posts on the subject include A Ranking of Broadcast Technology Vendors for “Great Customer Service”, which breaks out overall rankings by geography; and How broadcasters of different sizes rank technology vendors for great customer service. 

I have also touched on how the perception of customer service can be extremely varied in different regions.  I highlighted one such case in an article called Brand Schizophrenia? Regional/customer variations in perception of broadcast vendor brands.  

Customer service is a very important measure, and in many cases it is one of the key determining factors in purchase decisions. I would imagine that this is particularly true for systems integrators who must work simultaneously with many vendors while striving to complete a project on time and on budget.  

Yet from my research I’ve found that the customer service offerings of broadcast technology vendors is also something that is perceived by the market as not being as strong as other metrics such as innovation, reliability and quality. 

Indeed as I wrote in a previous post “respondents were harder on this metric [customer service] than any other… it’s worth noting that on an overall basis, respondents to the BBS were much stingier with their “grades” in this category compared to all the others.  Many companies received very high scores for metrics like “overall opinion,” “innovation,” “reliability” etc., but no company was ranked “off the charts” in terms of the perception of “great customer service.”

So having said all that, how did systems integrators rank broadcast technology vendors for “great customer service?”

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?

Customer Service -- by Systems Integrators

 

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

 

* There are 11 vendors on this list (out of 25 studied); meaning that great customer service is the most varied and least concentrated of any metric in this series of posts about perceptions of systems integrators. 

 

* This lack of vendor concentration is similar to customer service findings in other categories.  For example, the customer service rankings of the overall market and that of broadcasters broken down by size (both mentioned above) both show a similar profile.

 

* Out of the 11 vendors in this table, no vendor made the top 5 list for great customer service in all categories. 

 

* However, both Omneon and Snell & Wilcox did achieve this in all three systems integrator categories.

 

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

 

* As with many other findings, there are interesting regional variations in the way vendors are perceived for great customer service

 

* 4 out of 5 in the EMEA SI list are European based – Axon, Network, Pebble Beach and Snell & Wilcox

 

* Likewise, the Americas SI list is dominated by North American players.  In the Americas SI list, 4 out of the 5 vendors are based in the region — Evertz, Harris, Miranda and Omneon.

 

* There are also 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.

 

* There are two pure-play automation players in the global SI list for great customer service.  This is a first for me — no pure-play automation vendors have appeared in any ranking I have published so far (global sample, broadcaster by geography sample and broadcaster by or size sample).  So what is it about SIs that result in two of their top five spots for great customer service are pure-play automation vendors?

 

* EVS, Sony and Thomson / Grass Valley all make the top 5 great customer service list for the global sample of all respondent and the all broadcasters.  However, none of these companies makes any of the SI lists.

 

* Axon appears three times.  The company makes the top 5 list for great customer service for all broadcasters, all systems integrators and EMEA systems integrators.  Like EVS, Axon is a company that has done very well in the various customer service posts I have written.  Although the company is relatively small when compared to some of the others on this list, it is clearly caught the attention of the market by making customer service a priority.

 

* Like Axon, Evertz also appears on this list three times, but in only one of the SI categories – the Americas.  This is consistent with other findings about Evertz in that they seem to do best in the Americas market.

 

* Another strong regional player is Miranda, who does well with SIs in the company’s home region.  The same is true of Harris, which appears once in this chart – in the SI list for the Americas.

 

* Like Miranda and Harris, Network (now Nevion) appears once in this table – in EMEA SI list only, another example of a local vendor doing well in their home region.

 

* EVS, which appeared in the top 5 list for great customer service for all geographies in a previous post, appears in the first two columns of this chart (global sample and all broadcasters).  However the company is absent from all three systems integrator categories

 

* Although they did not make the top 5 great customer service list for all respondents or all broadcasters, Omneon appears in all three categories of this list for systems integrators. The only other vendor to appear in the top 5 list for all three categories of systems integrators was Snell & Wilcox.

 

* Two companies appear in two of the SI categories – Axon and Pebble Beach. Both companies are based in EMEA, and they each appear in the top 5 for all SIs and SIs in EMEA.

 

As per my previous findings on this subject, the SI rankings for “great customer service” are extremely interesting.  There are strong regional variations and both small and large vendors have made the above table in one or more places.    

I continue to be convinced that despite the strong showings by some vendors, broadcast technology buyers generally perceive customer service as a weakness in the industry.  Therefore, as I said in a previous post, “it’s clear to me that there is a real opportunity for vendors to step up to the plate and differentiate themselves on the basis of great customer service.  Whoever does this will be rewarded by their customers with increased loyalty.”

 

 

 

* 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 mentioned above.

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How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Quality

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 23 2009

This is the second 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. 

Last week I posted an article about how How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Innovation, and today I am going to look at how this influential group ranked vendors for quality.

Quality is an important ranking, and I have looked previously at quality ranking of broadcast technology vendors, including how broadcasters of different sizes rank vendors for quality.

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 SIs 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.  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 [Quality] where 1 = very poor and 10 = best in the market?

 

 

Quality -- by Systems Integrators

 Some thoughts and observations about these findings:

 

* There are 10 vendors in this chart, making this metric slightly more varied than innovation, where there were 9 vendors. 

 

* As with how SIs ranked vendors for innovation, only Snell & Wilcox and Sony appear in all five categories, meaning that these vendors made the top 5 quality list for all respondents, all broadcasters and all SIs.

 

* Other vendors (in alphabetical order) making an appearance in this chart are: Axon (1), Evertz (2), EVS (3), Harris (2), Miranda (1), Sundance (1), Thomson / Grass Valley (2)

 

* It’s interesting to note that the five vendors in the top 5 quality ranking of the global sample of all respondents is identical to the sample of all respondents (regardless of company type or location)  is identical, but the view of the SIs is different than broadcasters. 

 

* There are a total of 8 vendors in the three categories of SI rankings in the above table, 5 of which do not appear in the top 5 quality rankings of the global sample or broadcasters.

 

 * Harris and Thomson / Grass Valley appear in the top 5 quality rankings for the global sample of all respondents and for all broadcasters globally.  However neither company made the top 5 list for any of the systems integrator categories.

 

* Conversely, Evertz, Omneon, Sundance, Axon and Miranda make the top 5 quality list for at least one of the SI categories, but do appear in the top 5 quality lists for the global sample or the sample of all broadcasters.

 

* Like almost all other metrics that I’ve studied, there are also some interesting geographic variations in these results.

 

* Netherlands-based Axon appears once in this chart, in the EMEA SI list. 

 

* Like Axon, Miranda makes one appearance in this chart – in the Americas SIs list. 

 

* Evertz appears on 2 of the 3 SI lists – All SIs and Americas SIs – but the company does make the top 5 quality list for the global sample of all respondents or for the sample of all broadcasters.

 

* EVS appears three times in the above chart – in the global list of all respondents, all broadcasters and SI list in EMEA.

 

* Sundance makes one appearance in this chart – in the top 5 quality list for SIs globally.  Interestingly, this is the second time that a pure-play automation vendor made the list for SIs but not other categories. Pebble Beach appeared twice on the list of how SIs rank broadcast technology vendors for innovation

 

 

 

* 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 mentioned above.

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The IABM’s US Member Days, and New IABM / Screen Digest Global Market Study

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 20 2009

Last week I attended the IABM’s US member meetings in both San Francisco and New York.  The meetings had pretty good attendance and were very informative.

I was there to present information about my current market research findings as part of my partnership agreement with the IABM, but the highlight of the meeting was Graham Sharp’s overview of the new IABM / Screen Digest global market study.

Over the years, I have bought just about every broadcast technology market report, and in my view the IABM / Screen Digest report is the best source for broadcast industry data on market size, growth and share. This report is ordinarily published every other year (this not being one of them), but due to the economic conditions there was significant demand for an updated report this year.  The IABM obliged, with an informative report that is priced 50% lower than the full bi-annual report.

You can find information about the new report here.  In the meanwhile, here are some of the high level findings that were presented at the meeting.

This study has very up-to-date information.  It takes into account actual results of vendors through June 2009 and adds projections through the end of 2009.  It then provides an overall market forecast through to 2012

At a high level, the study found that the overall broadcast technology market declined 9.5% in 2009.  This number was the subject of much discussion among member companies, especially in light of the following table, which shows a breakdown of how vendors reported / forecast their revenues for 2009:

 

Broadcast Technology Vendor Revenues in 2009:

Revenue Growth 0-10% revenue decline 10-15% revenue decline 15-20% revenue decline 20%+ revenue decline

2.8%

1.4%

27.9%

54%

13.9%
Source: IABM/Screen Digest 2009

Clearly there is some discrepancy between the numbers in the above chart and the overall 9.5% decline for the total market.   Vendors at the meeting wanted to know how it’s possible that this report shows a (mere) 9.5% drop in the overall market when so many companies have seen such significant revenue drops (as shown in the table above)?

Indeed there is much anecdotal evidence that the broadcast technology market is down much more than 9.5% for 2009.  As I posted previously, during IBC 2009, many vendors told me that their revenues were down by 20-40%.  However I also found some bright spots at IBC – particularly in those areas that have to do with making broadcasters more efficient and saving them money – e.g. automation, workflow optimization, asset management, business systems etc.  Perhaps growth in these areas has made up for some of the losses in others.

For its part, the IABM and Screen Digest are standing behind the projections, and say that that the following needs to be taken into account when looking at these numbers:

  • Sources of income to customers (advertising, license fees, subscriptions)
  • Product revenue vs. service revenue and the trend towards outsourcing
  • Regional differences
  • ForX rates, which have been extremely volatile the past few years
  • Dynamics in individual market segments and product categories

 

Here are some other interesting things / highlights of this report:

  • The total market size is pegged at $25BN, with $16BN (63%) coming from product revenue, and $9BN (37%) coming from service revenue.  Service revenue includes Rental/hire, transmission, managed services, systems integration, support contracts and consultancy.
  • This means that service providers such as playout centers and others are counted as part of the market size.  This is consistent with previous IABM reports, but perhaps not with the way most vendors count their revenues.  Indeed, to a typical vendor a playout / service provider is a customer.
  • Service revenues in Europe are now higher than product revenues, and (IMO) will likely continue to increase worldwide as broadcasters move to more outsourcing in order to shift cost from Capex to Opex.
  • By 2012, the market size will be back to where it was at its peak in 2008

 

When all of this is explained (which takes a while), you can understand how Screen Digest arrived at these numbers, but this does not mean that all the vendors at the meetings agreed with them.  What this highlights is that the industry is changing.  I’ve made several posts about this including my Impressions of IBC 2009 and Silverwood Partners’ Take on IBC 2009.  This reports is also consistent with a question I posed in the post HDTV… just a “pause” on the path to transition to IT-based broadcasting? which said that the transit ion to HD (much of which had to be done with hardware), put back the move to IT-based broadcasting by about five years.  During the biggest years of the HD transition, many vendors grew very rapidly, including a few that went public.  Today, the transition to HD is well underway, and the focus of the customers is all about efficiency.   So it makes me wonder whether when the recovery does happen, who will reap the biggest benefit — the traditional hardware vendors, or providers of efficient IT-based systems.  I think we will see some new players emerge, while some established players continue to struggle.

All-in-all the new IABM/Screen Digest report looks well worth considering if you are involved in the financial or supply side of the broadcast technology industry.  You can get more info on this report here.

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Let the broadcaster beware…. Business interests of broadcasters not always aligned with those of vendors

market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 14 2009

I have written several times about technology trends in the broadcast industry, including a look at how trends vary by geographic region, and what technology trends are most important to broadcasters.   Having done this, I decided to look more deeply at the trends that are the most important to broadcasters, and then compare this to others in the supply chain. What I found is that there are important differences between the business interests of technology suppliers (vendors and SIs) and technology buyers (broadcasters).

To get this data, I presented the nearly 5,000 people who responded to the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) with a list of 15 industry trends and asked to choose three trends from the list (ranking them 1-3) that they feel will have the most significant impact on the way they do business over the next 2-3 years. Because this question is about what’s important to the business of the respondents, it reveals much about their motivations. 

The results, which are summarized in the chart below, show that the commercial motivations of those supplying technology (vendors and systems integrators) are not always aligned with technology buyers (broadcasters).

 Question: Please rank in order (1-3) which of the following technology trends are most important to your business, with 1 being most important

Trends -- Broadcasters vs Vendors & SIs

 

Here’s a quick round-up of the differences between what’s important to technology buyers versus technology suppliers:

More Important to Technology Buyers (Broadcasters):

  • Transition to HDTV operations
  • Transition to tapeless workflows
  • Automated workflows
  • File-based workflows
  • Multiplatform delivery

 

More Important to Technology Suppliers (Vendors and Sis):

  • IP content delivery
  • Advanced encoding techniques (e.g. h.264)
  • Video on Demand
  • Transition to 3Gbps operations (1080p)
  • On-line advertising
  • 3D TV
  • Set-top box PVR/DVR
  • 4K production
  • Network DVR
  • 2K production

 

Looking at this, it seems to me that:

  • the trends that are most important to broadcasters are about finishing what they started and making it work in practice (transition to HD), becoming more efficient (tapeless, file-based, automated workflows) and increasing revenues (multi-platform content delivery)
  • the trends that are most important to technology suppliers are about new technology

 

Let’s look at this in another way… The table below depicts this, expressed as the difference between the average for each respondent group and the overall global average.  As you can see there are some major differences between broadcasters and their suppliers, particularly when it comes to transition to HDTV, tapeless workflows, automated workflows and the transition to 3Gbps:

Trend Variation -- between broadcastes and vendors

Broadcasters believe that refining workflows and gaining efficiencies, particularly through digital file management, is very important to their business, whereas vendors and systems integrators place more importance on next generation technologies such as 3Gbps operations.  Similarly broadcasters do not currently view IP content delivery as a stand out issue, whereas vendors and systems integrators believe this is to be the second most important trend influencing their business.

These findings are in-line with what Roger Crumpton of the IABM said at their market workshop recently — i.e. that broadcasters in today’s climate are focusing on completing existing projects (e.g. HDTV transition) and increasingly risk averse when it comes to new technology unless it can make them more efficient in some way (e.g. automated workflows).

So what does all this mean?   If a technology suppliers can more fully understand what’s most important to their customers they will have a better change of success, but only if they listen to what their customer is telling them and adjust their sales approach accordingly.

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Brand Schizophrenia? Regional/customer variations in perception of broadcast vendor brands

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 09 2009

Last week at the IABM’s market workshop meeting in the UK, I presented an overview of  the Big Broadcast Survey.  During the presentation, I talked about how there is dramatic variation in the perception of broadcast industry vendor brands, based on factors such as geography and customer type. 

I used an example of how the perception of one company whose brand I studied is very different based on who you ask, and where the people you ask are located.   A number of people contacted me after the presentation to discuss this topic, so I am posting the charts from this part of the presentation here.  

I didn’t name the company during the IABM presentation, and I am not going to name it here.  The reason for showing this is not to single out one vendor (believe me, there are plenty of similar examples).  Instead, it’s to highlight the fact that brands may be perceived very differently in different parts of the world.  The broadcast industry, like many B2B markets, is global and vendors (large and small) need to be aware of the regional differences.

Keep in mind that when looking at these charts, they all show the perception of the same company’s brand — just from different perspectives. 

 

Let’s start by looking at how this company is perceived by broadcasters.  

I surveyed more than 1000 broadcasters about a variety of topics, including their perception of vendor brands.  The resulting broadcast industry brand status “league table” is shown below, with the company in question highlighted in red.

 

Regional Variations -- broadcasters

 

 

So what do broadcasters think of this company?

As you can see, this brand:

  • is very well regarded by broadcasters in the Americas
  • falls to the middle of the pack with broadcasters in EMEA
  • is not held in a particularly high regard by broadcasters in Asia

 

 

Next, let’s look at how a different group of respondents, systems integrators, view this company based on the same criteria. 

Here are the results:

Regional Variations -- systems integrators

 

SIs are an important partner for any broadcast technology vendor, and in some cases their opinion of a company can mean the difference between winning and losing a lucrative deal.

To sum up this one: 

  • SIs in the Americas like this company a LOT.
  • SIs in EMEA regard it as being in the middle of the pack
  • SIs in Asia appear to not think much of this company

 

 

Finally, let’s move away from brand status, and look at a key brand driver, customer service.  Rather than look at customer service from the perspective of a specific customer category, I’ve summarized the rankings on a regional basis. 

Once again — as shown below — this company is perceived very differently in different parts of the world.  They rank #2 in one region and #11 in a different region.

Regional Variations -- customer service

So what’s the take-away from this?

Vendors need to understand that the perception of their brand is one of the things that can drive their business, so they need to pay attention to the way they are perceived.

If you’re interested in reading more about this, be sure to download the free summary report from the Big Broadcast Survey.  It’s 26 pages long and gives a good overview of some of the broadcast industry’s leading brands, broken down regionally. 

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Do broadcast technology buyers prefer to purchase from a single supplier or from “best-of-breed”?

Broadcast technology channel strategy, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 07 2009

Vendor consolidation in the broadcast technology market is on the rise.  The reasons often quoted for these deals include increased scale, greater operational efficiencies, broader market reach, better use of existing sales infrastructure, and of course the opportunity to sell integrated solutions. 

This all makes sound business sense, particularly the ability to sell complete solutions — after all if a vendor can reach “critical mass” it may be able to capture more, or even all, of large contracts. 

Buying from a “one-stop-shop” makes sense for the customer too.  It’s easier to deal with a single vendor;  and if there’s a problem with a system the customer has one number to call and has better assurance that there will be no finger pointing between multiple vendors.

In the interest of finding out whether this seemingly sensible proposition is widely accepted by technology buyers,  I asked almost 4,000 people who participated in the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey the following question:

When purchasing broadcast technology products, do you prefer to buy from a single “one-stop-shop” or select “best-of-breed” solutions from multiple vendors?

  • Where possible from a single supplier
  • Evaluate individual suppliers and select best of breed
  • Don’t know

 

The responses to this question are summarized in the chart below.  It appears that despite the clear benefits of  buying from a single vendor, the majority of broadcast technology buyers prefer to evaluate and purchase “best-of-breed” solutions from multiple vendors.

Best of breed preferred purchase method

The responses to this question were consistent across geographies, with the responses from all regions more or less mirroring the global response show in the chart above.

Interestingly, government and educational buyers exhibited the strongest preference to purchase from a single supplier.  This appears to conflict with the answer these same buyers gave to a different question that I wrote about in a previous post, when they said they prefer to buy from dealers.  However, it’s likely that these buyers consider dealers and systems integrators to be single suppliers.  If this is the case, it highlight the importance to vendors of developing and maintaining strong relationships with third-party players in the distribution channel.

 

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How do broadcast technology buyers typically purchase — direct from vendors, through an SI or a dealer?

Broadcast technology channel strategy, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 06 2009

It’s a big world and in a global industry like broadcast technology hardware and software, even the largest vendors must rely on a mix of direct and indirect sales channels.  

As part of the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey, I asked technology purchasers how they typically buy broadcast technology hardware and software — direct from a vendor, or through a third-party channel like a systems integrator (SI) or dealer. 

The results are interesting because they highlight that there are some times when it makes more sense for vendors to use a channel than go direct.  They also show that there are some types of buyers who are more used to buying through the channel versus direct.

It turns out that overall, about 2/3 of customers purchase through a third-party supplier (dealer or SI), with the rest buying directly from the vendor.

However, when you break the results down by the type of customer (as I have done in the chart below),  you quickly see that there are differences between the typical purchasing habits of various customer types, and this information has important implications for vendors.

Question: How do you typically purchase broadcast technology products?

how_do_you_typically_purchase

Out of six different customer types, only “cable/satellite/IPTV operators” (companies like DirectTV, Sky, Comcast etc) and  ”cable programmers” (companies like Discovery and HBO) typically buy more than 50% directly from vendors.  Perhaps this is because there are not that many of these customers, and they tend to be large. 

These customers also appear to rely heavily on systems integrators to plan and impliment their projects.   Many of these projects are large end up being “all or nothing” for vendors, so they are clearly paying special attention to these customers, and fighting for the business.

At the other end of the spectrum, customers in post production, government and education typically buy through  a dealer.  There are probably a variety of reasons for this:

  • In post production there are specialized local dealers who have both in-depth knowledge of the market and deep relationships with this (relatively small) customer base.  For many vendors, it makes sense to sell through these dealers rather than pay for a dedicated sales effort.  The downside of this is that it concentrates the power with dealers since they “own” the relationship with the customer base, increasing the risk of substitution.
  • Government is another category that requires strong relationships, and in some cases specialist credentials such security clearance and/or extensive operational experience.  Selling to the government (at least at the national level) can be lucrative for vendors, but it can also take major effort to break into this market.  At the local government level (e.g. every town hall in a country), the market is enormous but very disparate, and therefore often left to local resellers. In aggregate this is a large market, but most vendors are not geared up to go after it direct.
  • Education is arguably the largest market of all — after all there are many more schools than broadcasters and/or town halls — and yet only 20% of these customers typically buy broadcast technology hardware and software direct from vendors.  it’s likely that because of the size, not to mention huge diversity, of this customer base that a specialist dealer with deep relationships at the local level will always be best positioned to win this business.

 

This leave “broadcasters / TV station” customers in the middle of the pack.  There are likely a variety of reasons for this.  For example, this is broad category that encompasses state / national broadcasters as well as local players.  Vendors with limited resources (e.g. just about all of them) who are after large sales will tend to concentrate their efforts on the biggest part of the market (in value terms) and leave the rest to dealers.  Also there are certain regions (like parts of Asia and South America) where the most efficient way to sell (even to the largest broadcasters) is through third party distribution.

I should point out that this question does not ask about the value of product purchased from each category, but if I did I think that it would further highlight the important role of systems integrators and consultants.    As customers look to cut cost they often eliminate technical staff positions, effectively outsourcing their technical design and installation to third party consultants — systems integrators in particular.  SIs were found to play a strong role in all categories — and particularly in those which tend to have large, complex projects.  After all, if a broadcaster is buying a replacement part for an existing system it’s easy to go to a dealer; but if they are building a disaster recovery facility as part of a major strategic initiative, they are likely to go with an SI.

These finding highlight that it’s important for suppliers to tailor their approach to different markets and customer types.  It also demonstrates that the third-party distribution channels are a crucial part of their business, because they account for a significant portion of the market access that all vendors need to survive and thrive.

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