Posts Tagged ‘file-based workflows’

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 21 2011

This is the second in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

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In a recent post I discussed the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which shows the most important trends in the broadcast industry for 2011.

The article referenced both the 2009 and 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index from, and looked at how the rankings of trends have changed over time.  For example, in 2009 the transition to HDTV operations was, by far, the top ranked trend.  However by 2011, the transition to HDTV operations had been overtaken by multi-platform content delivery as the top trend (although the move to HD is clearly still very important).

This post generated a lot of lot of feedback from clients and readers.  Many people said they wanted to more easily see changes to the importance of trends over time, and asked for a single chart that shows year-over-year comparisons.  I’ve done this in the chart below, which shows a comparison of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index from 2011 and 2010. 

Please note that I have not included the 2009 Index in this chart because multiple changes were made to the trends in the Index between 2009 and 2010, reducing the ability to make an “apples-to-apples” comparison.  It’s also worth noting that all 14 trends from the 2010 Index were included in the 2011 Index.  However, based industry feedback, we added a 15th trend to the 2011 list – i.e. analog switch-off, which was ranked 11th out 15 in 2011.  The addition of analog switch-off likely “cannibalized” a small percentage of responses from other trends in this year’s ranking. 

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So what changed between 2010 and 2011? 

There are two ways to look at this:

  • changes in overall numerical ranking relative to the previous year
  • changes in overall commercial importance relative to the previous year

 

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Changes in Numerical Ranking of Broadcast Industry Trends

Let’s start with the overall numerical ranking of trends.  The first column in the table below shows how trends were ranked in 2011. The number in parentheses to the right of each trend shows how it ranked in the 2010 BBS Index. Although there were no changes at the top and bottom of the 2011 Index versus the 2010 Index, almost everything in between changed position relative to the previous year.

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As I wrote previously, the top four trends in the 2011 Global Broadcast Industry Trend Index are the same as last year and the year before:

  • Multi-platform content delivery
  • Transition to HDTV operations
  • File-based / tapeless workflows
  • IP networking and content delivery

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However, there has been considerable movement in the relative ranking of these four trends over the past several years.  Most significantly, “multi-platform content delivery” has become increasingly important, and is the dominant trend in 2011.   

Several trends were ranked more highly in 2011 than in 2010.  For example video-on-demand moved up from #8 in 2011 from #6 in 2011; while 3DTV moved up from #10 in 2010 to #8 in 2011.

Other trends remained relatively static in terms of their ranking in 2011.  For example: “transition to 3Gbps operations”, “transition to 5.1 channel audio”, “outsourced operations” and “green initiatives” remained the bottom four trends in 2011, as they were in 2010.

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Changes in Commercial Importance of Broadcast Industry Trends

As well as changes to numerical ranking, there were also year-over-year changes to the perception of commercial importance to each trend.  This is shown in the table below:

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For the most part, the trends moved up in the rankings in 2011 also were seen as more important commercially versus the previous year. 

However, it is possible for a trend to move up in the numerical ranking, while moving down in terms commercial importance to respondents, as happened this year with the transition to HDTV operations.  In this case, these changes are likely more of a function of the strong showing for multi-platform content delivery, than a poor showing for the transition to HDTV.

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Why Tracking Movement of Trends is Important

In the broadcast industry much of the spending on technology is project-based, and those projects all come from somewhere.  Our view is that industry trends drive capital projects, which in turn drive budgets, which in turn drive product purchase.  In other words, what’s commercially important to technology buyers today (i.e. trends) will likely turn into what they are budgeting for tomorrow (i.e. projects).

Looking at the trend data from the 2011 BBS, monetizing content on multiple platforms is clearly a key objective for broadcast professionals this year.  Yet, as I wrote a few months ago after returning from CES: “On the monetization point, I lost count of the number of times I heard the word “experimentation” during [conference] sessions – particularly from content owners.  In other words, although everyone agrees that multi-platform content delivery is a very important trend, many players have still not figured out the business model.”

There’s a difference between recognizing that a trend is commercially important and having a business plan in place that capitalizes on it.  So while there’s no doubt that generating incremental revenue by delivering a multi-screen experience to consumers is hot topic, business models have to move beyond the experimental in order to drive serious market growth.  Once that happens, multi-platform content delivery will likely become the most important planned project rather than just the most important trend.

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Keep in mind when reading this information that all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS, regardless of organization type, organization size, job title or geographic location.  Responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different than those shown in this high level overview.  Granular analysis of these results is available as part of the full 2011 BBS Global Market Report. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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Related Content:

You can find out about the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey here.

The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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©Devoncroft Partners 2009-2011

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Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 16 2011

This is the first in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

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The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

Each year, Devoncroft Partners conducts a large scale global study of the broadcast industry called the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS).  More than 8,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries participated in the 2011 BBS, making it the most comprehensive study ever done in the broadcast industry.

One of the key outputs from the BBS is the annual BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. This is a ranking of the broadcast industry trends that are considered by BBS respondents to be the most commercially important to their businesses in any given year.

To create the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 15 industry trends and asked them to tell us which one trend they consider to be “most important” to their business, which one trend they consider to be “second most important” to their business, and which other trends (plural) they consider to be “also very important.” 

We then used the responses to this question to create the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index by applying a weighting based on the commercial importance of each trend. 

Please note that our goal from this question is to help clients gain insight into the business drivers behind the respondent’s answer.  Therefore, we asked this question in the context of commercial importance, rather than “industry buzz” or technology hype.

The table below shows the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.  Please note that this chart measures the responses all non-vendors who participated in the 2011 BBS, regardless of company type, company size, geographic location, job title etc. 

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Similar to results in both the 2009 and 2010, the top four trends in the 2011 Global Broadcast Industry Trend Index are:

  • Multi-platform content delivery
  • Transition to HDTV operations
  • File-based / tapeless workflows
  • IP networking and content delivery

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However, there has been considerable movement in the relative ranking of these four trends over the past several years.  Most significantly, “multi-platform content delivery” has become increasingly important, and is the dominant trend in 2011.   For comparison:

  • In 2009, the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index was dominated by the transition to HDTV operations, while multi-platform content delivery was fourth on the list

 

  • In 2010, multi-platform content delivery had become the most important industry trend, narrowly eclipsing file-based / tapeless workflows (which were combined in the 2010 BBS Trend Index) and the transition to HDTV operations

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These results show that broadcast professionals continue to focus their efforts on taking advantage of the potential for incremental revenue streams presented by multi-platform content delivery.  Indeed, as the chart above shows multi-platform content delivery was ranked significantly higher than any other trend in our 2011 study.  As video content become ubiquitous, broadcasters and content owners are looking for ways to monetize their assets, and grow their revenue.  Technology vendors are continuing to develop solutions to convert content for optimal performance on any platform, and to run targeted ads alongside that content.

But there is more to the story than just multi-platform content delivery. For the third year in a row, the transition to HDTV operations ranks as one of the top trends in the broadcast industry.  It’s likely that HDTV upgrades will continue to be one of the major drivers of project-based spending as broadcasters around the world continue with plans to transition their operations to HDTV.  We provide significant coverage of the global move to HDTV in the 2011 BBS Global Market Report.  This includes a breakdown of where broadcasters are in their transition to HD, and a look at the upgrade plans for more than a dozen product categories. We’ll also be publishing more information here about project-based spending and the HD transition in future articles.

Operational efficiencies (through file-based / tapeless workflows) remain a significant macro driver in 2011, as broadcasters continue to deploy new workflows.  The increasing importance of file-based technologies has implications for the broadcast industry in terms of both workflows and product procurement.  Our previous research shows that broadcasters are moving to file-based workflows not only to achieve greater speed and efficiencies, but also to reduce cost.  During the recession, technology budgets were typically prioritized towards solutions that add revenue and/or reduce cost.  Now that the industry is recovering from the downturn, it’s likely that the way technology is purchased will remain focused on these commercial priorities.

Several trends were ranked more highly in 2011 than in 2010.  For example video-on-demand moved up from #8 in 2011 to#6 in 2011; while 3DTV moved up from #10 in 2010 to #8 in 2011.

Other trends remained relatively static in terms of their ranking in 2011.  For example: “transition to 3Gbps operations”, “transition to 5.1 channel audio”, “outsourced operations” and “green initiatives” remained the bottom four trends in 2011, as they were in 2010.

It’s worth mentioning that in order to show year-over-year movement, all trends from the 2010 BBS were included in the 2011 BBS.  However, based on industry feedback, we added a 15th trend to the 2011 list – i.e. analog switch-off, which was ranked 11th out of 15 in 2011.  The addition of analog switch-off likely “cannibalized” a small percentage of responses from other trends in this year’s ranking. 

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Keep in mind when reading this information that all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS, regardless of organization type, organization size, job title or geographic location.  Responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different.  Granular analysis of these results is available as part of the full 2011 BBS Global Market Report. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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Related Content:

You can find information about the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey here.

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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What are the Commercial Drivers for the Global Move to File-Based Operations in the Broadcast Industry?

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Dec 13 2010

This is the second in a series of occasional articles about the commercial drivers behind some of the most important trends in the broadcast industry.  The first article in this series discussed the commercial drivers for the global move to HDTV operations.

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

The move to file-based workflows ranked number two on this list. 

In order to understand why, we asked a series of questions to those respondents who said the transition to file-based workflows is the one trend that is most commercially important to their business. These included why the move to file-based operations is important to them, which vendors they feel are best positioned to provide solutions to their needs, and what obstacles they think might prevent them from achieving their goals.

As shown in the chart below, the top reason cited by 2010 BBS respondents for the commercial importance of moving to file-based operations is to increase speed and efficiency in the production process.

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The only notable exception to this was respondents from pay-TV operators, who see the move to file-based operations as a way to deliver more channels and services without a significant increase in cost.

Other reasons cited include:

  • Enabling multi-platform content distribution and monetization
  • Reduce headcount and therefore cost
  • To take advantage of lower cost / generic IT technology
  • To deliver more channels / services with significantly increasing cost
  • To eliminate errors

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Top Vendors for File-Based Transition

As a follow-up, respondents were asked which vendor is best suited to help them make the transition to file-based operations.  The ten vendors mentioned most often were: Sony, Avid, Apple, Panasonic, No One Vendor, Grass Valley, Harris, EVS, JVC and Omneon.

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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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Broadcast Technology Vendors Predict Strong Increase in Software Revenue

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 01 2010

When I recently saw the headline “Solving the TV Station Hardware Dilemma” on the Broadcast Engineering website, I stopped to read.

Although the article turned out to be about integrated playout (a.k.a. channel-in-a-box) automation servers rather than a debate about hardware versus software in a broadcast facility, it got me thinking about the shift in broadcasting towards IT-oriented technologies, and what vendors are doing about this market transition.

Our research has found that the move to IT-based operations is one of the broadcast industry’s most important technology trends. This will obviously have a major impact on the broadcast technology vendor community. 

Some commentators like boutique investment bank Silverwood Partners say that there is a diminishing hardware opportunity and that value is migrating to software-based products.  So what are broadcast technology vendors doing to change their product ranges and business models?

To better understand these issues we asked the nearly 800 broadcast technology vendors who responded to the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey, about the make-up of their current and future product portfolio.  Vendors were asked to break down the sources of their revenue by product hardware, software, maintenance, and service. 

Here’s what we found:

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Current Sources of Vendor Revenue – Product Mix

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Hardware products represent the largest percentage of vendor revenue, with more than 80% of respondents indicating that hardware sales represents greater than 20% of revenue, and 31% reporting that hardware products represent more than 80% of revenue.

While more than half of vendors reported that software represents a significant portion of their revenues, only 6% identified software as representing more than 80% of their sales.

Maintenance and service revenues represent a small part of the overall vendor revenue stream today.

But what are vendors projecting for the make-up of their future revenue?

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Future Sources of Vendor Revenue – Product Mix

Vendors were also asked to predict how their revenue by product mix would change over the next several years.

More than half of vendors report that they expect sales of hardware products to stay the same or increase over the next several years, while 20% expect hardware product sales to decline over the same period.

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Vendors expect to see large growth in software sales, with 76% of vendors predicting sales of software products will increase over the next 2-3 years.  Included in this number are an impressive 51% of vendors who expect software product sales to increase by more than 10%.

Vendors are also clearly looking towards maintenance and service revenues to expend their businesses.  Whereas the previous chart shows that today’s revenue from these sources is not huge, vendors are almost all anticipating that maintenance and service income will stay the same or increase over the next several years. 47% of vendors predict that maintenance revenue will increase, and 48% of vendors predict that customer service revenues will increase during this period.   

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Projected Future Vendor Hardware / Software Revenue – by Company Type

To better understand these responses, it’s helpful to profile the research participants according to the type of company they represent.

In the charts below, I have broken out the responses to the projected product mix question based on whether the respondent works for a company that provides primarily hardware products, primarily software products, or has a mixture of both.  In this case “primarily” is defined as more than 70% of a company’s revenue.  Responses for the average of all vendor responses are also shown for the sake of comparison with charts above.

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Hardware Sales

Firstly, let’s look at what vendors predict will happen to their hardware sales.  The chart below shows that 20% of respondents expect hardware product sales to decline over the next few years, while more than half expect hardware product revenue to stay the same or increase over the same period.

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However, there is a clear difference between those vendors who currently produce primarily hardware products versus those who currently produce primarily software products.

73% of respondents from companies who primarily sell hardware products think that their hardware revenue will grow over the next few years.  Conversely, just 39% of respondents from software-oriented companies think their hardware revenue will increase.

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Software Sales:

What about revenue from software products? The chart below shows how vendors project their software sales will change over the next 2-3 years.

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Virtually all vendor respondents predict that their revenue from software will increase over the next few years.  Just 5% of respondents believe that software revenue will decline during this timeframe.

67% of vendors respondents whose company sells primarily hardware products predict that their sales from software products will increase over the next few years, while 86% of respondents from software-oriented vendors believe their software revenue will grow.

These results show that while hardware product sales are not going away any time soon, technology suppliers are responding to market demand for software-oriented products.  Although this analysis does not attempt to put a value on or quantify the percentage of future software sales, it appears that vendors are gearing up to provide more software solutions in the belief that this will help drive revenue growth.

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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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Brief Impressions of IBC 2010

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Sep 22 2010

Last week I attended the 2010 IBC show in Amsterdam.  The product introductions and events at the show have been well covered elsewhere, so this is just a short note on my impressions of the show.

After spending the better part of a week in Amsterdam, and having 40-50 meetings with vendors, bankers, broadcasters and others, I came away from the show with three general impressions – the market is improving, there is more realism about 3D, and the drive toward file-based operations continues. 

It’s also worth noting that I think that these trends will probably act as a catalyst for further market consolidation as vendors seek to position themselves for the post-recession world.

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Improving Market Conditions

In terms of market improvement, many people I spoke with said that buyers were coming back and that once-delayed projects are now table. Many vendors reported that their sales and profitability have increased markedly versus a year ago.  Interestingly, there do seem to be geographic and technological differences in the market recovery.  For example, many people reported that activity in Asia, northern Europe and the middle east was strong; while southern Europe and parts of north America were still sluggish for some.  Also some types of products seem to have recovered more strongly – automation being a good case-in-point.

To get a better handle on the industry’s current status, I attended a very interesting “state of the industry” session hosted by the IABM (the international organization that represents technology suppliers), which was held on the opening day of IBC.  During the session, IABM director general Peter White presented the results of a recent survey of broadcast buyers and suppliers.  This was followed by a panel discussion that included representatives from Sony, Harris, Axon and Softel, with industry veteran Adrian Scott leading the session.

According to White, about 60% of broadcast technology suppliers are now making a profit – up considerably from last year – with European companies performing better in terms of profit performance. 

White also reported that confidence has returned to buyers, with more than half of those surveyed feeling “very or quite optimistic” about the future; and 39% reporting that they feel that the recession is over or that they are coming out of it.

However, White also indicated that things will be different for vendors in a post-recession world.  According to the IABM’s study, broadcast technology buyers are changing the way they purchase, and are also expecting more from vendors in terms of value, interoperability, support etc.

My understanding is that the IABM will be making their findings available in the near future, although I am not sure what for this will take.  It’s good information that everyone should read.

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More Realism About 3D

While 3D was a major theme of the IBC show, my feeling was that, in contrast to the CES and NAB shows earlier in the year, the hype about 3D seems to have dissipated as vendors have become more realistic about 3D’s ability to drive revenue and profitability growth.

In multiple press conferences and vendor meetings, the 3D hype was much toned down.  For example, at the Grass Valley press conference SVP Jeff Rosica referred to 3D as a niche market.  At the Harris press event, Broadcast Communications president Harris Morris referred to 3D projects as experiments.

I am on the record as a 3D skeptic, at least as far as the short term potential for broadcasters, so I was not surprised to hear this type of comments.  I should also point out that these comments are consistent with our market research findings about the most important trends in the broadcast industry, where 3D placed far down on the list versus the transition to HDTV, the move to file-based workflows and multi-platform content delivery. 

There is of course a small part of the market where 3D is and will continue to be a major growth driver.  However, it looks like the bulk of the market is now taking a more realistic approach and focusing on what customers really need.

For more on this subject, have a look at Mike Grotticelli’s article in Broadcast Engineering called 3-D Technology Finds Few Enthusiasts at IBC2010.

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IT and File-Based Technologies

It may seem obvious that IT and file-based technologies are continuing to make inroads into the broadcast market, but at IBC I was struck by the accelerating pace of change in this area.

Vendors, both large and small continue to innovate in this area in an effort to help broadcasters streamline their operations and do more with less.

The shift to IT technology is having an interesting impact on the industry, in the form of product development, M&A and outside investment.

On the product development front, some vendors have jumped into the file-based world with full force – e.g. Evertz who launched a full blown playout server and storage solution at IBC.

Others have sought to accelerate their move into the IT world through acquisition – e.g. Miranda’s purchase of OmniBus, which gives the traditional hardware supplier a highly developed IT-based playout and automation solution.  Another recent industry M&A deal between Telestream and Anystream helped Telestream consolidate its position in the encoding / transcoding / streaming space.  I would not be surprised to see more M&A in this area as traditional vendors seek to beef up their file-based expertise.

The move to IT has also helped bring new money into the industry.  For example two transcoding vendors, Elemental Technologies  and AmberFin both recently announced that they have closed funding rounds, which will help them expand their presence in the broadcast marketplace.

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

 

Silverwood NAB Perspectives:

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

PHARUS ADVISORS

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

NAB OVERVIEW

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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TV New Check “Tech One on One” Interview

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

I was recently interviewed by Harry Jessell, editor of industry website TVNewsCheck.com about my 2010 study of the broadcast market.

Jessell published the interview today as part of his “Tech One on One” series, which profiles key technology players in the broadcast market.  In it he asks me a number of question about industry trends, major projects being planned by US broadcasters, the capex plans of broadcasters, and which product categories I thnk will do well this year based on my research.  We also discussed 3D, which as I’ve said before,  I am skeptical about when it comes to the average US broadcaster.

You can find the full interview here.

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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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Impressions of IBC 2009

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Sep 17 2009

I am just back from spending a week at the IBC show in Amsterdam.  During the four days I was at the show I had about 50 meetings with vendors, broadcasters, bankers and other industry folks.  Here are my quick impressions.

The story from many vendors was the same — the first half of 2009 was terrible, with sales down between 15-40% depending on the company.  A few went as far to comment on the impact on their profit — e.g. one told me that at 20% drop in revenue resulted in a 50% drop in profit.  However, one or two told me that things had picked up since June.

Although attendance was down just about 7% versus last year, there were big differences in how this impacted the lead counts of individual exhibitors.  Most vendors said that their lead counts were down — a few told me that their leads were down 40% versus previous shows — while others said they were busier than ever.  And of course, I often heard the old refrain “the show is smaller but the quality is high because anyone here is here because they have a project, and the tire kickers stayed at home.”

Many vendors reported that although their sales were way down for the year, that their pipeline had not gone away.  Instead projects were being constantly delayed as broadcasters evaluate their capital budgets.  So many vendors said that they are optimistic that there will be pent up demand when the economy finally turns and that things will improve quickly once a recovery starts.  In the meanwhile however, many vendors have found reduced demand combined with project postponement has made their sales very lumpy, and in most cases extremely difficult to predict.  A few people commented on how difficult it is to forecast demand in the current environment.

There were a few bright spots.  Just about everyone whose business involves saving money and improving efficiency for broadcasters reported that things went well at IBC.  And Ross Video was quoted in the IBC Daily News saying that their sales were up 8% during the first ten months of their financial year (perhaps due to their OverDrive production automation system, which reduces headcount and saves money for broadcasters).  A couple of magazine publishers also reported that orders for display advertising in Q4 had come in higher than expected during IBC.

Following on from the above it seems, as TV Technology twittered today “What do you think was the dominant theme at#ibc09? My pick? “Doing more with less.” Not particularly original, but a sign of the times.”

I agree with TV Tech, but I think there’s more to it than that.

The broadcast industry in the midst of significant structural changes.  We’ve in the middle of the worst recession in memory and technology is changing at a rapid pace.  There are significant implications to the combination of customer budget cuts and new technology.

A while back, I posted an article called  HDTV… just a “pause” on the path to transition to IT-based broadcasting? which said that the transition to HD (much of which had to be done with hardware), put back the move to IT-based broadcasting by about five years.  During the biggest years of the HD transition, many vendors grew very rapidly, including a few that went public.  Today, the transition to HD is well underway, and the focus of the customers is all about efficiency.   So it makes me wonder whether when the recovery does happen, who will reap the biggest benefit — the traditional hardware vendors, or providers of efficient IT-based systems.  I think we will see some new players emerge, while some established players continue to struggle.

This leads to the (not new) observation about the high degree of fragmentation among the broadcast technology vendor community.   What is new is what I think we will see next – vendor consolidation and a pretty active M&A market in the broadcast technology space.

Why? Well for one thing there are just too many vendors in a variety of product categories, and they are seeing their business change.  Many of the small players may be forced to merge or sell over the next few years.

And of course, when you combine the premise that it’s likely to be some of the newer companies (who provide a bridge to the file-based future) that are going to grow fastest for the next few years, with the premise that many of the established hardware-based vendors don’t actually have a file-based solution to offer their customers, it’s likely that we’ll be seeing more M&A activity in the near future.

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HDTV… just a “pause” on the path to transition to IT-based broadcasting?

Uncategorized | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 13 2009

I had an interesting conversation recently with a broadcast technology vendor about how the transition to HDTV has impacted the move to IT-based broadcasting.

Their proposition was this:

Before the move to HDTV really took off, the broadcast industry was moving towards IT / file-based workflows.  Then a variety of  external structural forces (e.g. government intervention, analog switch-off etc) caused it to change course and focus on the transition to HD.

This caused the industry’s focus shifted away from IT / software-based systems and back towards hardware, which was better able to handle the increased data rates of HDTV.   This was good news for traditional hardware vendors, many of whom saw big spikes in their businesses, and some of whom managed to go public on the back of this trend.

Fast forward to today.  The transition to HD is well underway, and completed in many areas.  Broadcasters who have made the move to HD are now are looking for ways to increase their efficiencies, and do more with less.   At the same time, IT-based systems have made tremendous strides, and have in many cases caught up with hardware systems. 

So, this vendor concluded, we’re at a major industry inflection point, and the next transition in the broadcast industry will be driven by software, not hardware.

If this vendor is right, (and they very well may be), it’s going to be an interesting time for the hardware-oriented vendors who don’t have fully-fledged IT-based solutions that deliver what today’s customers want — the ability to do more with less, the promise of greater efficiencies, and above all a way to increase revenues.  It’s doubtful that “traditional” vendors will go away, but it’s likely that we will see new leaders emerge, along with an increase in M&A activity.

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