Posts Tagged ‘broadcast industry market research’

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 3 – the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 16 2011

This is the sixth in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask broadcast professionals worldwide to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

In previous articles we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, and the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table, which shows how our global sample of broadcast professionals ranked 118 broadcast vendor brands in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors, and also how their opinions have changed over time.

It’s obviously great news for the vendors who are listed in these rankings, and there were quite a few of them.  A total of 43 brands were listed in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table; and a total of 51 brands were listed in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Brand Opinion League Table.

This post looks at the companies that were listed in both the Overall Opinion and Net Change in Overall Opinion Rankings. In other words, these are the companies whose brands are held in high regard today, and who are perceived to be getting better over time.

Just 30 brands (out of 118) were listed in both sets of rankings, either globally or regionally.

These are shown below.

Please note that these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study. 

 

2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table:

 

There are a wide variety of companies on this list, including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

What they have in common is strong brand recognition, and a dynamism that 2011 BBS respondents feel is making them even stronger.

Let’s look specifically at the how these companies and their products were ranked in the 2011 BBS, beginning with products and technology.

As shown in the chart below, these companies make products in 24 of the 26 product categories that we covered in the 2011 BBS.

The top products for brand leaders are split between audio and video – microphones and video editing.

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2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table — Frequency of Product Categories:

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So is it possible that brand leadership can be predicted by the type of product that an organization produces? Interestingly this list is split fairly evenly between audio and video companies.  There’s also a healthy mix of hardware versus software.

What about the number of products that a vendor offers. Larger companies offer more products and are consequently used in more places than their smaller counterparts.  Let’s look at the number of product categories that each of these brands produces (as defined by the segmentation used in the 2011 BBS).

The table below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories produced by each brand.

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2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table — Number of 2011 BBS Product Categories per Brand:

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While there are several brands on this list that appear in many product categories, the vast majority produce only one or two types of products.  Indeed out of the thirty brands in this table, nearly 2/3 appear only once.

Keep in mind that companies who produce only one type of product are not necessarily small.  There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 2011 BBS category.

It turns out that to fully understand what drives brand opinion and brand leadership, one needs to look at the factors that drive and influence these perceptions.  This includes the company’s reputation for things like innovation, reliability, quality, value and great customer service.

We’ll be looking at each of these factors in future articles, so stay tuned.

Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  Finally please note that this study evaluated a total of 118 brands.

 

In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

 

Related Content:

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry in 2011? The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

More Information About the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey from Devoncroft Partners

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 04 2011

This is the fifth in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Each year, as part of the Big  Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask broadcast professionals worldwide to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

In a previous article we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, which shows how our global sample of broadcast professionals ranked 118 broadcast vendor brands in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors.

While it’s great for a vendor to be named to the top 30 for overall opinion, these rankings may be seen as somewhat one-sided because they rely primarily on the positive opinions of respondents. In order to get a better understanding of how broadcast technology vendor brands are perceived, it is necessary to look at both the positive and negative opinions of brands, and to take into account how these opinions have changed over time.

To achieve this, we first determine whether a respondent has an opinion of a brand, and then ask them how their opinion of that brand has changed over time – i.e. has it improved, declined or stayed the same.

When compared to the previously published ranking of overall opinions of brands, this methodology provides a more comprehensive picture of how a brand is perceived because it shows both the positive and negative opinions of each brand.

Sometimes these results highlight some interesting perceptions about brands.  Take for example the chart below, which is from our 2009 study.

 

 

 

In this case the brand that was top for “got better” was also top for “got worse.”

Given these results, it is perhaps more useful to find the Net Change in Overall Opinion for each brand, which is calculated by using the following formula:

GB-GW/# of total respondents = Net Change in Brand Image

In other words, the percentage of respondents who said a brand “got worse” is subtracted from the percentage of respondents who said their opinion of a brand had “got better” (ignoring the “stayed the same” number).

This takes into account both the positive and negative perceptions of brands, along with how these opinions have changed over time.  It also presents a more balanced view of which brands are getting better and which are getting worse in the minds of market participants.

Because some brands are polarizing (as seen in the example above), it’s possible that a strong “got better” response might be cancelled ut by a strong “got worse” response.  As a result some companies who were rated in the top 30 on just the “got better” score were not included in the global or regional top 30 because their high “got worse” score dragged down their overall result.  At the same time, a few of the companies with high “got worse” scores still made the top 30 list because these negative scores were cancelled out by even higher “got better” scores.

In order to arrive at the Net Change in Overall Opinion, research participants were asked whether their opinion of various brands had “got better”, “got worse” or “stayed the same” over the past 2-3 years.

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The results of this enquiry are shown below in two ways:

  • An overall industry “league table” that shows the 30 highest ranked vendors for the metric “Net Change of Overall Opinion.”  The data in this chart is broken out globally and regionally.

 

  • An analysis of the “frequency” of appearance in the “Net Change of Overall Opinion” league table.”

 

The top 30 ranked brands for Net Change of Overall Opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

 

In all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked by respondents to the study.

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2011 BBS Net Chage in Overall Opinion League Table:

 

A total of 51 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, illustrating the geographic variation of opinion.

In terms of frequency of appearance in this table:

 

  • 13 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region

 

  • 10 brands appear three times

 

  • 9 brands appear two times

 

  • 19 brands appear one time which demonstrates that some brands are strongest in one geographic area

 

 

Analysis of the data shows that are some clear market leaders on a global basis, while others are strong on a regional basis.

A breakdown of how many times each company appears in the ranking shows how many times each brand appears in the chart above.

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Brands appearing four times in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • Adobe, Aja Video, Apple, Blackmagic Design, Canon, Cisco, Genelec, Omneon, Panasonic, Riedel, Sennheiser, Sony, Tektronix

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Brands appearing three times in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • Ateme,  Evertz, EVS, Harmonic, Net Insight, Rhozet, Rohde & Schwarz, Ross Video, Shure, Vizrt

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Brands appearing two times in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • AKG, Digital Rapids, Dolby, Ensemble,  Front Porch Digital, Lawo, Telestream, TVIPS, Wohler

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Brands appearing once in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • AmberFin, Audio-Technica ,Avid, Fujinon, Grass Valley, Harris, Inlet Technologies, Linear, Linear Acoustic, Miranda, MSA Focus,
    Nevion, Playbox, PubliTronic, Schoeps, Screen Service, Solid State Logic, Telecast, Yamaha

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Frequency Analysis of the Brands in the in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table:  

In order to provide a better understanding of which brands were most highly ranked in each geography, the data has been provided in the
table below, which shows the global and regional performance for each brand in the top 30 ranking of overall opinion.

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Frequency Analysis of Brands in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table

 

 

This frequency analysis chart shows that there are some interesting geographic variations in the data. Here’s a closer look at how brands appeared by geography:

 

Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking globally + one region

Eight brands managed to achieve a top 30 ranking in theglobal overall opinion league table, despite being in the top 30 of only one of the three geographic regions.

  • Digital Rapids, Ensemble, EVS, Front Porch Digital, Lawo, Net Insight, Telestream, T-VIPS

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking in one region

The following 18 brands did not make the top 30 in the global league table of overall opinion, but they did appear in the top 30 overall opinion ranking in one of the geographic regions:

  • AmberFin, Audio-Technica, Avid, Fujinon, Grass Valley, Inlet Technologies, Linear, Linear Acoustic, Miranda, MSA Focus, Nevion, Playbox, PubliTronic, Schoeps, Screen Service, Solid State Logic, Telecast, Yamaha

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in EMEA

  • AmberFin, Fujinon, Inlet Technologies, Linear Acoustic, Nevion, PubliTronic, Screen Service

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in Asia-Pacific

  • Avid, Grass Valey, Harris, Miranda, MSA Focus, Playbox, Schoeps, Yamaha

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in the Americas

  • Audio-Technica, Linear, Solid State Logic, Telecast, Wohler

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Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  Finally please note that this study evaluated a total of 118 brands.

In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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Related Content:

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry in 2011? The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

More Information About the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey from Devoncroft Partners

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© Devoncroft Partners 2009 – 2011. All Rights Reserved.

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 14 2011

This is the fourth in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask a global sample of  broadcast professionals to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

This post looks at how our global sample of broadcast professionals ranked 118 different broadcast technology vendors in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors (to see a list of the brands covered in this study, please click here).

Respondents were asked to rank their opinion of broadcast technology vendor brands on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

Results are shown in two ways:

  • An overall industry “league table” that shows the 30 highest ranked vendors for the metric “overall opinion.”  The data in this chart is broken out globally and regionally.

 

  • An analysis of the “frequency” of appearance in the “overall opinion league table”

 

The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

Please note that in all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked by respondents to the survey.      

 

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2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

 

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A total of 43 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, illustrating the geographic variation of opinion.

In terms of frequency of appearance in this table:

 

  • 19 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region

 

  • 9 brands appear three times

 

  • 2 brands appear two times

 

  • 13 brands appear one time which demonstrates that some brands are strongest in one geographic area

 

 

Analysis of the data shows that are some clear market leaders on a global basis, while others are strong on a regional basis.

A breakdown of how many times each company appears in the ranking shows how many times each brand appears in the chart above.

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Brands appearing four times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table: 

  • Adobe, AKG, Apple, beyerdynamic, Canon, Cisco, Dolby, Fujinon, Genelec, Grass Valley, Neumann, Panasonic, Schoeps, Sennheiser, Shure, Solid State Logic (SSL), Sony, Tektronix, Yamaha

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Brands appearing three times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table: 

  • Aja Video, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Clear-Com, JBL, Rohde & Schwarz, Snell, Studer, Wohler

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Brands appearing two times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

  • Audio-Technica, RTS Intercom Systems

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Brands appearing once in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

  • Electro Voice, Evertz, EVS, Harris, Ikegami, Lawo, Mackie, Omneon, Quantel, Riedel, RTW, Telex, Barco

 

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Frequency Analysis of the Brands in the in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:  

In order to provide a better understanding of which brands were most highly ranked in each geography, the data has been provided in  the table below, which shows the global and regional performance for each brand in the top 30 ranking of overall opinion.

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Frequency Analysis of Brands in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

The frequency chart shows some interesting geographic variation in the data.

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking globally + one region

Two brands managed to achieve a top 30 ranking in the global overall opinion league table, despite being in the top 30 of only one of the
three geographic regions.

  • Audio-Technica (Asia Pacific), RTS Intercom Systems (Americas)

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking in one region

The following 13 brands did not make the top 30 in the global league table of overall opinion, but they did appear in the top 30 overall opinion ranking in one of the geographic regions:

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in EMEA

  • Barco, EVS, Lawo, Quantel, Riedel, RTW

 

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking  only in Asia-Pacific

  • Omneon

 

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking  only in the Americas

  • Electro-Voice, Evertz, Harris, Ikegami, Mackie, Telex

 

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Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.

In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more  information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 21 2011

This is the second in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

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In a recent post I discussed the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which shows the most important trends in the broadcast industry for 2011.

The article referenced both the 2009 and 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index from, and looked at how the rankings of trends have changed over time.  For example, in 2009 the transition to HDTV operations was, by far, the top ranked trend.  However by 2011, the transition to HDTV operations had been overtaken by multi-platform content delivery as the top trend (although the move to HD is clearly still very important).

This post generated a lot of lot of feedback from clients and readers.  Many people said they wanted to more easily see changes to the importance of trends over time, and asked for a single chart that shows year-over-year comparisons.  I’ve done this in the chart below, which shows a comparison of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index from 2011 and 2010. 

Please note that I have not included the 2009 Index in this chart because multiple changes were made to the trends in the Index between 2009 and 2010, reducing the ability to make an “apples-to-apples” comparison.  It’s also worth noting that all 14 trends from the 2010 Index were included in the 2011 Index.  However, based industry feedback, we added a 15th trend to the 2011 list – i.e. analog switch-off, which was ranked 11th out 15 in 2011.  The addition of analog switch-off likely “cannibalized” a small percentage of responses from other trends in this year’s ranking. 

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So what changed between 2010 and 2011? 

There are two ways to look at this:

  • changes in overall numerical ranking relative to the previous year
  • changes in overall commercial importance relative to the previous year

 

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Changes in Numerical Ranking of Broadcast Industry Trends

Let’s start with the overall numerical ranking of trends.  The first column in the table below shows how trends were ranked in 2011. The number in parentheses to the right of each trend shows how it ranked in the 2010 BBS Index. Although there were no changes at the top and bottom of the 2011 Index versus the 2010 Index, almost everything in between changed position relative to the previous year.

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As I wrote previously, the top four trends in the 2011 Global Broadcast Industry Trend Index are the same as last year and the year before:

  • Multi-platform content delivery
  • Transition to HDTV operations
  • File-based / tapeless workflows
  • IP networking and content delivery

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However, there has been considerable movement in the relative ranking of these four trends over the past several years.  Most significantly, “multi-platform content delivery” has become increasingly important, and is the dominant trend in 2011.   

Several trends were ranked more highly in 2011 than in 2010.  For example video-on-demand moved up from #8 in 2011 from #6 in 2011; while 3DTV moved up from #10 in 2010 to #8 in 2011.

Other trends remained relatively static in terms of their ranking in 2011.  For example: “transition to 3Gbps operations”, “transition to 5.1 channel audio”, “outsourced operations” and “green initiatives” remained the bottom four trends in 2011, as they were in 2010.

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Changes in Commercial Importance of Broadcast Industry Trends

As well as changes to numerical ranking, there were also year-over-year changes to the perception of commercial importance to each trend.  This is shown in the table below:

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For the most part, the trends moved up in the rankings in 2011 also were seen as more important commercially versus the previous year. 

However, it is possible for a trend to move up in the numerical ranking, while moving down in terms commercial importance to respondents, as happened this year with the transition to HDTV operations.  In this case, these changes are likely more of a function of the strong showing for multi-platform content delivery, than a poor showing for the transition to HDTV.

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Why Tracking Movement of Trends is Important

In the broadcast industry much of the spending on technology is project-based, and those projects all come from somewhere.  Our view is that industry trends drive capital projects, which in turn drive budgets, which in turn drive product purchase.  In other words, what’s commercially important to technology buyers today (i.e. trends) will likely turn into what they are budgeting for tomorrow (i.e. projects).

Looking at the trend data from the 2011 BBS, monetizing content on multiple platforms is clearly a key objective for broadcast professionals this year.  Yet, as I wrote a few months ago after returning from CES: “On the monetization point, I lost count of the number of times I heard the word “experimentation” during [conference] sessions – particularly from content owners.  In other words, although everyone agrees that multi-platform content delivery is a very important trend, many players have still not figured out the business model.”

There’s a difference between recognizing that a trend is commercially important and having a business plan in place that capitalizes on it.  So while there’s no doubt that generating incremental revenue by delivering a multi-screen experience to consumers is hot topic, business models have to move beyond the experimental in order to drive serious market growth.  Once that happens, multi-platform content delivery will likely become the most important planned project rather than just the most important trend.

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Keep in mind when reading this information that all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS, regardless of organization type, organization size, job title or geographic location.  Responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different than those shown in this high level overview.  Granular analysis of these results is available as part of the full 2011 BBS Global Market Report. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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Related Content:

You can find out about the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey here.

The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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©Devoncroft Partners 2009-2011

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Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 16 2011

This is the first in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

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The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

Each year, Devoncroft Partners conducts a large scale global study of the broadcast industry called the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS).  More than 8,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries participated in the 2011 BBS, making it the most comprehensive study ever done in the broadcast industry.

One of the key outputs from the BBS is the annual BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. This is a ranking of the broadcast industry trends that are considered by BBS respondents to be the most commercially important to their businesses in any given year.

To create the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 15 industry trends and asked them to tell us which one trend they consider to be “most important” to their business, which one trend they consider to be “second most important” to their business, and which other trends (plural) they consider to be “also very important.” 

We then used the responses to this question to create the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index by applying a weighting based on the commercial importance of each trend. 

Please note that our goal from this question is to help clients gain insight into the business drivers behind the respondent’s answer.  Therefore, we asked this question in the context of commercial importance, rather than “industry buzz” or technology hype.

The table below shows the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.  Please note that this chart measures the responses all non-vendors who participated in the 2011 BBS, regardless of company type, company size, geographic location, job title etc. 

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Similar to results in both the 2009 and 2010, the top four trends in the 2011 Global Broadcast Industry Trend Index are:

  • Multi-platform content delivery
  • Transition to HDTV operations
  • File-based / tapeless workflows
  • IP networking and content delivery

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However, there has been considerable movement in the relative ranking of these four trends over the past several years.  Most significantly, “multi-platform content delivery” has become increasingly important, and is the dominant trend in 2011.   For comparison:

  • In 2009, the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index was dominated by the transition to HDTV operations, while multi-platform content delivery was fourth on the list

 

  • In 2010, multi-platform content delivery had become the most important industry trend, narrowly eclipsing file-based / tapeless workflows (which were combined in the 2010 BBS Trend Index) and the transition to HDTV operations

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These results show that broadcast professionals continue to focus their efforts on taking advantage of the potential for incremental revenue streams presented by multi-platform content delivery.  Indeed, as the chart above shows multi-platform content delivery was ranked significantly higher than any other trend in our 2011 study.  As video content become ubiquitous, broadcasters and content owners are looking for ways to monetize their assets, and grow their revenue.  Technology vendors are continuing to develop solutions to convert content for optimal performance on any platform, and to run targeted ads alongside that content.

But there is more to the story than just multi-platform content delivery. For the third year in a row, the transition to HDTV operations ranks as one of the top trends in the broadcast industry.  It’s likely that HDTV upgrades will continue to be one of the major drivers of project-based spending as broadcasters around the world continue with plans to transition their operations to HDTV.  We provide significant coverage of the global move to HDTV in the 2011 BBS Global Market Report.  This includes a breakdown of where broadcasters are in their transition to HD, and a look at the upgrade plans for more than a dozen product categories. We’ll also be publishing more information here about project-based spending and the HD transition in future articles.

Operational efficiencies (through file-based / tapeless workflows) remain a significant macro driver in 2011, as broadcasters continue to deploy new workflows.  The increasing importance of file-based technologies has implications for the broadcast industry in terms of both workflows and product procurement.  Our previous research shows that broadcasters are moving to file-based workflows not only to achieve greater speed and efficiencies, but also to reduce cost.  During the recession, technology budgets were typically prioritized towards solutions that add revenue and/or reduce cost.  Now that the industry is recovering from the downturn, it’s likely that the way technology is purchased will remain focused on these commercial priorities.

Several trends were ranked more highly in 2011 than in 2010.  For example video-on-demand moved up from #8 in 2011 to#6 in 2011; while 3DTV moved up from #10 in 2010 to #8 in 2011.

Other trends remained relatively static in terms of their ranking in 2011.  For example: “transition to 3Gbps operations”, “transition to 5.1 channel audio”, “outsourced operations” and “green initiatives” remained the bottom four trends in 2011, as they were in 2010.

It’s worth mentioning that in order to show year-over-year movement, all trends from the 2010 BBS were included in the 2011 BBS.  However, based on industry feedback, we added a 15th trend to the 2011 list – i.e. analog switch-off, which was ranked 11th out of 15 in 2011.  The addition of analog switch-off likely “cannibalized” a small percentage of responses from other trends in this year’s ranking. 

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Keep in mind when reading this information that all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS, regardless of organization type, organization size, job title or geographic location.  Responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different.  Granular analysis of these results is available as part of the full 2011 BBS Global Market Report. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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Related Content:

You can find information about the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey here.

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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The Commercial Drivers for Multi-Platform Content Distribution in the Broadcast Industry

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, content delivery | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jan 13 2011

This is the third in a series of occasional articles about the commercial drivers behind some of the most important trends in the broadcast industry.

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As part of the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey, we asked a global sample of more than 5,600 broadcast professionals about the most important trends in the broadcast industry.  Respondents were presented with a series of industry trends, and asked to indicate which one is the “most important” commercially to their business over the next few years, which one is “second most important” commercially important to their business over the next few years, and which others are “also very important.” 

These results were then weighted to create the 2010 BBS Trends Index, which is shown in the table below.

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By a wide margin, the top three places in the 2010 BBS Global Trend Index were multi-platform content delivery; file-based / tapeless workflows; and the transition to HDTV operations.

This article looks at the commercial drivers behind the top trend in the 2010 BBS Trend Index, multi-platform content delivery, and sheds light on why multi-platform content delivery is important to broadcast professionals world-wide. 

If interested, you can also read previous articles about commercial drivers for the global move to HDTV operations, and the commercial drivers for the global move to file-based operations.

In order to understand why, we asked respondents who said multi-platform content delivery the trend that’s most commercially important to their business a series of questions, including the reasons why, which vendors they feel are best positioned to provide solutions to their needs, and what obstacles they think might prevent them from achieving their goals.

As shown in the chart below, the top two reasons cited by most 2010 BBS respondents for the commercial importance of multi-platform content delivery is to provide potential new revenue streams and to ensure that branded content is available on all distribution platforms.

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These results were fairly consistent across the respondent base, with 77% of respondents falling into one of these two categories.  However there were a few notable exceptions. 

There was a marked contrast in the responses from pay TV broadcasters versus license fee funded broadcasters.  Pay TV providers were overwhelmingly concerned with new revenue streams, while public broadcasters were interested primarily in making sure their branded content is available on all distribution platforms.

Second only to pay TV providers, respondents from the government / education / corporate sectors were also very interested in having their content available on all platforms

Other differences were more subtle.   Respondents from EMEA were slightly more interested having their branded content on all platforms, than were respondents from the Americas who were more interested in generating new revenue streams.

Participants in the China and the Middle East and Africa were more interested in gaining a competitive advantage than respondents from other regions.

When considering the responses of broadcasters (shown on the far right of the above chart), most seem to agree that the generating new revenue streams is the most important reason for moving to a multi-platform distribution model.  Interestingly the smallest broadcasters see the need to have their content widely available on all platforms is more important than new revenue stream.

If you are interested in a more comprehensive breakdown of these results, please contact Devoncroft Partners for more information.  

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This article is based on 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.

The 2011 Big Broadcast Survey will be published in the first quarter of 2011, and will provide an updated view of these findings as well as a year-over-year comparison.

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Economists Say Recession is Over – What was it Like for the Broadcast Industry?

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast technology vendor financials | Posted by Joe Zaller
Sep 21 2010

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the National Bureau of Economic Research, the arbiter of the start and end dates of a recession, determined that the US recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009.  

I am not sure these dates match up with the reality in the broadcast industry, since 2008 was a  banner year for most of the industry with the US elections and the Beijing Olympics.  Still, there’s no doubt that the industry has been in recession for some time, and we are now being told that it’s over — officially at least.

Whether you believe that the recession is over or not, there’s no denying that times have been tough in the broadcast industry over the past couple of years.  

Broadcast technology budgets were hard hit by the global downturn, which in turn impacted the supplier community.  For the past 18 months, vendor after vendor has reported that their sales are down due to the reigning-in of spending by customers.  During this time technology providers have been impacted severely. Many have reported losses and have gone through painful rounds of layoffs.  Some businesses have liquidated, and there has been a marked uptick in industry consolidation.  

To find out how broadcast technology budgets were impacted by the recession, we asked a series of in-depth questions to a global sample of broadcast technology professionals as part of the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS).  (The BBS, which is conducted annually by Devoncroft Partners, is the largest and most comprehensive study of the broadcast industry. More than 5,600 people participated in the 2010 study).  

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Regional comparison of broadcast technology budgets in 2010 

 As seen in the chart below, broadcast technology spending in EMEA held up better than in the Americas, which was hit particularly hard by the recession.  40% of respondents from the Americas reported that their budgets for 2010 were lower than in the previous year.   

   

Significantly, Asian markets showed the most budget growth in 2010 with nearly 60% of respondents reporting that they planned to increase their spending on broadcast technology products in 2010. This data is consistent with a recent survey conducted by the IABM and presented last week during a “state of the industry” session at IBC.  

Overall the past year or so has been tough for the broadcast industry. In 2010, just 34% of respondents reported that their broadcast technology budgets had increased versus the previous year.  32% reported that their budgets had stayed about the same, and 28% reported that their budgets had decreased, including 8% of respondents who said that their spending had declined by more than 30%.  

However, the indications are that the outlook for 2011 is better.  The question everyone wants to know is: when spending returns, where will money be spent?  

Traditionally, in the broadcast industry, major projects drive technology budgets, which in turn drive product purchase.  To help readers better understand how major projects are impacting technology spending, I recently wrote an article called Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry? — A Review of Major Projects Being Planned, which provides some insight into broadcast CapEx on a global basis.  

In it, I showed the major projects that are being planned and budgeted for by more than 3,000 broadcast processionals – including radio and TV broadcasters, cable/satellite/IPTV operators, playout centers, post production facilities, and cable programmers.   

Here’s the chart from that article:  

  

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By a wide margin, more respondents selected “upgrading infrastructure for HD/ 3Gbps operations” than any other type of project.  In addition to upgrading infrastructure for HD/3Gbps operations, respondents also indicated that they plan to upgrade their transmission and distribution capabilities – presumably to support their transition to HDTV and to prepare for analog switch-off.  You can read the full post here.  

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What Will Drive Post Recession Broadcast Technology Spending?  

One of the key issues that broadcast professionals must ask themselves in a post-recession world is whether broadcast technology spending will be the same as the pre-recession days, or has there been a more fundamental shift.  

My suspicion is that things have changed – for both buyers and suppliers of broadcast technology.   

Broadcast technology buyers today remain for the most part risk averse, and many have shifted their focus.  They are focused on increasing efficiencies, and finding new ways to monetize content through initiatives like multi-platform content distribution.  At the same time I keep hearing the mantra that products have to “fit for purpose” and “good enough for the job” rather than the best.  

On the supplier side, vendors have also shifted their focus.  For one thing, many vendors seem to want to shift to a more software-centric model as IT technology continues its seemingly unstoppable progress.  At the same time, there is an increased emphasis on technologies that enable increased efficiencies through file-based workflows (in order to meet the needs of buyers mentioned above). However, some of the firms with leading expertise in software and file-based technologies are not necessarily the companies that were considered industry leaders pre-recession.  This leads one to imagine two scenarios – new leaders will emerge, or M&A among technology vendors will increase as larger technology suppliers look to bring much needed expertise in-house.  In reality both will probably happen, which means that the next few years will be interesting to watch.  

 

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Value for Money Rankings of Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 27 2010

This is part of series of posts about the how the brands of broadcast technology vendors were ranked by respondents to the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS).

Each year as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global sample of broadcast professionals are asked to rank their opinion of a number of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  This information is used to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable these vendors to understand their competitive position in the market.

More than 5,600 people in 120+ countries participated in the 2010 BBS, making this the largest ever and most comprehensive study of the broadcast industry. In addition to measuring a variety of broadcast industry trends, more than 100 vendor brands (in 27 separate product categories) were evaluated by respondents.

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Recently, posts which rank broadcast technology vendors include:

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This post looks at how respondents ranked broadcast technology vendors for what is perhaps the most subjective driver we measured in the 2010 BBS — value for money.

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For some respondents value for money might mean low price, for others it might mean superior price/performance, while for others it could mean peace of mind in mission critical environments, regardless of the price.

Whatever the definition of value, the combination of a poor economy over the past few years and customer budget constraints have made many broadcast professionals more value-conscious than ever.  As a result, broadcast technology vendors must respond by continually delivering more value for less money.  This drives innovation in the broadcast supply chain as vendors are forced to compete on multiple levels.

Respondents were asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Value for Money” on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.  The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for the global sample of all respondents.

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In all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked by respondents to the survey. 

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Value for Money – The Top 30 Globally, Alphabetical Order

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There are a wide variety of vendors on this list, including large & small companies and those who produce audio & video products.  In order to better understand what drives the perception of value, we need to look at some of the factors behind these results.  These include the number of products produced by each vendor, the geographic location of the each vendor, and the types of product produced by the top 30 value companies.

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Number of products per vendor

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 whether reliability comes from small focused companies, or large multi-product vendors. 

The 2010 BBS evaluated 27 separate product categories.  In the previously published top 30 quality rankings, and top 30 reliability rankings, single product companies (those who were covered on only one product category in the 2010 BBS) completely dominated the rankings with about 2/3 of all positions.

A breakdown of how many product categories are produced by each vendor on the top 30 value list is shown below:

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Just over half of the vendors in the top 30 value rankings produce a product in only one BBS category (out of 27 measured).  This is slightly less concentrated that other findings, such as reliability where there were 21 single product companies in the top 30.

In the case of value, there is a mix of large and small, and single and multi-product companies.  It’s worth pointing out here that much of this list is made up of the industry’s largest multi-product vendors.  For example Grass Valley (10 categories), Evertz and Miranda (5 categories each), Sony (4 categories), Ross Video (3 categories), Apple, Black Magic Design, Cisco, For-A, Harmonic, Ikegami, Panasonic, and JVC (2 categories each).

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Geographic Location

Another factor to consider is the geographic location of each company on the list.  By this measure, companies headquartered in the Americas are the clear value for money leaders, while companies based in the EMEA and Asia trail the pack. 

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Keep in mind that when looking at geography, it’s important to remember that many of these firms are truly global, with offices all over the world, regardless of where they are headquartered.

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Product Categories

Finally, let’s look at the product categories produced by the vendors who made the top 30 value list for the 2010 BBS.

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Out of the 27 product categories covered in the 2010 BBS, 21 appear on this list. This is on par with other metrics. For comparison, there are 20 product categories in the top 30 reliability rankings and 23 product categories in the top 30 quality rankings.

Signal processing products lead the list of products produced by the top 30 value leaders.  This is a fiercely competitive market that is at the heart of the transition to HDTV operations, and customers look for both value and quality.  Cameras and audio consoles were close behind, while microphones, production switchers, routing switchers and video transport also made a strong showing.

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Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that, unless otherwise specified, all data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2010 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all 2010 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  

In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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This article is based on 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.

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EVS Reports Strong Q2 Results: Revenue up 61.2%, Operating Margins of 52.4%

broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast technology vendor financials | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 26 2010

Belgian-based broadcast sports slow motion and studio server specialist EVS announced strong results for the second quarter of 2010 today, driven by an improving broadcast market and the 2010 World Cup.  The company also reported a strong order book of future orders.

The company reported revenue of €30.2m during the quarter, with gross margins of 79.4% and operating margins of 52.4%. The revenue for the quarter represents an increase of 61.2% versus the same period a year ago, and an increase of 41.6% at constant currency and excluding rental income from major events. Sales were positively impacted by the 2010 World Cup, where EVS supplied more than €5m of equipment (with rental revenues split over Q2 and Q3).

For the first half of 2010, EVS revenue came in at €51.1m, an increase of 40% versus 2009. Operating margins for the first six months were 49.9%.

The company also announced that its summer order book had risen by 64.8% to €38.9m, 40% of which is for studio applications.

Revenue was up in all geographic regions.

EMEA revenue increased 83.9% to €17.6m, with studio applications accounting for 58% of sales.  The company said that the fragmentation of the European market continues to present a strong opportunity as broadcasters in multiple countries make the transition to tapeless workflows and HDTV operations.

Revenue from the Americas region jumped 55.9% to €9m, driven by continuing HD upgrades and expansion of existing workflows.

Sales in Asia rose 7.5%, with studio applications accounting for 69% of the total.  The company says that it expects increased traction in Asia during the second half of the year due to forthcoming large events there.

In both its earnings press release and presentation to analysts, the company stressed that it is investing in its future, saying it has been recruiting new staff and still has 30+ open positions.  The company says it is recruiting software engineers to develop studio applications, and also plans to expand geographically.

The company issued an upbeat statement in its earnings press release.  CEO Pierre L’Hoest declared the 2010 World Cup a huge success and, and highlighted the company’s progress in the studio market, where it continues to make good progress. EVS CFO Jacques Galloy said that the company’s order momentum continues to be solid in both studio and outside broadcast segments, which have benefitted from the market recovery.

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EVS always provides a lot of detail in its earnings press release and presentations.

You can read the full EVS earnings press release here

You can see the full EVS presentation to analysts here

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Strategic Planning and Business Development Top Broadcast Technology Vendor Improvement Wish List

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 19 2010

As part of the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey, just under 800 broadcast technology hardware and software vendors were asked what they would most like to improve about their organizations.

Respondents were presented with the following list of nine issues and asked to rank which ones they would most like to change about their business. 

  • Strategic planning / vision
  • Relationship with customers
  • Business development (partnerships)
  • Engineering
  • Marketing
  • Relationship with channel partners
  • Internal communications
  • Product management
  • Sales

 

 The results are summarized in the chart below, which also provides interesting insight into the difference in attitudes and business approach of vendors of different sizes types and businesses.

Question: What would you most like to change in your organization?

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This table shows the difference in response based on size of organization, percentage of revenue derived from the broadcast industry, geographic region, company ownership structure, product mix, and finally by the role of the respondent.

Across all vendors, 42% of respondents want to change some aspect of their sales and marketing organization (sales, marketing, or business development).  An additional 13% cast their vote to change strategic planning / vision.  For all respondents, business development is ranked as the top area that vendors would most like to change about their organizations, followed by sales and strategic planning / vision, which are tied for second place.

When these results are viewed by organization size, the rankings marketing-related issues decrease as the organization size increases, so it appears that the marketing functions of larger vendors are better regarded internally than those of smaller companies.

However, as organizational size increases, different issues appear to become more problematic within broadcast technology vendors.  The top issues for improvement cited by employees of large vendors include product management, relationships with customers, and strategic planning / vision.  In large organizations, the top-ranked issue for improvement is strategic planning / vision.

From a geographic point of view, results are fairly consistent, however the top factor is different in each region.  In the Americas, the top issue is strategic planning / vision, in EMEA the top issue is business development, and in Asia the top issue is sales.  Please note that these results are based on the location of the respondent rather than the headquarters of the company in question.

Finally, there is a contrast between the small and large vendors.  Small companies are focused on improving sales and partnerships (business development) above all other issues.  Every sale is critical to small firms, and many must work through third parties such as partners and channel partners.  Larger, more established companies are less concerned with sales than with strategic vision, customer relationships, and product management.

If you work for a broadcast technology vendor, do these findings resonate with you?  Either way, let me know.  I’d interested to hear your perspective on this issue.

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