Posts Tagged ‘broadcast industry technology trends’

When it Comes to Purchasing Broadcast Technology, Who are the Most Important Decision Makers Today? Who Will it be in the Future?

Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 11 2010

I recently wrote an article called Broadcast Industry’s Largest Market Study Reveals Most Important Technology Trends, which shows that the move towards “file-based / tapeless workflows” is one of the most important issues to broadcasters today.

But how will this shift affect how broadcast technology products are purchased, not to mention who buys them?  Traditionally these products have been purchased primarily by engineers.  Will this be the same for products that are increasingly IT-based, or will there be a new set of buyers?

Broadcast vendors need to know this because a new set of buyers may require a new market approach.

To find out we asked the nearly 800 broadcast technology vendors who responded to the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey who they feel is currently the most important decision maker in the sales process, and who they feel will be most important in 2-3 years.

 

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The Most Important Decision Makers Today

Let’s start with the most important buyers today. Respondents were asked “when selling your products / services, which category of customer is typically the most important decision maker today”

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Today, broadcast tech vendors see engineering staff as their most important customers, followed by operations, IT, and finance personnel.  Engineers are clearly seen as the most important decision makers, with operations staff a distant second.

These results are fairly consistent with vendors of all types, but as the table below shows, a look at these results in detail does highlight some variation.

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Vendor respondents based in Americas, along with those who primarily sell hardware products, currently see engineering staff as the most important technology purchasing decision makers.

Large vendors, and those that primarily sell software products, see engineers as marginally less important.  But even so most of these vendors still see engineers as their top customers today.

 

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The Most Important Decision Maker in the Future

When these same respondents were asked who they feel will be the most important decision makers in 2-3 years time, the results were different.  As the following table illustrates, broadcast technology vendors are anticipating a shift in the type of decagons maker they will be targeting in the future.

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In a fairly dramatic shift, operations staff are predicted to become the most important decision makers in the broadcast technology buying process, eclipsing engineers.  In these results, engineers fall from 48% to 31%, while operations increases from 28% to 33%.

Engineers will still be a very important part of the buying process, but vendors are predicting that the power of the engineer as decision maker will be diminished in favor of not only operations, but also IT and finance personnel.

These results are once again fairly consistent across all types of vendors, but there are some variations when one looks at the detail.

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Once again, those vendor respondents based in the Americas along with those who sell primarily hardware products, continue to view engineers as the most important decision makers in the future, albeit it at a reduced percentage versus today.

Respondents from EMEA along with those who primarily sell software, or a hardware/software mix, see engineers as much less important in the future.  Instead, these respondents view operations and IT personnel as their most important targets.

Respondents from Asia-Pacific see operations personnel as the most important decision makers, in contrast to those from the Americas where engineers are still seen as the top target.  Indeed 42% of respondents from the Asia-Pacific region see operations staff as the most important decision maker in the future (up from 31% today), while just 21% of respondents from the Americas see operations staff as most important. 

These findings are consistent with the industry trends that are most important to broadcast technology buyers, which I mentioned earlier.  As technology buyers complete their HD build-outs, their commercial focus is shifting towards achieving operational efficiencies and generating new revenue streams.  Thus operations, IT, and finance personnel will become an increasingly important part of the decision making process at broadcast technology buyers.

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

Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, 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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Quality Rankings for Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 08 2010

This is the fourth in a 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.

Recently, posts which rank broadcast technology vendors include:

 

In keeping with the theme of top 30 rankings, let’s now turn to one of the most important metrics for any technology company – quality.

In an industry that prides itself on the fidelity of its sound and images, the perception of quality is a very important metric for broadcast technology vendors.  Many vendors use quality as one of the key components of their market positioning.

To determine the market’s perception of the quality of broadcast technology vendors, respondents were asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Quality” 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.

 

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

 

As with the top 30 innovation rankings published earlier, this list contains a broad mix of vendors table including both audio and video and audio companies. 

There are also interesting similarities and differences in terms of the types of products produced, geographic location and company size (something that is not measured in the BBS and won’t be discussed further here).  So let’s look a little deeper into these results.

 

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Number of products per vendor – Single Product Companies Dominate Quality Rankings

One obvious question that should be asked when reviewing these results is how many products are produced by each vendor on this list.  This will help us to understand if whether quality comes from small focused companies, or large multi-product vendors.  

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

With 22 out of 30 vendors on this list producing a product in only one BBS category (out of 27 measured) it’s clear that focused, specialized companies are regarded as quality leaders in the eyes of the market. 

This finding reinforces a previous post called Purchasing Preferences of Broadcast Technology Buyers – “Best-of-Breed” or “One-Stop-Shop?, which shows that broadcast technology buyers overwhelmingly prefer to evaluate products from individual suppliers and create best-of-breed solutions.

Nevertheless it’s also worth pointing out that large companies can also be considered industry innovators. For example Grass Valley is covered in 10 product categories in the 2010 BBS and Avid is covered in 7 product categories. 

Please keep in mind that this is not an absolute measure of the products produced be each vendor.  In total, the 2010 BBS looked at 148 vendors in 27 separate product categories (based on the IABM’s industry model), but even so it did not necessarily cover the entire product range of all vendors.

 

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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 EMEA are the clear quality leaders, while companies based in the Americas and Asia trail the pack. 

In terms of individual countries, the Germany and the USA are tied with 11 companies each on the Top 30 Quality Rankings.  Japan, the UK, Finland and Belgium round out the rest of the countries where the quality leaders are headquartered.  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 quality list for the 2010 BBS.

Out of the 27 product categories covered in the 2010 BBS, 23 appear on this list; showing that quality is widespread across the broadcast industry.

Audio products lead the list of products produced by the top 30 quality leaders, with microphones, audio consoles and audio monitors topping the rankings.

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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Innovation Rankings for Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jun 16 2010

This is the third in a 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. 

Recently, I discussed how respondents to the 2010 BBS ranked The Top 30 Broadcast Technology Vendor Brands by Overall Opinion, Ranked, Globally and Regionally, and followed up with a ranking of the Top 30 Broadcast Vendor Brands by Net Change in Brand Image. 

In keeping with the theme of top 30 rankings, let’s now turn to one of the most important metrics for any technology company – innovation. 

The product side of the film & broadcast industry is driven by technology and innovation.  All vendors strive to create techniques that will make their products stand out from the competition.  Thus innovation is a very important component of the brand image and reputation of vendors in this space. 

To find out which broadcast technology vendors are considered to be most highly regarded in terms of innovation, more than 4,000 broadcast industry professionals were  asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Innovation” 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. 

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

Innovation — The top 30 broadcast technology brands, listed alphabetically (global sample of all respondents) 

There’s a broad mix of vendors included in the above table including both audio and video and audio companies.  There are also interesting similarities and differences in terms of the types of products produced, geographic location and company size (something that is not measured in the BBS and won’t be discussed further here)..  So let’s look a little deeper into these results. 

 

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Number of products per vendor 

One obvious question that should be asked when reviewing these results is how many products are produced by each vendor on this list.  This will help us to understand if whether innovation comes from small focused companies, or large multi-product vendors.    

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

 

It’s interesting to note that vendors producing just one product account for more than half of the vendors in the top 30 innovation list.  This suggests that focused companies who apply their efforts to specialist product areas are often able to generate more innovation in the eyes of the market.  

Nevertheless it’s also worth pointing out that large companies can also be considered industry innovators. For example Grass Valley is covered in 10 product categories in the 2010 BBS and Avid is covered in 7 product categories.  These are examples of large companies who have managed to remain instill innovation across their product lines. 

Please keep in mind that this is not an absolute measure of the products produced be each vendor.  In total, the 2010 BBS looked at 148 vendors in 27 separate product categories (based on the IABM’s industry model), but even so it did not necessarily cover the entire product range of all vendors. 

 

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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 EMEA just edged out those based in North America on the top 20 innovation list, while companies based in Asia trailed the pack.  

 

This is not surprising since this broadly reflects where the companies on the overall list are based.  

In terms of individual countries, the USA leads the way with 10 companies on the list of the 30 top innovators, with Germany close behind with 6 vendors on the list. 

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 innovation list for the 2010 BBS:

Out of the 27 product categories covered in the 2010 BBS, 23 appear on this list; showing that innovation is widespread across the broadcast industry.

Signal processing, studio cameras and video editing lead the list of products produced by the top 30 innovation leaders.

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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. 

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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Two Investment Banks Offer Post-NAB Thoughts, Insight on Broadcast Industry

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
May 18 2010

Two boutique investment banks, Silverwood Partners and Pharus Advisors have recently published notes to clients detailing their impressions of the NAB 2010 show.  Both companies gave me permission to re-publish them here.

 

Silverwood has been involved in a number of broadcast M&A deals including Blackmagic / DaVinci and Avid / Euphonix. Prior to the 2010 NAB show the company published a 40 page report about the broadcast industry for their investment banking clients, which is worth reading to get their full perspective on the broadcast market.  

Pharus has also been involved in a number of industry transactions including Neural Audio / DTS and Virgin Media / Two Way Media. The company published their post-NAB thoughts in their industry newsletter, which also includes a summary of recent M&A transactions in the digital media space, and a comparison of publicly traded companies.

 

 

Silverwood NAB Perspectives:

Revenue Flow versus Work Flow.  Broadcast and media customers are principally focused on sustaining advertising revenue from traditional outlets and driving incremental revenue over emerging outlets. The focus over recent years on cost containment through automation and technology efficiencies has been eclipsed by the need to adapt technology infrastructure to a changing business model.  The Newspaper industry provides an instructive lesson on the need to be responsive to external challenges to traditional business norms.  Technology vendors are faced with customers that have shifting purchasing priorities and that are scrutinizing expenditures on conventional broadcast infrastructure.

 

3D will not Reverse Industry Revenue Decline.  While 3D may drive some additional short term revenue, widespread adoption is still in question because certain content will never lend itself to the 3D medium.  Furthermore, with the exception of large screen environments showing purpose produced content (Avatar, Alice in Wonderland), the current 3D experience requires additional improvement.  There are no clear standards for end user devices (TVs and glasses) so mass end-consumer device adoption – if it is to occur – will take time.  Consider that the ongoing HD transition began with the first HDTV broadcast in 1998 and is still only 40% complete in the US market.  Lastly, production methods themselves must also adapt to the creation of 3D content – there is no consistency in the content acquisition process, much of which is based on trial and error and research.  3D requires a new approach in the creative production process as fast switching and cuts can prove to be nauseating to the viewer.  There are also concerns that poorly produced 3D will lead to negative customer perceptions in the near term which will slow adoption and the long term success of the medium.

 

Pricing is Collapsing.  Years of substantial profitability for media and broadcast customers masked poor cost discipline in the sourcing of technology.   Recent weakness in the advertising market and the broader economic disruption has caused customers to focus on capital budgets and look for more cost effective solutions.  Compounding this challenge, inexpensive general purpose IT infrastructure continues to replace purpose built hardware solutions, creating good enough solutions at attractive prices for many use cases.  This is putting pressure on margins for many traditional Broadcast technology vendors who organized their cost structures for the high price, ‘boom’ years and cannot adapt quickly enough to the changed industry circumstances.

 

Value Separation: Software, Hardware, Connectivity.  Historically, broadcast and post-production customers purchased purpose built solutions where the discrete software, hardware and connectivity components were blended within a hardware solution.  As the hardware portion becomes increasingly standardized, vendors will need to focus on defensible segments of the value chain, particularly within the software layer.  In many cases specialized hardware vendors are effectively software companies burdened with a legacy hardware orientation.  It is expected that vendors will need transformative change rather than evolutionary adaptation to address the fundamental changes in the media technology industry. 

 

Growing Software Opportunity.  It is expected that software companies will continue to be a growing presence in the media technology industry.  Differentiation from IT solutions for incumbent vendors resides in the software layer.  Well-positioned companies have software solutions that extend and leverage basic IT functionality, which will continue to improve in speed and capability.  From a product perspective, technology vendors should examine their product portfolios to identify and extract the unique software functionality that is truly differentiating their offerings.  In addition, the increasing use of standardized IT platform technology is creating a growing market for software vendors that can use the standardization to scale efficiently. 

 

Commercial Opportunity: Customer Diversification.  Well-positioned companies are diversifying and selling to a broader customer base, particularly customers outside the traditional broadcast market.   Targeting other industry verticals is not feasible with a customized hardware solution and an industry focused direct sales model.  In contrast, software solutions that extend standardized hardware and that are deployed through VARs and channel partners can be more easily adapted to large, adjacent industry verticals (Medical, Military, Enterprise).

 

Business Model Disruption.   For NAB exhibitors there remains fundamental weakness in the traditional broadcast technology industry.  The reduction in industry revenues will highlight one of the principal difficulties for many NAB exhibitors: sales and marketing expense is too high for revenue levels.  With pricing pressure, many vendors will need to change to a distribution model or become part of a larger solution that can support the fixed sales expense.   Well-positioned, well-capitalized vendors will have a unique opportunity to acquire established, respected brands with large user bases over the coming year.

 

Service Opportunity – Revenue Flow.  Broadcasters and media companies are faced with a proliferation of technologies and monetization possibilities, and an accelerating rate of technology change.  Historically, broadcasting challenges were solved by buying incremental technologies to plug into an existing well-understood technology infrastructure.  Current business challenges require business model innovation coupled with technology platform innovation to drive revenues across a growing range of end-point devices and outlets.  Given the lack of clarity on the optimal revenue model and the rapid pace of technology change, broadcasters and media customers are reluctant to invest in standalone technology purchases.  This is creating an attractive service opportunity driven by the ability to provide incremental revenue growth with a low barrier to entry, a receptive customer and an attractive ROI.

 

 

 

 

PHARUS ADVISORS

PUBLIC MARKET AND M&A UPDATE ON MEDIA AND BROADCAST TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

NAB OVERVIEW

We recently attended the NAB 2010 conference in Las Vegas. We came out of the conference feeling the media and broadcast technology market is experiencing a healthy recovery from 2009. The recurring comment echoed by many industry players was that the deals in the customer pipeline that were stalled in 2009 are now morphing into real opportunities. The RFP activity is showing decent improvement, however, the sales‐cycle continues to be long and spending not completely flowing.

Even though the network spending in North America, which was driven by conversion to HDTV over last few years, is slowing, other factors like changes in customer preferences, and pressure to generate new sources of revenues and reduce costs are expected to continue to drive technology capital expenditure for networks. These new developments are adding new dynamism to the sector, which can be witnessed by the plethora of vendors and solutions.

Here are some of prominent themes that we witnessed at the NAB show this year.

  • Emergence of 3D television broadcasting: As expected, this was the major theme at NAB similar to what was the case at CES earlier this year. TV manufacturers continue to be enthusiastic about this trend. CES expects 4.3 million 3D TV sets to be sold in 2010, with about 25% of total TVs sold in 2013 to be 3D‐enabled. Even though some major players (like DIRECTV, Discovery, IMAX, and etc.) have made announcements over last few months about launching 3D content, a lot of the content producers and broadcasters are still not sure about how quickly this market opportunity will grow in the near term. As a result, they tend to be reticent to make investment in this area at this point.

 

  • Development of multi‐platform content distribution (broadcast, web and mobile) capability: The spending on TV advertising is gradually declining. According to Yankee Group, the TV ad market declined 21.2%, from $52 billion to $41 billion, between 2008 and 2009. During this same period spending on Internet advertising grew as a result of consumers spending more time online and less time watching TV. With more and more eyeballs consuming video content on Web and mobile devices, broadcasters are investing in technologies which enable delivery of content over multitude of platforms.

 

  • Adoption of file‐based workflows: One of the important areas of investment for broadcasters remains implementation of file‐based workflow infrastructure. This is viewed as important by broadcasters to augment flexibility in day‐to‐day operations, facilitate reduction in operational costs, and enable efficient multi‐platform content distribution.

 

Emergence of Over‐the‐Top (OTT) Video and convergence of TV and Internet: The other recurring trend at the show was the focus on growing convergence between broadcast TV and Web video. Internet users are increasingly interested in streaming full length video directly onto their TVs and as a result variety of models are appearing to provide consumers with this capability. According to report by Tender Research from October 2009, about 7% of households will forgo Pay TV subscriptions by 2012 in favor of OTT services and free over‐the‐air television. OTT market is moving very fast with proliferation of enabling devices like Roku, Xbox, and a range of new HDTV models and growth of online video sites such as Hulu, Netflix,

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What factors most influence the purchase of broadcast technology products?

Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
May 17 2010

This is the third in a series of posts about how broadcast technology products are purchased.

Previously I have looked the purchasing channels typically used by different types of broadcast technology buyers, as well as whether these buyers prefer a best of breed or one-stop-shop approach when sourcing broadcast technology products.  The information in these posts reveals that there is considerable variation in the way different types of buyers purchase broadcast technology products.

Regardless of “how” broadcast technology products are purchased, what many in the industry want to know is “why” they are bought — i.e. what are the most important factors that influence the decision to buy one product over another.

When it comes to selling broadcast technology, there are several strategies that vendors have adopted.  This includes positioning their offerings as having the best technology, the best feature set, the lowest cost, the best value, the best service, the most recommended etc.

But which factor is the most important to the most buyers?

To find out we asked several thousand broadcast professionals around the world what is most important to them when buying broadcast technology products.  The results are shown in the chart below.

Question: When purchasing / evaluating broadcast technology products, which of the following are the most important factor?

These results show that in a highly technical business like the broadcast industry, when it comes to purchasing broadcast hardware and software products, technical specification and technical performance is the most important factor for the majority of today’s buyers.

In fact, technical performance in the broadcast industry is so critical, that at least three times more respondents cited technical performance / specification than the next most important factor.  It looks like in this case “the only race is for second place.” 

Having said that, other factors such as operational features, service and support, total cost of ownership, and purchase price are also seen as very important criteria for product purchase. 

The challenge for vendors is to deliver sufficient technical performance that is “fit-for-purpose” for the customer’s application and then work to differentiate their offering through the factors that are seen as most important to each type of customer.

They key to this is understanding how these results can vary when broken out by demographic factors such as organization type, company size, job title, and kind of product that is being evaluated for purchase.  Indeed a granular breakdown of this information shows that there may be considerable variation in purchase criteria based on a number of these factors.

If you would like more information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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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Brief Thoughts on NAB 2010

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 20 2010

Like thousands of others (some of whom are still there because of the Icelandic volcano), I spent last week at the NAB show in Las Vegas.  The events of the show have been well covered elsewhere, so this is just a short note on my impressions of the show.

After a week in Las Vegas and more than 40 meetings with vendors, bankers and broadcasters, my take-away from NAB was not about any one technology, company or product. Instead it was the general feeling that the tide has turned, and that things in the industry are starting to improve. 

Most vendors conceded that 2009 was less than stellar, but several companies such as Pilat Media, Ross Video, and Utah Scientific reported that they saw growth and made money in 2009. 

The question is whether 2010 will be better for the industry as a whole.  Many vendors I spoke to at NAB reported many projects did not go away, they just “moved to the right”, and that some projects which had been shelved are now back on the table.    In an industry where major projects drive product purchase, this is reassuring news for the battered supplier community.

Prior to NAB, and at many of the booths and press conferences during the show, the majority of attention seemed to be focused on 3D.  Yes there was a lot of 3D at the show, but as reported by Ken Kerschbaumer at the Sports Video Group, It Wasn’t All About 3D (Seriously!) As Exhibitors See Bounce in 2D Business.

As I have said previously, I am skeptical about 3D at least for the near term. Despite the hype, it’s just not that important commercially to most broadcast professionals.  My recent global study of the broadcast market found that the most important industry trends in the broadcast industry are about completing what’s already been started (transition to HDTV operations), cutting costs while creating efficiencies (file based / tapeless workflows), and creating new revenue streams (multi-platform content distribution).  If you look at the 2010 Global Broadcast Trend Index, you’ll see that 3D is near the bottom in terms of commercial important to broadcast professionals.

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2010 Broadcast Technology Market Research — Another Record Breaker

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

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

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

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

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

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

Available Reports Derived from 2010 BBS Data:

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

For information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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