Posts Tagged ‘broadcast industry technology trends’

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 5 – The 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, technology trends, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 01 2011

This is the eighth 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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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 vendor to understand its position in the market relative to the the industry as a whole as well as their company’s direct competitors.

In previous articles we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table, the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table, and 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table.

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This post follows on from the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, by focusing on 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, and customers often use technical performance and quality as a part of their procurement strategies.

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 in the study.

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The 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table

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As with previously published rankings, this list contains a broad mix of vendors including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

In order to better understand what drives the perception of quality in the broadcast technology industry, let’s look deeper at the vendors on this list, beginning with the type of products produced by each vendor.

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Frequency of Product Category – Audio Takes 4 of Top 7 Spots

What about the product categories themselves?  Are some product categories inherently perceived as having higher quality?  If so are these products judged differently than other types of products by customers who are evaluating them for purchase?

As shown in the chart below, there is a very broad range of product categories included in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table – vendors that make products in 23 of the 26 product categories that were covered in the study.

However, when one looks at the frequency of the product categories produced by these vendors, it’s immediately apparent that the top categories are audio products.

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2011 BBS Quality League Table — Frequency of Product Categories:

 

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The top two products categories for quality are both from the audio side of the business – microphones and audio consoles.  In fact, four of the top seven product categories in this ranking are audio related, with only highly complex video products — video editing, camera lenses and ENG cameras — being included in this group.  This is an interesting data point, especially when one considers that out of 26 product categories covered in the 2011 BBS, only five were in the audio space.

The other product categories that appear multiple times are clustered in the live production and studio environments, and include camera lenses, studio cameras, production switchers, production servers, test and measurement and video transport.  Interestingly these products tend to be high ticket items that are produced by the industry’s larger vendors.

Since the industry’s largest vendors tend to operate in the most product categories, let’s evaluate the number of times each vendor appears in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table to see if there is a correlation between size of vendor / product range and the market’s perception of quality.

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

When considering what drives the perception of quality, one question to consider is which type of vendor appears more often in the above ranking – those that are focused on a single type of product, or large multi-product vendors.

While our research does not evaluate each product produced by every vendor, we do put vendors into categories based on their product lines.  This gives a good representation of whether a particular vendor has a narrow or broad product-line-up.

The table below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories produced by each brand (as defined by the segmentation used in the 2011 BBS).

 

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As shown above, the vast majority of the companies in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table provide products in just one of the product categories we measured as part of the study.

Please note that this is not a measure of company size, but rather a measure of how many product categories each of the above vendors was included in for the 2011 BBS. For example some of the “single product category companies” on the above list — such as Adobe, Dolby and Shure – are quite large.

Yet with 21 out of 30 vendors on this list producing a product in only one 2011 BBS category (out of 26 measured) it appears that that focused, specialized companies are regarded as quality leaders in the eyes of the market.  Nevertheless it’s also worth pointing out that large companies can also be considered industry innovators. For example, in the 2011 BBS study, Avid is covered in seven product categories, Snell is covered in five product categories, Sony is covered in four product categories and EVS appears three times.

To further illustrate this point, the chart below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories per vendor in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table.

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

A breakdown of how many product categories are produced by each vendor in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table is shown below:

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With more than two-thirds of the vendors in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table producing a product in just one 2011 BBS product category, this table clearly suggests that focused companies who apply their efforts to specialist product areas are often able to generate a higher perception of quality in the eyes of the market.

Of course, companies are listed here based on how many 2011 BBS product categories they produce, which is not an absolute measure of the products produced be each vendor. There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 2011 BBS category. In total, the 2011 BBS looked at 118 vendors in 26 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.

Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data in these charts is 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.

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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.

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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 4 – the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table

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

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

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, content delivery, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 07 2011

 

This is the third 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 previous articles, I’ve written about the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which shows the most important trends in the broadcast industry for 2011.  As a follow-up I wrote about how the commercial importance of these trends has changed over time.

Tracking broadcast industry trends is important because it provides insight into which areas are receiving the most attention from technology buyers.  However, it’s important to note that industry trends are a reflection of what customers are thinking and talking about, not necessarily where they are spending money today.

Indeed, the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index includes a mix of current and future commercial priorities, some of which broadcasters have not yet determined how to implement. Thus, while trends are important they do not necessarily translate into where broadcast technology buyers will be spending their budgets in 2011 and 2012. 

Technology spending in the broadcast industry tends to be project-based. Projects might include international elections and sporting championships, to the long-term planned capital upgrades of broadcast infrastructure and facilities.  Thus, an understanding of the major projects being implemented by broadcaster professionals around the world provides useful insight into the capital expenditure plans of the industry.

We presented broadcast professionals with a list of major projects and asked them to indicate which ones they are currently implementing or have planned / budgeted to implement in the next year.  Their responses were then used to create the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index, which is shown below. 

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One look at the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index illustrates the difference between what people are thinking and talking about (trends), and where they are planning to spend their budgets (projects). Although “multi-platform content delivery” dominated the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, the corresponding project “distribute and monetize content on multiple distribution platforms,” ranked #9 out of 15 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index.

By a significant margin, more broadcast technology buyers said that they are budgeting for “upgrading infrastructure for HD/ 3Gbps operations” than any other project.  Upgrading infrastructure for HD / 3Gbps operations was also the dominant planned project in the 2010 BBS. 

This project correlates directly with “transition to HDTV operations,” which was ranked #2 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.

The projects ranked 3rd, 5th and 6th – upgrading transmission & distribution capabilities; building new studios / OB vans; and launching new channels – are also related to the transition to HDTV operations, as these transmission upgrades, new studios, and new channels will almost certainly be at least HD capable, if not fully HD.

Many of the other top ranked projects are related to the file-based / tapeless workflow, which ranked #3 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. For example, many respondents indicated that they planning workflow / asset-management; archive-related; and automation projects.

The rest of the list offers a mixed picture of project activity across the world, and includes everything from upgrading audio and newsrooms to multi-platform distribution being chosen in large numbers. 

As mentioned earlier, multi-platform content delivery ranked #9 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index.  Despite the importance to organizations of monetizing content on multiple distribution platforms, it appears many broadcast professionals have not solidified their business plans in this area.  This likely means that there will be significant opportunities in the future for broadcast technology vendors who offer a suite of products for multi-platform content delivery.  The current excitement surrounding OTT video, connected TV, and mobile DTV is evidence of this, but these initiatives represent a relatively small proportion of the money being spent on broadcasting technology in 2011.

Interestingly, despite the fact that they may have the potential to deliver increased efficiencies and new revenue streams, there are several major projects that appear towards the bottom of this list. The two most obvious instances are the low ranking of “consolidate operations in regional hubs (centralcasting), and “outsourced operations (playout),” which are the bottom two projects on this list. This is because although these are high value projects, they will be undertaken by a relatively small number of organizations — i.e. large broadcasters.  This highlights that the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index is a graphic representation of the number of all planned projects across all respondents, regardless of organization type, size, or location.  It does not measure size, value, or relative commercial importance of planned projects.  Please keep this in mind when reading this information and interpreting these findings.

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

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

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | 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 industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | 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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