Posts Tagged ‘centralized broadcast operations’

Analyzing Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry – The 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 08 2012

This is the third in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2012 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2012 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

 

In a previous post, I discussed The 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which shows which industry trends are most commercially important to the global sample of 2012 BBS respondents. 

Like any list of trends, this list includes a mix of current and future commercial priorities, some of which are being done today on a wide scale, some of which are in a trial phase, and others which have not yet been widely implemented.

By a wide margin, the top trend in the 2012 Trend Index is “multi-platform content delivery.”  Other important trends include the transition to file-based workflows, the transition to HDTV operations, and IP networking and content delivery.

Tracking broadcast industry trends and their evolution is useful because this shows what customers are discussing and thinking about implementing in the future.  However, a high ranking in an industry trend Index does not necessarily mean that this is where customers are spending their technology budgets in 2012 and 2013. 

Thus, it’s important to make a clear distinction between what broadcast customers are thinking and talking about in the future (industry trends), and where they are spending their technology budgets today.

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.

Projects represent where broadcast technology budgets are being spent today, not just what people are talking about doing in the future. 

In order to better understand this dynamic, were presented broadcast professionals with a list of major projects and asked them to indicate which ones they are currently implementing or are planning / budgeting to implement within the next year.  Their responses were then used to create the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index, which is shown below. 

 

 

When compared to The 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which can be found here, The 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index illustrates where broadcast technology budgets are being spent today.

Our research shows that the difference between what people are thinking and talking about (trends), and where they are planning to spend their budgets (projects) can be quite dramatic.

For example although “multi-platform content delivery” dominated the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, the corresponding project “distribute and monetize content on multiple distribution platforms,” ranked #9 out of 17 in the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index.

In terms of where money is being spent in the broadcast industry today, more broadcast technology buyers cited “upgrading infrastructure for HD/ 3Gbps operations” than any other project.  This project correlates directly with “transition to HDTV operations,” which was ranked #3 in the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.

Although the transition to HDTV operations is certainly not new, it remains one of the key drivers of broadcast technology spending in 2012 and 2013.  Even as a small number of broadcasters announce that they are close to completing their decade-long transition to HDTV, many broadcasters are still in the early stages of the move to HD.  This is especially true in emerging economies where there is still a great deal of both standard definition and analog infrastructure. 

On a global basis, the transition to HDTV has consistently been the top driver of broadcast technology spending for the past several years — it was also the top project last year in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index – and it appears that this will be the case for the foreseeable future.

Significantly, the move to HDTV is represented in multiple places in the Project Index.  The projects ranked #3, #5, #7, and #10 – upgrading transmission & distribution capabilities; building new studios / OB vans; launching new channels; and upgrading newsroom operations – are also related to the transition to HDTV operations, as these transmission upgrades, new studios, new channels, and upgraded news environments will almost certainly be at least HD capable, if not fully HD.

Coming in as the #2 ranked project on this Index is “Install or enhance workflow / asset management system.”  It also achieved the #2 rank in 2011, but was much further behind the transition to HDTV in terms of overall importance to broadcast customers.

Although asset management is a relatively small and specialized market, it has become increasingly important over the past several years as broadcast customers move to file-based workflows and plan for multi-platform content delivery.  The take-away here appears to be that once a broadcaster has made the transition to file-based workflows, the strategic emphasis shifts to finding, deploying, and monetizing content in the most efficient way possible.  Thus asset and workflow management are likely to become increasingly important as customers move to business models focused on multi-platform content delivery, and driven by sophisticated IT-based systems.

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 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index.  It also was ranked #9 in 2011. 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 and connected TV is evidence of this, but this is still a small proportion of the money being spent on broadcasting technology in 2012.

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 2012 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.

 

All data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2012 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 2012 BBS Global Market Report. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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Related Content:

The 2012 Big Broadcast Survey – Information and available reports

The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

Tracking the Evolution of Broadcast Industry Trends 2009 – 2012

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

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 © Devoncroft Partners. All Rights Reserved.

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Tracking the Evolution of Broadcast Industry Trends 2009 – 2012

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, content delivery, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 09 2012

This is the second in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2012 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2012 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

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In a recent post about broadcast industry trends, we published the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which shows the most important trends in the broadcast industry for 2012. 

This article looks at how trends have changed over time, and more specifically what trends became more important or less important in 2012 versus 2011.

Our view is that industry trends drive capital projects, which in turn drives technology budgets, which in turn drives product purchase.  In other words, what technology buyers say is commercially important to their business in the future (i.e. trends) will likely turn into what they are budgeting for tomorrow (i.e. projects).

Therefore it’s useful to review how the relative importance of broadcast industry trends has changed over time, because it provides a preview of where technology purchases will be made in the future. 

 

  • 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 index) and the transition to HDTV operations

 

  • In 2011 multi-platform content delivery became the dominant trend, where it remains in 2012

 


The chart below shows a comparison of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index from 2011 and 2012. 

 

 

This chart shows that multi-platform content delivery continues to increase in overall importance relative to other trends in the broadcast industry.  Other net gainers in 2012 versus 2011 include file-based / tapeless workflows, the move to automated workflows, video-on-demand and improvements video compression efficiencies; all of which show year-over year increases in the Index ranking.

Both transition to HDTV operations and IP networking & content delivery declined in the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, but stayed in the top four (where they have been since the inception of the Index in 2009).  Other notable decliners in 2012 versus 2011 were “transition to 3Gbps operations”, and “3D,” which saw the largest year-over-year decline on a percentage basis.

It should also be noted that the relatively strong showing of “cloud computing / cloud-based services” which was added to the Index in 2012, undoubtedly had a cannibalizing impact on these results.


To provide additional context on how the importance of technology trends in the broadcast industry changes over time, we have included a comparison of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index from 2010 – 2012.

 

 

When reading this chart, please bear in mind that in each of the previous two years, one additional trend was added to the Index.  In 2011, analog switch-off was added.  In 2012 cloud computing / cloud-based services was added. 

New trends are added when appropriate (and based on stakeholder feedback), in order to keep the Index current and relevant to the needs of users.  However as discussed in a previous section, this can make it more difficult to perform year-over-year data analysis.  Thus we are providing as much information as possible in this report in order to enable readers to undertake an informed analysis.

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Changes in Numerical Ranking in the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

As shown below, there were some interesting changes in the numerical ranking of the trends covered in the 2012 Index.  The first column in the table below shows how trends were ranked in 2012. The number in parentheses to the right of each trend shows how it ranked in the 2011 BBS Index. Although there were no changes at the top and bottom of the 2012 Index versus the 2011 Index, there was movement in between.

 

 

Several trends were ranked more highly in 2012 than in 2011.  For example the transition to file-based / tapeless workflows moved up one spot to the #2 ranking (eclipsing the transition to HDTV operations for the first time in the Index), and the move to automated workflows also moved up.  

The combination of the strength of multi-platform content delivery, the strong showing of cloud computing, and the increasing importance of file-based workflows and automated operations has significant implications.  Broadcast technology buyers are clearly focused on creating efficiencies wherever possible, while at the same time working to generate new revenue streams through multi-screen offerings.

A number of trends dropped in the Index versus previous years, the most notable being 3D which had the largest year-over-year percentage drop.

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 2012.  However the addition of cloud computing, which ranked #7 in the Index dropped each of these trends down one position.

 

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:

 

 

For the most part, the trends that moved up in the rankings in 2012 were also seen as more important commercially versus the previous year. 

The common theme among the items on the left side of the above chart is that they all have to do with creating new revenue streams, or cutting costs through greater efficiencies.  Analog switch-off is perhaps the odd one out here, but given that these projects are mandated by governments, they become increasingly important where relevant until the time that these projects have ended.

The items on the right of the above chart are a mixed bag.  As a generalization it’s safe to say that that many of these trends involve spending rather than saving money.  Given that much of the industry is still recovering from recession, extra spending is not a popular choice in the current business environment.

 

Why Tracking Movement of Trends is Important

It is important to note that there is a difference between recognizing that a trend is commercially important and having a business plan in place that capitalizes on that trend.  As stated previously, our view is that industry trends drive capital projects, which in turn drive technology budgets, which in turn drive product purchase.  In other words, what technology buyers say is commercially important to their business in the future (i.e. trends) will likely turn into what they are budgeting for tomorrow (i.e. projects).

For example, the 2012 BBS Trend Index shows that monetizing content on multiple platforms is clearly a key objective for broadcast professionals in the year ahead, yet many players, particularly on the content side, are still experimenting with their business models. At some point these trends will drive capital projects.  When that happens they will become major drivers of technology spending in the broadcast industry. 

We will review what major capital projects are being planned this year in the broadcast industry in a subsequent article.

 

Keep in mind when reading this information that all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2012 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 2012 BBS Global Market Report. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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Related Content:

The 2012 Big Broadcast Survey – Information and available reports

The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

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 © Devoncroft Partners. All Rights Reserved.

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Largest-Ever Study of Broadcast Market Reveals Top Industry Trends of 2012

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 05 2012

This is the first in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2012 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2012 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

 

The 2012 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).  Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries participated in the 2012 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.

 

Changes to the Trends Measured In 2012

This is the fourth annual BBS study, and a lot has changed in the broadcast industry since we started in 2009.   In order to ensure that the trends we measure in the BBS are the most relevant to the industry we spend a consider amount of time each year seeking feedback about the structure of our reports from a wide variety of industry professionals including broadcasters, broadcast service providers, technology vendors and consultants.

Based on industry feedback, we added a 16th trend to our list this year: “cloud computing / cloud services.”  In 2011, we added “analog switch-off.”

Adding extra trends to the list we measure enables us to make sure that we are keeping our market studies up to date by tracking the most relevant issues facing the industry.

The trade-off is that by adding a new list to the trends we measure makes it more difficult to do a year-over-year comparison of these trends and how they have changed in priority over time.  Nevertheless we felt that the increasing importance of cloud-based technologies, services and business models was such that it warranted inclusion in our 2012 study.  Please note that the addition of cloud computing / cloud services likely “cannibalized” a small percentage of responses from other trends in this year’s ranking.

 

The Top Broadcast Industry Trends in 2012

To create the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 16 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.”

In order to create the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, we then apply a statistical weighting to these results, which is based on the commercial importance of each trend we measure.

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 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. Please note that this chart shows a weighted index, not measure the number of people that said which trend was most important to them.  Also please note that this chart measures the responses all non-vendors who participated in the 2012 BBS, regardless of company type, company size, geographic location, job title etc.  Thus the responses of any demographic group such as a particular company type or geographic location may vary widely from the results presented in this article.

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In 2012, multi-platform content delivery is clearly the dominant trend as broadcasters and content owners continue to refine their business models for the generation of new revenue streams through the monetization of video and audio assets. At the same time, technology vendors are continuing to develop solutions to repurpose content for optimal performance on any platform, and to run targeted ads alongside that content.

It’s interesting to note that since the first BBS was published in 2009, “multi-platform content delivery,” “transition to HDTV operations,” file-based / tapeless workflows,” and “IP networking and content delivery” have been at the top of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trends Index.  However their relative position has shifted dramatically, with  “multi-platform content delivery” becoming increasingly important over the past four years (it was the number four trend in 2009, well behind that year’s top trend: transition to HDTV operations).

Although multi-platform content delivery is the headline in 2012, there are quite a few other interesting things to consider in the above chart.

For a number of years the transition to file-based workflows and the transition to HDTV operations have been major revenue drivers in the broadcast industry, and it appears that this will continue to be the case in 2012.  While there’s no doubt that these trends have been increasingly eclipsed by multi-platform content delivery, the key question is whether this translates into decreased capital expenditure for these projects.

We provide significant coverage of the global transition to file-based workflows and HDTV operations in the 2012 BBS Global Market Report (a paid for 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.

While on the topic of file-based workflows and the HD transition, it’s interesting to note that 2012 is the first year that the transition to file-based workflows has ranked higher than the transition to HDTV operations.   This is presumably due to the fact that many broadcasters have a firm grasp on their transition to HDTV – they understand what’s needed and how to achieve a smooth transition even if they have not made the move to HD yet.  This and the strong showing of “IP networking & content delivery” show that broadcast technology buyers continue to look for efficiencies as they transition to new technical platforms and business models.  The desire for broadcast technology buyers to gain operational efficiencies will likely continue to be a strong macro driver in 2012, 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.  For example the trend “move to automated workflows” ranked higher in 2012 than in previous years, further supporting the thesis that efficiency is an increasing priority for broadcast technology buyers.   We have recently completed several research projects for the IABM (the trade group that represents media technology suppliers worldwide), which provide more information on this topic.  These reports are available to IABM member companies through the IABM’s market intelligence portal as a benefit of IABM membership (disclaimer: I have a commercial relationship with the IABM).

As mentioned previously, “cloud computing / cloud based services” was added to the list of trends we measured in 2012.  It seems that you can’t read anything about technology these days (broadcast or otherwise) without coming across some mention of “the cloud.”  So it’s interesting to note that cloud technology is ranked #7 in the 2012 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trends Index.  Why is something so important to so many people in the middle of the pack?  This is probably because there is still a lack of understanding widespread understanding about exactly how the cloud will impact the business models of broadcast technology buyers.  Nevertheless, it has made a strong showing this year, ahead of another previously much-hyped technology, 3D, which ranked #8 in 2011 and fell to #10 in 2012.

The rankings “improvements in video compression efficiency” and “video-on-demand” were static versus the previous year, while targeted advertising and 3D dropped several places each versus the previous year.

As with previous years, the bottom four trends were: “transition to 3Gbps operations”, “transition to 5.1 channel audio”, “outsourced operations” and “green initiatives”.

We’ll take a more in-depth look at the year-over-year changes in a subsequent post.

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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 2012 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 2012 BBS Global Market Report. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

 

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Related Content:

The 2012 Big Broadcast Survey – Information and available reports

The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

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© Devoncroft Partners. 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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Broadcast Industry’s Largest Market Study Reveals Most Important Technology Trends

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 17 2010

This is the first 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.

This article looks at how respondents ranked a variety of technology trends in terms of importance to their business.

 

To determine the most important technology trends in the broadcast industry, respondents were presented with a list of 14 trends and asked to choose which is the “most important,” “second most important” and “also very important” to their business. Respondents could choose only one trend as “most important” and “second most important”, but were able to choose as many as they liked for “also very important”.  Note that this question specifically asks which trend is most important to their company’s business, rather than which is the most exciting technically or is currently generating the most industry “buzz”  in order to gain insight into the commercial drivers behind the respondent’s answer. 

This article presents the answers to this question in two ways – as a global trends index, and by the percentage of respondents who indicated the importance of each trend to their business.

The 2010 BBS Global Trend Index

To create an industry index of trends, the responses to this question were then weighted based on the importance of each trend to the business of the respondents.  Responses that were ranked “most important” were multiplied by 5, responses ranked “second most important” were multiplied by 3 and those deemed “also very important” were multiplied by 1.

The table below shows the industry trend importance index.  Please note that in all cases, the charts and tables in this article show the responses from technology buyers (i.e. non-vendors).

The top three trends (by a good margin) in the 2010 BBS Global Trend Index are multi-platform content delivery, file-based / tapeless workflows, and the transition to HDTV operations.  

The top ranking of multi-platform content delivery in this year’s study is a strong move up from last year’s study where it placed 4th in terms of importance.  In 2009 the top three trends were transition to HDTV operation, tapeless workflows and IP content delivery.

The 2010 BBS Global Trend Index show that the broadcast industry in 2010 is focused on generating new revenue streams (through multi-platform content delivery) and achieving cost savings through operational efficiencies (through file-based / tapeless workflows).  At the same time however, it’s clear that the industry intends to finish what it started by continuing its transition to HDTV operations (the top trend in 2009). 

The trends that rank #4 through #9 on this year’s Global Trend Index all share similar characteristics with the top three trends.  Namely creating efficiencies (e.g. IP networking & content delivery and the move to automated workflows); reducing cost (e.g. centralized operations); and generating new sources of revenue (e.g. VOD and targeted advertising).

Technology-oriented trends (those that require capital expenditure) such as 3DTV and the transition to 3Gbps operations, which are considered to be hot topics in the run up to NAB 2010, are ranked towards the bottom of the index.


 

Ranking Trends by Percentage of Respondents

Looking at this data another way reinforces the finding from the BBS Global Trend Index, and highlights again that the industry is looking for ways to generate new revenues while increase operating efficiencies and reducing operating costs.

The table below demonstrates this by showing the same response data ranked by “most important” and without the 5-3-1 weighting applied.  For the most part, the trends stay in the same position, but there are a few changes to the rankings. 

When the data is presented in this way multi-platform content delivery remains the trend ranked “most important to most respondents.  However, the second and third-ranked trends – transition to HDTV operations and file-based / automated workflows – swap positions in this ranking versus the trend index above. 

Regardless of this subtle shift, one of the most noticeable things about this chart is the how strongly the top three trends were ranked as most important relative to the others.  It’s clear the moving to HD, achieving operational efficiencies and finding new revenue streams are a clear priority for the broadcast industry in 2010.

As with the BBS Global Trend Index above, new technology trends (those that require new investment) such as transition to 3Gbps operations and 3D TV move are lower down the list of priorities.

It’s also worth noting which trends were ranked as “also very important” by respondents, because this is a strong indicator of what will be important over the next few years.  Once again, multi-platform content delivery tops this list, indicating that it is not only important to the broadcast industry today, but that it will continue to grow in importance over time.  In addition to multi-platform content delivery, the trends that were ranked strongly in terms of “also very important” to the businesses of respondents are (in descending order): IP networking & content delivery, improvements in compression efficiency, file-based / tapeless workflows, move to automated workflows, video on demand and the transition to HDTV operations.

Keep in mind when reading this information that, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor 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 is available as part of the full 2010 BBS Global Market Report, which is available 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 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 

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