Market Research and Strategic Marketing for Digital Media
Miranda posted their Q2 results today. They had a 68% drop in quarterly profit and missed expectations of the analysts.
Here’s the press release http://bit.ly/15IHg7.
Here’s an article from the Reuters news service about the results: http://bit.ly/Wb7RO.
To hear a replay of the earnings conference call dial 
+1-877-289-8525 and use access code 21310637#
I had an interesting conversation recently with a broadcast technology vendor about how the transition to HDTV has impacted the move to IT-based broadcasting.
Their proposition was this:
Before the move to HDTV really took off, the broadcast industry was moving towards IT / file-based workflows. Then a variety of external structural forces (e.g. government intervention, analog switch-off etc) caused it to change course and focus on the transition to HD.
This caused the industry’s focus shifted away from IT / software-based systems and back towards hardware, which was better able to handle the increased data rates of HDTV. This was good news for traditional hardware vendors, many of whom saw big spikes in their businesses, and some of whom managed to go public on the back of this trend.
Fast forward to today. The transition to HD is well underway, and completed in many areas. Broadcasters who have made the move to HD are now are looking for ways to increase their efficiencies, and do more with less. At the same time, IT-based systems have made tremendous strides, and have in many cases caught up with hardware systems.
So, this vendor concluded, we’re at a major industry inflection point, and the next transition in the broadcast industry will be driven by software, not hardware.
If this vendor is right, (and they very well may be), it’s going to be an interesting time for the hardware-oriented vendors who don’t have fully-fledged IT-based solutions that deliver what today’s customers want — the ability to do more with less, the promise of greater efficiencies, and above all a way to increase revenues. It’s doubtful that “traditional” vendors will go away, but it’s likely that we will see new leaders emerge, along with an increase in M&A activity.
While I was finalizing the first version of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), I showed it to a number of people to get their feedback. One of the first was Roger Crumpton, who heads up the IABM and was the driving force behind the excellent IABM Global Market Study, which is published in conjunction with Screen Digest.
I initially approached Roger to get his view on pricing the BBS. However, when I took him through the study he got excited about its content and suggested that we work together. Roger told me that the BBS fills a need in the market and provides IABM member companies with unique insight that was previously unavailable.
We decided to create a partnership – after the IABM conducted due dilligence on the study, its methodology and its findings — whereby the IABM will help to promote the study in exchange for me offering their member companies a 15% discount. We also agreed to “synchronize” the segmentation of my future reports with the segmentation in the IABM / Screen Digest report.
I am excited about this partnership as I think it can bring benefits to both Devoncroft and the IABM.
Having worked for Snell & Wilcox (twice) and having lived in the UK (twice) for a total of thirteen years, I decided that a move back to the UK was not for me when we did the deal to merge the company with Pro-Bel.
Luckily I had plenty of time to plan what to do next — particularly with the delay of our deal — and this gave me the opportunity to create Devoncroft Partners, a consultancy focused on market research and strategic marketing for digital media companies.
I actually officially left S&W at the end of 2008, but because the merger was delayed, they asked me to stay on as a consultant for six months or so. During this time we completed the deal and I worked to re-brand the new company, get to the NAB trade show and manage the company’s marketing department.
Although being a consultant took a bit of getting used to, I enjoy doing it as it frees me to work for multiple companies. Indeed, I have also been working for AmberFin, a leading ingest, transcoding and media management company.
This work has been rewarding, but I was eager to branch out into new areas — the first of which is market research into the perceptions of broadcast technology vendors.
I called this first project the “Big Broadcast Survey” (BBS for short) which is an apt description — almost 5000 people in 110 countries participated in this study, making it the largest of its kind ever undertaken in the broadcast industry.
The information in the BBS is really interesting and the industry reaction has been great. I’ll be posting findings here from time-to-time, so please check back.
When creating a blog, an obvious question is what to talk about in the first post. In my case I was playing around with the settings and loaded up this picture of me and the Queen and decided to leave it there.
This picture was taken during a reception at Buckingham Palace in July of 2007. I was there with two colleagues from Snell & Wilcox (now called Snell)to accept a Queen’s Award for Innovation for the Kahuna production switcher.
The picture quality is pretty poor because these are stills grabbed from a video camera. Rather than have astill photographer in the room, they just video taped the event and grabbed stills from the video. You’d think they would have a better set up in a place that has these receptions all the time — or at least shoot the video in HD.