Posts Tagged ‘EVS’

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revenue was up in all geographic regions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can read the full EVS earnings press release here

You can see the full EVS presentation to analysts here

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Innovation Rankings for Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To find out which broadcast technology vendors are considered to be most highly regarded in terms of innovation, more than 4,000 broadcast industry professionals were  asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Innovation” on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.  The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for the global sample of all respondents. 

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

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

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

 

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Number of products per vendor 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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Geographic Location 

Another factor to consider is the geographic location of each company on the list.  By this measure, companies headquartered in EMEA just edged out those based in North America on the top 20 innovation list, while companies based in Asia trailed the pack.  

 

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

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

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

 

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Product Categories 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Top 30 Improving Vendor Brands in Broadcast Technology, Ranked Globally and Regionally

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jun 07 2010

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

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

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

Recently, I discussed how respondents to the 2010 BBS ranked The Top 30 Broadcast Technology Vendor Brands by Overall Opinion, Ranked, Globally and Regionally

Appearing in the top 30 of an overall opinion poll is obviously a good place for any vendor to be, but this only scratches the surface of how the market views a brand. 

While indicative of the market’s view, these overall opinion rankings are presented as a snapshot in time.  They also provide a somewhat one-sided view of how brands are regarded because they take only positive perceptions into account.  In order to get a better understanding of how broadcast technology vendor brands are perceived, it is necessary to look at both the positive and negative opinions of brands, and to take into account how these opinions have changed over time. 

One way to do this is to ask people who have an opinion of a brand, how their opinion of that brand has changed over time – i.e. has it improved, declined or stayed the same. 

When you do this, you can get some interesting results.  It turns out that some brands are more polarizing than others, with different respondents having very different opinions.  For example, here’s a chart from the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey. 

 

Notice that in the above table, the company that was ranked #1 for “got better” also ranked #1 for got worse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Question: Has your opinion of the following brands improved or declined over the past 2 years in relation to the broadcast technology products / services they provide?

Interestingly, a total of 65 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, demonstrating the strong variation in opinion change based on geographic segmentation of respondents.

In terms of frequency of appearance in this table:

  • 3 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region. It is possible
  • 10 brands appear three times
  • 26 brands appear two times
  • 26 brands appear once, which demonstrates that some brands are strongest in one geographic area

 

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

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

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Brands appearing four times:

  • Barco, IBM, Ikegami

 

Brands appearing three times:

  • Avid, Chyron, For-A, JBL, JVC, Mackie, Motorola, Siemens, Telex, Yamaha

 

Brands appearing two times:

  • AKG, Audio-Technica, Axon, Dayang, Dolby, Echolab, Electro Voice, EMC, EVS, Fujitsu, Grass Valley, Harmonic, Harris, Klein + Hummel, Orad, Pesa, Pharos, Quantel, RTS Intercom Systems, SeaChange, Shure, Snell, Solid State Logic, Sundance, Tandberg / Ericsson, Tektronix

 

Brands appearing once:

  • Accenture, AMS-Neve, beyerdynamic, Dalet, Evertz, Focal, HP, KRK Systems, Leader Instrument, Marshall Electronics, Miranda, Net Insight, Neumann, Omneon, Omnibus, Pilat, Pixel Power, Quantum, Rohde & Schwarz, Ross Video, S4M, Screen Service, Sintecmedia, Utah Scientific, Vizrt, Wheatstone

 

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Analysis of overall opinion by region:

The table below shows the global and regional performance for each brand in the top 30 ranking of overall opinion. 

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The frequency chart shows some interesting geographic variation in the data, which is highlighted below.

 

Only Global

Interestingly a the following 13 appear in the top 30 Net Change in Overall Opinion for the global sample, but not in any of the regions. 

  • Accenture, AMS-Neve, Focal, KRK Systems, Leader, Net Insight, Omnibus, Pilat Media, Pixel Power, Quantum, Sintecmedia Utah Scientific, Wheatstone

There a number of possible explanations for this.  For example these companies may have fared well in each of the regions, but not well enough to make the top 30.  However when all responses are aggregated, there positive data propels these brands to the top 30 on a global basis.  It is also possible that these brands scored well on a regional basis, but that the regional sample was insufficient to be included in the regional rankings.

 

All regions, but not global

Interestingly, for four brands the converse of the above also occurred – i.e. these brands made the top 30 list for Net Change of Overall Opinion in each of the three regions, but not in the global sample.

  • Avid, For-A, JBL, Yamaha

Again this is due to a variety of factors including the aggregate strength of certain brands, coupled with sample sizes.

 

Global + one region

Nine brands managed to achieve a top 30 ranking in the global Net Change in Overall Opinion league table, despite being in the top 30 of only one of the three geographic regions.

  • Dayang, Echolab, Electrovoice, Fujitsu, JVC, Motorola, Pesa, Quantel, Sundance

 

 

 

Regional Variation

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

 

Only EMEA

Beyerdynamic, Dalet, Neumann, S4M,

 

Only Asia

Evertz, HP, Miranda, Omneon, Rohde & Schwarz, Ross Video, Screen Service

 

Only Americas

Marshall Eelctronics, Vizrt

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

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

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

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The Top 30 Broadcast Technology Vendor Brands, Ranked by “Overall Opinion,” Globally and Regionally

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
May 24 2010

This is the first in a series of posts about the how the brands of broadcast technology vendors were ranked by respondents to the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey.

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

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

This post looks at how broadcast technology vendors were ranked by respondents in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors.   Research participants were asked to rank their “overall opinion” of broadcast technology vendor brands on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

Results are shown in two ways:

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

 

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

 

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

   

Question: Please rank your overall opinion of the following brands on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the best in the market and 1 being the worst.         

  

 

 

Interestingly, a total of 46 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, which demonstrates that there is strong variation in opinion based on geographic segmentation of respondents.  

In terms of frequency of appearance in this table:  

  • 17 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region. It is possible
  • 9 brands appear three times
  • 5 brands appear two times
  • 15 brands appear once, which demonstrates that some brands are strongest in one geographic area

   

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

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

Brands appearing four times:  

  • Adobe, AKG, Apple, beyerdynamic, Cisco, Dolby, Genelec, Grass Valley, Neumann, Panasonic, Rohde & Schwarz, Sennheiser, Shure, Solid State Logic, Sony, Studer, Tektronix

   

Brands appearing three times:  

  • Aja Video, AMS-Neve, Harris, Lawo, RED, Salzbrenner Stagetec, Snell, Tandberg, Yamaha

   

Brands appearing two times:  

  • Clear-Com, Electro Voice, Evertz, Ikegami, JBL

   

Brands appearing once:  

  • Audio-Technica, Avid, Barco, Calrec, EVS, HP, Klein + Hummel, Mackie, Omneon, Prism Media, Quantel, Rhozet, Riedel, RTS Intercom Systems, TVIPS

   

 

 

Analysis of the Frequency for Each Brand in the “Overall Opinion” League Table:  

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

  

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

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

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

Electro Voice (Americas), Evertz (Americas), Ikegami (Americas), JBL (Americas)  

The following 15 brands did not make the top 30 in the global league table of overall opinion, but they did appear in the top 30 overall opinion ranking in one of the geographic regions:  

 

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

EVS, Klein + Hummel, Prism Media, Rhozet, Riedel, T-VIPS  

   

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

Audio-Technica, Calrec, HP, Omneon, Quantel  

 

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

Avid, Mackie  

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

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

 

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

     

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Devoncroft Digest – Week Ending May 14th 2010. Earnings Season Continues

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
May 16 2010

Earnings season continues with good numbers from broadcasters, and mixed results from vendors.

Broadcaster Earnings Continue to Rise

Broadcasting & Cable reported that Gray Television reported first quarter revenues of $70.5 million, up 15% from the revenue it announced in the first quarter of last year. Gray said the number exceeded its initial expectations.

B&C also reported that Scripps saw its revenues rise 11% y/y. The company is also forecasting strong results for its second quarter.

US Satellite broadcaster Dish Networks was in the news several times last week.  It posted its Q1 results at the beginning of the week, which showed revenues rise by 5 percent, but net income fall by 26 percent.  The company also said it was prepared to shut down its DVR service if it loses its protracted patent battle with DVR pioneer Tivo. But then on Friday a US federal appeals court said the case between Dish and Tivo. This sent Tivo shares down by more than 40%.

 

 

Broadcast Technology Vendor News

EVS Reports 5th Consecutive Growth Quarter, Disappoints Analysts

Broadcast server and storage vendor EVS reported its Q1FY10 numbers this week.  According to the company’s press release to company reported its 5th quarter in a row of growth.  However both the revenue and profit were below the expectations of analysts, and the company’s stock price fell by 10% to a 10 month low following the announcement.  A Reuter’s article quotes analyst Nico Melsens of KBC as saying “the order book was okay, first quarter sales were okay, but the gross margin was below consensus forecast.”                        

Harmonic Holds Analyst Day, Discusses Omneon Deal

Following the release of its earnings last week, Harmonic held meeting for analyst day during which the company’s CEO and CFO presented an overview of the company’s business to equity analysts. One of the topics of interest was the company’s recent acquisition of broadcast server and storage vendor Omneon.   You can listen to a reply of the analyst presentation here.  Information on the Omneon deal is presented at the 21.5 minute mark, as well as in the Q&A. 

Sony Expects to Return to Profit

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Sony says expects to return to profit this fiscal year after two straight years in the red, as painful restructuring measures give way to an improved outlook for its troubled television and video game units. Sony said its restructuring is finally paying and that it expects its television business, which has lost money six years in a row, to return to profitability, boosted by 3-D TVs which it hopes will drive new interest and slow the price declines that eat into profits.

Vizrt CEO Passes Away

TVB Europe reported the sad news that Vizrt CEO, Bjarne Berg, has passed away suddenly at the age of 59.   

New CMO at Chyron

Broadcast graphics vendor Chyron announced that it has hired a new VP and CMO.   Bonnie Barclay comes from The Branding Iron, LLC – an Atlanta-based television and branding company.  She has also worked at Scripps, Cox, and Belo.

 

 

Market Research Note of the Week:

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

How do buyers of broadcast technology products prefer to purchase: using a best-of-breed approach (evaluating products from multiple vendors) or a one-stop shop where one vendor provides a complete solution?

To find out, we canvassed the opinions of several thousand broadcast professionals around the world as part of the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey.

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 1000 and 1500 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 may introduce 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 see the results of this research, including a chart with a breakdown of different types of buyers, click here.

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Two Broadcast M&A Deals: HME Buys Clear-Com, EVS Buys OpenCube

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 06 2010

Two broadcast industry M&A deals have been announced since I wrote last week about the 40 page note put out by boutique investment bank Silverwood Partner, which says that vendors in the broadcast industry need to consolidate.

Last Friday HME announced that is acquiring Clear-Com from Vitec, a move that will strengthen their position in the broadcast intercom / talkback market.

Today EVS said that is is buying MXF specialist OpenCube, a bolt-on acquisition that brings additional file-based and MXF expertise in-house.

There have also been a number of industry partnerships announced such as the deal between Harris and Echolab, which sees Harris reselling Echolab production switchers.

NAB 2010 is now a week away, and it’s common that these deals are announced around major trade shows. It will be interesting to see if there are more deals coming.

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2010 Syndicated Broadcast Technology Market Research Now Available

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 05 2010

Reports from the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), conducted by Devoncroft Partners, are now available for purchase.

The 2010 BBS is the largest ever and most comprehensive market study of the broadcast industry. More than 5,600 broadcast professionals in 120+ countries participated in the project.

Reports derived from BBS data deliver insight into the opinions and attitudes of key technology buyers including broadcasters, playout centers, cable/satellite/ IPTV operators, radio stations, recording studios and more. This includes industry trends; purchase intent and buying behavior; major project plans; products being evaluated for purchase.

2010 BBS reports also provides detailed opinions of 148 broadcast technology vendor brands in 27 separate product categories (see below for details)

For more information about the available reports and their contents, please follow this link.

 

Product Categories Covered in 2010 BBS reports:

 

Vendor Brands Covered in 2010 BBS reports:

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How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Reliability

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Dec 07 2009

This is the fourth in a series of posts that discusses how a global sample of more than 325 systems integrators (SIs) who participated in the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS)* ranked broadcast technology vendors in a variety of measures. For information about how these results were collected, please see the bottom of this post**.

In an era when many broadcasters are shedding technology positions, SIs have become an extremely important part of the technology value chain.  Broadcasters now routinely outsource their project work to SIs, who are called in for their expertise and experience.  Thus the relationship that vendors have with their SI partners is very important to their business. 

Previously I have looked at How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Great Customer Service; and How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Innovation; and How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Vendors for Quality.  This post looks at how the global sample of systems integrators ranked vendors for reliability.

This is the third time I have written about how broadcast technology vendors have been ranked for reliability.  Previous posts include Reliability Rankings for Broadcast Technology Vendors, which looks at how the overall market ranks vendors for reliability, broken down by geography; and How Broadcasters of Different Sizes Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Reliability.

The chart below shows the responses from more than 325 SIs.  It is broken out by geography to show the responses of the global sample of all SIs who participated in the study, as well as the responses of SIs in EMEA and the Americas.  Due to a small sample size, SI rankings for Asia-Pacific have not been included as a separate column.  For the sake of comparison, I have also included in this chart the rankings of all respondents (regardless for organization type, geography etc), and all broadcasters (regardless of size or geography), in the first and second columns respectively.

 

Please note that in all cases, these brands are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order of their ranking in the study

 

Question: How would you rate [Brand X] on the following attribute [Great Customer Service] where 1 = very poor and 10 = best in the market?

Reliability -- by Systems Integrators

 

As always these findings are extremely interesting.  Here are a few quick observations about this table:

 

* There are 9 vendors on this list (out of 25 studied), the same number as in the innovation rankings.  This makes innovation and reliability the least varied and most concentrated of the metrics in this series of posts about perceptions of systems integrators. 

 

 * The complete list of vendors in this table (in alphabetical order), and how many times they appear is as follows: Evertz (2), EVS (4), Harris (1), Miranda (1), Omneon (2), Snell & Wilcox (5),  Sony (5), Thomson / Grass Valley (3), Utah Scientific (2)

 

* As always, there are some interesting differences in the rankings of vendors by SIs versus the rankings by other organization types such as broadcasters, and even the overall market. 

 

* Out of the 9 vendors in this table, only Snell & Wilcox and Sony made the top 5 list for reliability in all five categories (the overall market, the global sample of all broadcasters, and the three SI categories).

 

* EVS appears four times in this table.  The company made the top 5 list for reliability for all categories except systems integrators in the Americas.

 

* Utah Scientific and Omneon each appear twice in this table – in the Global SI and EMEA SI lists.  However, neither company is listed in the top 5 reliability for the overall market or the sample of all broadcasters. Interestingly, these results for Utah and Omneon go against the geographic bias exhibited for other metrics.  Both Utah and Omneon are based in the Americas, but neither company makes the top 5 reliability list for SIs in the Americas.  Instead, both companies are listed in the global SI and EMEA SI categories.

 

* One company that does make the top 5 reliability list for SIs in the Americas is Thomson / Grass Valley, which also appears in the top 5 reliability list for the overall market and the sample of all broadcasters.

 

* Other companies that make the top 5 reliability list for SIs in their home territories are EVS and Snell & Wilcox (EMEA) and Miranda and Evertz (Americas).

 

* Harris appears in the global sample of all respondents, but not in any of the SI samples.

 

* Appearing two times in this table, Evertz makes the list for the global sample of all broadcasters as well as SIs in the Americas.

 

* Miranda makes one appearance in this table – in the SI list for the Americas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 * The annual Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) is the largest and most comprehensive studies of broadcast technology vendor brands and industry trends.  The BBS provides insight into market trends and the perceptions of leading broadcast industry vendor brands by practitioners 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.

 

** Respondents to the BBS were asked to rank their opinion of twenty-five broadcast technology vendor brands in a variety of categories including awareness; overall opinion; change of opinion; recommendation; and a variety of brand attributes and brand drivers such as innovation, reliability, quality and great customer service.  The responses were then aggregated into a series of industry “league tables” that rank each broadcast technology vendor brand against the metrics mentio

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How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for “Great Customer Service”

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 30 2009

This is the third in a series of posts that discusses how a global sample of more than 325 systems integrators (SIs) who participated in the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS)* ranked broadcast technology vendors in a variety of measures. For information about how these results were collected, please see the bottom of this post**.

In an era when many broadcasters are shedding technology positions, SIs have become an extremely important part of the technology value chain.  Broadcasters now routinely outsource their project work to SIs, who are called in for their expertise and experience.  Thus the relationship that vendors have with their SI partners is very important to their business. 

Previously I have looked at How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Innovation; and How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Vendors for Quality.  This post looks at how the global sample of systems integrators ranked vendors for “great customer service.”

This is fourth time I have written about how broadcast technology vendors are perceived by the market for their customer service.  Previous posts on the subject include A Ranking of Broadcast Technology Vendors for “Great Customer Service”, which breaks out overall rankings by geography; and How broadcasters of different sizes rank technology vendors for great customer service. 

I have also touched on how the perception of customer service can be extremely varied in different regions.  I highlighted one such case in an article called Brand Schizophrenia? Regional/customer variations in perception of broadcast vendor brands.  

Customer service is a very important measure, and in many cases it is one of the key determining factors in purchase decisions. I would imagine that this is particularly true for systems integrators who must work simultaneously with many vendors while striving to complete a project on time and on budget.  

Yet from my research I’ve found that the customer service offerings of broadcast technology vendors is also something that is perceived by the market as not being as strong as other metrics such as innovation, reliability and quality. 

Indeed as I wrote in a previous post “respondents were harder on this metric [customer service] than any other… it’s worth noting that on an overall basis, respondents to the BBS were much stingier with their “grades” in this category compared to all the others.  Many companies received very high scores for metrics like “overall opinion,” “innovation,” “reliability” etc., but no company was ranked “off the charts” in terms of the perception of “great customer service.”

So having said all that, how did systems integrators rank broadcast technology vendors for “great customer service?”

The chart below shows the responses from more than 325 SIs.  It is broken out by geography to show the responses of the global sample of all SIs who participated in the study, as well as the responses of SIs in EMEA and the Americas.  Due to a small sample size, SI rankings for Asia-Pacific have not been included as a separate column.  For the sake of comparison, I have also included in this chart the rankings of all respondents (regardless for organization type, geography etc), and all broadcasters (regardless of size or geography), in the first and second columns respectively.

 

Please note that in all cases, these brands are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order of their ranking in the study

 

Question: How would you rate [Brand X] on the following attribute [Great Customer Service] where 1 = very poor and 10 = best in the market?

Customer Service -- by Systems Integrators

 

As always these findings are extremely interesting.  Here are a few observations about this table:

 

* There are 11 vendors on this list (out of 25 studied); meaning that great customer service is the most varied and least concentrated of any metric in this series of posts about perceptions of systems integrators. 

 

* This lack of vendor concentration is similar to customer service findings in other categories.  For example, the customer service rankings of the overall market and that of broadcasters broken down by size (both mentioned above) both show a similar profile.

 

* Out of the 11 vendors in this table, no vendor made the top 5 list for great customer service in all categories. 

 

* However, both Omneon and Snell & Wilcox did achieve this in all three systems integrator categories.

 

* The complete list of vendors in this table (in alphabetical order), and how many times they appear is as follows: Axon (3), Evertz (3), EVS (2), Harris (1), Miranda (1), Omneon (3), Pebble Beach (2), Snell & Wilcox (4), Sony (2), Sundance (1), Thomson / Grass Valley

 

* As with many other findings, there are interesting regional variations in the way vendors are perceived for great customer service

 

* 4 out of 5 in the EMEA SI list are European based – Axon, Network, Pebble Beach and Snell & Wilcox

 

* Likewise, the Americas SI list is dominated by North American players.  In the Americas SI list, 4 out of the 5 vendors are based in the region — Evertz, Harris, Miranda and Omneon.

 

* There are also some interesting differences in the rankings of vendors by SIs versus the rankings by other organization types such as broadcasters, and even the overall market.

 

* There are two pure-play automation players in the global SI list for great customer service.  This is a first for me — no pure-play automation vendors have appeared in any ranking I have published so far (global sample, broadcaster by geography sample and broadcaster by or size sample).  So what is it about SIs that result in two of their top five spots for great customer service are pure-play automation vendors?

 

* EVS, Sony and Thomson / Grass Valley all make the top 5 great customer service list for the global sample of all respondent and the all broadcasters.  However, none of these companies makes any of the SI lists.

 

* Axon appears three times.  The company makes the top 5 list for great customer service for all broadcasters, all systems integrators and EMEA systems integrators.  Like EVS, Axon is a company that has done very well in the various customer service posts I have written.  Although the company is relatively small when compared to some of the others on this list, it is clearly caught the attention of the market by making customer service a priority.

 

* Like Axon, Evertz also appears on this list three times, but in only one of the SI categories – the Americas.  This is consistent with other findings about Evertz in that they seem to do best in the Americas market.

 

* Another strong regional player is Miranda, who does well with SIs in the company’s home region.  The same is true of Harris, which appears once in this chart – in the SI list for the Americas.

 

* Like Miranda and Harris, Network (now Nevion) appears once in this table – in EMEA SI list only, another example of a local vendor doing well in their home region.

 

* EVS, which appeared in the top 5 list for great customer service for all geographies in a previous post, appears in the first two columns of this chart (global sample and all broadcasters).  However the company is absent from all three systems integrator categories

 

* Although they did not make the top 5 great customer service list for all respondents or all broadcasters, Omneon appears in all three categories of this list for systems integrators. The only other vendor to appear in the top 5 list for all three categories of systems integrators was Snell & Wilcox.

 

* Two companies appear in two of the SI categories – Axon and Pebble Beach. Both companies are based in EMEA, and they each appear in the top 5 for all SIs and SIs in EMEA.

 

As per my previous findings on this subject, the SI rankings for “great customer service” are extremely interesting.  There are strong regional variations and both small and large vendors have made the above table in one or more places.    

I continue to be convinced that despite the strong showings by some vendors, broadcast technology buyers generally perceive customer service as a weakness in the industry.  Therefore, as I said in a previous post, “it’s clear to me that there is a real opportunity for vendors to step up to the plate and differentiate themselves on the basis of great customer service.  Whoever does this will be rewarded by their customers with increased loyalty.”

 

 

 

* The annual Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) is the largest and most comprehensive studies of broadcast technology vendor brands and industry trends.  The BBS provides insight into market trends and the perceptions of leading broadcast industry vendor brands by practitioners 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.

 

** Respondents to the BBS were asked to rank their opinion of twenty-five broadcast technology vendor brands in a variety of categories including awareness; overall opinion; change of opinion; recommendation; and a variety of brand attributes and brand drivers such as innovation, reliability, quality and great customer service.  The responses were then aggregated into a series of industry “league tables” that rank each broadcast technology vendor brand against the metrics mentioned above.

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How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Quality

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 23 2009

This is the second in a series of posts that discusses how a global sample of more than 325 systems integrators (SIs) who participated in the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS)* ranked broadcast technology vendors in a variety of measures. For information about how these results were collected, please see the bottom of this post**.

In an era when many broadcasters are shedding technology positions, SIs have become an extremely important part of the technology value chain.  Broadcasters now routinely outsource their project work to SIs, who are called in for their expertise and experience.  Thus the relationship that vendors have with their SI partners is very important to their business. 

Last week I posted an article about how How Systems Integrators Rank Broadcast Technology Vendors for Innovation, and today I am going to look at how this influential group ranked vendors for quality.

Quality is an important ranking, and I have looked previously at quality ranking of broadcast technology vendors, including how broadcasters of different sizes rank vendors for quality.

The chart below shows the responses from more than 325 SIs.  It is broken out by geography to show the responses of the global sample of SIs as well as the responses of SIs in EMEA and the Americas.  Due to a small sample size, SI rankings for Asia-Pacific have not been included.  For the sake of comparison, I have also included in this chart the rankings of all respondents (regardless for organization type, geography etc), and all broadcasters (regardless of size or geography), in the first and second columns respectively.

 

Please note that in all cases, these brands are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order of their ranking in the study

 

Question: How would you rate [Brand X] on the following attribute [Quality] where 1 = very poor and 10 = best in the market?

 

 

Quality -- by Systems Integrators

 Some thoughts and observations about these findings:

 

* There are 10 vendors in this chart, making this metric slightly more varied than innovation, where there were 9 vendors. 

 

* As with how SIs ranked vendors for innovation, only Snell & Wilcox and Sony appear in all five categories, meaning that these vendors made the top 5 quality list for all respondents, all broadcasters and all SIs.

 

* Other vendors (in alphabetical order) making an appearance in this chart are: Axon (1), Evertz (2), EVS (3), Harris (2), Miranda (1), Sundance (1), Thomson / Grass Valley (2)

 

* It’s interesting to note that the five vendors in the top 5 quality ranking of the global sample of all respondents is identical to the sample of all respondents (regardless of company type or location)  is identical, but the view of the SIs is different than broadcasters. 

 

* There are a total of 8 vendors in the three categories of SI rankings in the above table, 5 of which do not appear in the top 5 quality rankings of the global sample or broadcasters.

 

 * Harris and Thomson / Grass Valley appear in the top 5 quality rankings for the global sample of all respondents and for all broadcasters globally.  However neither company made the top 5 list for any of the systems integrator categories.

 

* Conversely, Evertz, Omneon, Sundance, Axon and Miranda make the top 5 quality list for at least one of the SI categories, but do appear in the top 5 quality lists for the global sample or the sample of all broadcasters.

 

* Like almost all other metrics that I’ve studied, there are also some interesting geographic variations in these results.

 

* Netherlands-based Axon appears once in this chart, in the EMEA SI list. 

 

* Like Axon, Miranda makes one appearance in this chart – in the Americas SIs list. 

 

* Evertz appears on 2 of the 3 SI lists – All SIs and Americas SIs – but the company does make the top 5 quality list for the global sample of all respondents or for the sample of all broadcasters.

 

* EVS appears three times in the above chart – in the global list of all respondents, all broadcasters and SI list in EMEA.

 

* Sundance makes one appearance in this chart – in the top 5 quality list for SIs globally.  Interestingly, this is the second time that a pure-play automation vendor made the list for SIs but not other categories. Pebble Beach appeared twice on the list of how SIs rank broadcast technology vendors for innovation

 

 

 

* The annual Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) is the largest and most comprehensive studies of broadcast technology vendor brands and industry trends.  The BBS provides insight into market trends and the perceptions of leading broadcast industry vendor brands by practitioners 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.

 

** Respondents to the BBS were asked to rank their opinion of twenty-five broadcast technology vendor brands in a variety of categories including awareness; overall opinion; change of opinion; recommendation; and a variety of brand attributes and brand drivers such as innovation, reliability, quality and great customer service.  The responses were then aggregated into a series of industry “league tables” that rank each broadcast technology vendor brand against the metrics mentioned above.

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