Posts Tagged ‘broadcast technology purchasing’

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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What are the Commercial Drivers for the Global Move to HDTV Operations?

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 13 2010

For the most part, large scale broadcast industry CapEx tends to be project-based.  Our most recent research into where money is being spent in the broadcast industry shows that the top two projects globally are “upgrading infrastructure for HD / 3Gbps operations” and “upgrading transmission and distribution capabilities,”  both of which are undoubtedly influenced by the move to HDTV.

As broadcasters migrate to HDTV operations much of the industry’s infrastructure is being replaced, making the move to HDTV a strong driver of broadcast industry CapEx. 

At a time when we are now several years into the HD transition, what continues to drive broadcasters to move to HDTV operations?  Are broadcasters moving to HD to for engineering reasons (e.g. delivering better image quality to viewers), or for commercial reasons (e.g. to remain competitive in the marketplace)?

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

In order to better understand the drivers behind each trend, respondents were then asked a series of questions about the one industry trend that they indicated was most commercially important to their business – e.g. respondents who indicated that the transition to HDTV operations was the trend most important to their business were asked  why this is the case. 

The results are shown in the chart below:

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Q. Why the transition to HDTV operations the most important to your business?

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On a global basis the most important overall driver for the move to HD is simply completing the job.  In many parts of the world, broadcast professionals are now in the middle of multi-year complex HD migration projects, so this should not be too surprising.  

The second and third ranking factors cited by respondents as drivers for their transition to HDTV were delivering improved picture quality to viewers and the competitive demands of the market.  More engineering-oriented drivers such as taking a technology lead and future-proofing operations were seen by most respondents as much less important.

Like all data of this type, there are of course variations based on respondent demographics.  For example:

  • the competitive demands of the market were ranked as the most important HD driver for US broadcasters, while state funded broadcasters as well as those in Asia ranked completing the job as the their top driver
  • respondents from Australia, MEA and the UK cited more technology-oriented drivers (taking a technological lead in the market and future-proofing operations) than those from other areas where HD is perhaps more mature
  • broadcasters who derive most of their income from subscription revenues cited competitive demands of the market as their top driver for migrating to HD, while both commercial and state funded broadcasters said that completing the job was most important to them

 

Despite these differences, it’s clear that the key drivers for the move to HDTV are commercially oriented.   In today’s environment, the broadcast procurement process is usually based on carefully considered commercial factors, and often as part of a major planned project

As written previously, our research shows that the top priorities for the broadcast industry in 2010 include completing the transition to HD, achieving cost savings through operational efficiencies, and generating new revenue streams.  These projects all have a strong commercial justification, and will continue to drive a large share of the industry’s CapEx.

Interestingly, these results highlight why the buzz about some new technologies such as 3D has faded over time as potential buyers begin to appreciate the commercial issues associated with their deployment.  Indeed, many of those who commented on industry trends at the IBC 2010 exhibition commented that the market has become more realistic about 3D.

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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.

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.

Purchasing Preferences of Broadcast Technology Buyers – “Best-of-Breed” or “One-Stop-Shop?

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

In previous post, I looked at the purchasing channels that are typically used by different types of buyers when broadcast technology products.   This reveled that there is considerable variation in the way broadcast technology products are purchased.

Today I am going to look at how buyers of broadcast technology products prefer to purchase – a “best-of-breed” approach (evaluating products from multiple vendors) or a “one-stop-shop” where one vendor provides a complete solution.  

There are a huge number of vendors in the broadcast technology space, and the industry’s vendor community is fragmented.  Major international trade exhibitions such as NAB and IBC often have between 1,000 and 1,500 exhibitors at their shows.

On the one hand are the many vendors who are relatively small and specialize in one or two product types.  There are also a small number of large international vendors who produce dozens of product types.

There are obvious advantages that come with the scale that large companies have achieved, but small companies often argue that their more nimble, focused approach results in superior products.

This has led to an ongoing debate within the broadcast industry about whether it’s better to buy so called “best-of-breed” solutions from a variety of suppliers, or go to one large company and buy everything from a single vendor.

There are pros and cons to each approach.  Dealing with a number of companies may indeed enable buyers to assemble a “best-of-breed” system, but this approach brings the possibility of interoperability issues and potential finger-pointing between vendors if things go wrong.  Dealing with a large “one-stop-shop” gives buyers the peace of mind that interoperability issues have been solved, that there is one phone number to call if things go wrong, and that there will be no finger pointing.

To find out what the market thinks about this issue, respondents to the 2010 BBS were asked the following question:

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

 

In an era when vendor consolidation is on the rise, it’s interesting to note that where possible, the majority of traditional broadcast technology buyers prefer to evaluate and purchase so called “best-of-breed” solutions from multiple vendors.

Broadcasters, as well as cable programmers, playout, and centers cable / satellite / IPTV operators showed the strongest preference to select best-of-breed solutions. These customers typically have large-scale operations requiring large amounts of technology products.  They also tend to have significant technical resources to evaluate and select best-of-breed solutions.

Conversely, film studios, government and educational buyers exhibited the strongest preference to purchase from a single supplier.  This reflects the fact that there are several strong dealers who cater specifically to the Hollywood studios; and it’s likely that government & educational buyers may consider local dealers and systems integrators to be single suppliers.

Once again, these results show that there is considerable variation in the broadcast technology purchasing process, based on customer category.  They also highlight the importance to vendors of developing go-to-market strategies that encompass direct sales, while at the same time developing and maintaining strong relationships with third-party players in the distribution channel.

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.

What Broadcast Buyers Are Evaluating for Purchase in 2010

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 08 2010

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

NAB 2010 is less than a week away, and as the industry prepares to gather in Las Vegas for its biggest event of the year, the question on the minds of many is what technologies are in demand by customers around the world.

In previous posts I have discussed the most important technology trends in the broadcast industry and examined where money is being spent in the broadcast industry in terms of major projects planned for the year.

These industry trends and major projects drive technology purchasing in the broadcast industry, and that’s the focus of this article — the products that are being evaluated for purchase this year by broadcast professionals.

As part of our 2010 global market study we wanted to help our readers understand what broadcast professionals around the world are shopping for this year.  We presented technology buyers with a list of relevant product categories, and asked them to indicate which product type they are currently evaluating for purchase. 

The results, which are shown in the table below, demonstrate a broad range of industry demand.

 What broadcast technology products / services are you currently evaluating for purchase? 

These responses show that production technology such as editing, ENG cameras, along with test & measurement and key audio products will be in demand around the world as broadcast professionals upgrade their facilities to HDTV operations, which was ranked #1 in terms of planned projects for the year (link to article).

The transition to file-based / tapeless workflows will be facilitated by purchases of production servers along with transcoding products, which facilitate multi-format interoperability in the file-based domain.

The new studios, OB vans and channels that are being planned will drive evaluation of a wide variety of equipment including multiviewers, servers, signal processing, routing switchers and storage.

A significant number of respondents indicated that they are currently evaluating products that increase operational efficiency and streamline working practices.  These include library / storage management, automation and workflow / asset management.

Video transport and transmission gear should also see strong demand as customers around the world seek to use improve compression efficiency, connect operations by IP links, and increase the number of channels delivered to consumers.

Keep in mind when reading this information that this table presents the responses of all global participants in the 2010 BBS, regardless of organization type, size or location; and shows the number of respondents that are evaluating products without regard to size of project or value of purchase.  Granular analysis of these results, including breakdown of data by geographic region, customer type and customer size, is available as part of the full 2010 BBS Global Market Report from Devoncroft Partners.

Published by Devoncroft Partners, the annual Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) is the largest and most comprehensive studies of broadcast industry trends and technology vendor brands.  The BBS provides insight into market trends, technology budgets, plant, equipment upgrade plans, and the perceptions of leading broadcast industry vendor brands by a wide variety of broadcast professionals across the world.  It also delivers vendor brand ranking “league tables” in a variety of product categories; all of which can be segmented by geography and customer type.  More than 5,600 people in 120+ countries participated in the 2010 BBS project. Information about the 2010 BBS can be found at www.devoncroft.com