Posts Tagged ‘IABM’

Devoncroft Digest — June 27, 2010

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Broadcast technology vendor financials, Devoncroft Digest, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jun 27 2010

Here’s a recap of some of the items that caught my eye over the past week or so.

Broadcast Technology Vendor News

Another M&A Deal — RGB Buys Ripcode

In a multi-platform, multi-format world, video transcoding is one of the technologies that everyone needs.  But transcoding is a tough business with fierce competition, and it’s considered by many to be a commodity product.  This makes it tough for pure-play transcoding vendors (which is why most of them will tell you that they focus on workflow optimization).  All of the above makes it an interesting market to watch, so I took note when I read that Ripcode has been purchased by RGB networks. I always thought Ripcode was a pretty interesting company.  They raised a lot of money for their platform and they had a different approach to others in the market.  It will be interesting to see how they perform as part of RGB. 

To read more about this, check out Dan Rayburn’a Business of Video Blog, which has complete coverage of the deal here.

 

Evertz Delivers Good Results for Q4 and Full Year

Evertz Technologies delivered pretty good results for their Q4 and full year, topping the expectations of equity analysts. 

Here are some highlights from the company’s earnings press release here.

Revenue for Q4 was C$75.3m, down 3% versus the same period a year ago, but up 14% over the previous quarter.

In terms of geographic split, sales in Q4 from the US and Canada decreased by 28% versus the same period last year, but this was partially offset by a 41% y/y increase in international revenue (which Evertz defines as markets outside of the US and Canada).  International revenue rose by 23% versus the previous quarter, while sales in the US and Canada decreased by 28%.

Revenue for the full year was C$286.5, a 9% y/y decline. 

Annual revenue from the US and Canada declined 26% versus last year, while international revenue was up by 24% over last year.

The company’s gross margins slipped a bit to 58% (versus 61% last year).  On the earnings conference call, the company attributed this to pricing pressures and the cost of international expansion.

Overall, this was a strong performance from Evertz.  The company’s international growth is particularly notable. 

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Wegener Issues Preliminary Results

Wegener, which was delisted from the NASDAQ earlier this year, issued preliminary operating results for the third quarter ended May 28, 2010. Final results for the third quarter of fiscal 2010 will be released on July 12, 2010.

According to the company’s press release  preliminary operating results for the third quarter of fiscal 2010 were revenues of $2.1 million and a net loss of approximately $(487,000) or $(0.04) per share compared to revenues of $2.9 million and a net loss of $(883,000) or $(0.07) per share for the same period in fiscal 2009.

Company President & CEO Troy Woodbury said that “bookings performance in the third quarter was an improvement over the first and second quarters of fiscal 2010, but there is significant room for improvement.”

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French Employees Protest Grass Valley Sale

TVB reports that nearly 200 Grass Valley employees at the company’s facility in Rennes France went on strike to protest the shutdown of production. Grass Valley, which has been for sale for what seems like forever, is one the broadcast industry’s most storied names. 

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Dolby Opens R&D Center in China

Dolby Labs announced that it’s first “from the ground up” R&D facility outside of the US will be based in China.  In the company’s press release, Dolby VP Mahesh Sundaram said “China is strategically important to Dolby. The establishment of Dolby China’s R&E Center is an important milestone as part of our continued commitment to China and innovation.”  The facility will focus on sound technology.

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Technicolor Opens New Lab in Palo Alto

Meanwhile, French technology provider Technicolor (formerly known as Thomson) has announced that it is planning a new lab in Palto Alto, CA.  The company says the new lab will focus on the personalization of digitally delivered content, and enhance the company’s research skills in content discovery.   The company also says it chose Palo Alto for its proximity to excellent universities and for the potential for interaction within the Silicon Valley technology ecosystem.

 

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Broadcast Technology Vendor Confidence Beginning to Return

According to an article in TVB Europe, the IABM (the association which represents broadcast and media technology suppliers worldwide) has published the results of a new study about industry confidence.  The result — the worst of the recession appears to be over in the broadcast and media technology sector and vendors are feeling increasingly optimistic about the future.

The IABM says that 74% of vendors who participated in their poll are response anticipating better business next year than last, and that 47% of those surveyed are already reporting better order volumes than expected.  However the study also found that the industry is facing strong pricing pressure.

Disclosure: Devoncroft and the IABM partner on market intelligence.

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Other Items of Interest:

TVB reports that the new PricewaterhouseCoopers 2010-14 Global Entertainment and Media Outlook predicts that advertising revenues remain fragile in nature and spending is unlikely to return to former levels, and that by 2014, the U.S. advertising spend is expected to still be 9 percent below its level in 2007.

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NetApp Files 10K with SEC 

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Following April Announcement, John Malone Formally Steps Down as DirecTV Chairman 

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According to Dan Rayburn, here’s the “best article by far” about Google TV: “Google TV: everything you ever wanted to know” – Best article by far on the subject by Engadget. 

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The Wall Street Journal reported that News Corp Want to Buy Rest of BSkyB, but that Sky is holding out for more money.

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Harmonic was upgraded by Merrill Lynch, who say that the Omneon acquisition could be significantly accretive in 2011 

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Cablevision bought Bresnan Communications for $1.4Bn

 

 

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Market Research Note of the Week:

Innovation Rankings of Broadcast Technology Vendors – The Top 30 Globally

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. 

There’s a broad mix of vendors included in these ranking, 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.  So let’s look a little deeper into these results….

To see the full results, included three ranking tables and analysis, please follow this link.

You can find other 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) here:

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

The Top 30 Broadcast Vendor Brands by Net Change in Brand Image.

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Technicolor Announces Grass Valley Reorganization Plan

Broadcast technology vendor financials, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 31 2010

Technicolor (formerly Thomson) issued a press release today announcing a reorganization plan for Grass Valley.

According to Technicolor, the worldwide market for professional broadcast equipment has declined 30% since 2008.  Grass Valley’s revenues have declined 31% over the same period, resulting in a loss of €87m in 2009.

The Grass Valley reorganization plan will see the company being structured in three units — broadcast, head-ends and transmission.

It will also result in the loss of 625 jobs, or 25% of the company’s worldwide workforce.

For reference, in October 2009 at its US member days the IABM (an international association that represents broadcast technology vendors) said that the overall broadcast market declined by 9.5% last year, when taking both product and services revenue into account.  At that meeting, the IABM reported that in Europe, service revenue is now larger than product revenue.  Clearly Technicolor is taking advantage of this by focusing on their services revenue while moving away from product-0riented revenues.

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Purchase Preferences of Broadcasters, Broken Down by Geography and Organization Size

Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 22 2009

In a previous post I wrote about the IABM’s US market workshops, which I attended last week in San Francisco and New York. During my presentations about the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey, a few people asked for clarification on some data and/or for a cut of the data that is different than what I was showing at the time.

When I got back from the meetings, I extracted this additional information and sent it to the relevant parties. I figured that others might be interested to see this as well, so here it is.

One question was about whether there is significant regional variation in the preference for broadcasters to purchase from a single vendor versus a range of “best-of-breed” suppliers.  A follow-on question was whether there was variation in purchasing preference based on the size of the broadcaster.

My original post on this topic showed that there is a strong preference for buyers to evaluate multiple vendors and select a best of breed solution. You can read this post here: Do broadcast technology buyers prefer to purchase from a single supplier or from “best-of-breed”?

Here’s the chart from this post, which shows that the majority of buyers, regardless of their type, prefer to  evaluate multiple vendors and purchase best-of-breed solutions.

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

Best of breed preferred purchase method

 

The above chart looks at the total market on a global basis, and does not break out the responses for each customer type geographically. 

 I thought it would be interesting to do this for broadcasters, and the results are shown in the chart below, which compares the response of the overall global sample (called “everyone” here), with the responses of all broadcasters and then regional broadcasters — there is some regional variation.

 

Broadcasters -- Best of breed preferred purchase method

The chart above shows that broadcasters have a strong preference to purchase “best-of-breed” solutions, but there are some variations.  Broadcasters in the Americas show a higher preference towards a single supplier versus the average of all broadcasters, while Asian broadcasters show a higher preference towards best-of-breed versus the average.

The next question takes it one level further, and asks whether these preferences hold true for broadcasters of all sizes — i.e. how do broadcasters of different sizes prefer to purchase broadcast technology products and services?  To find out I did another cut of the broadcaster data from the chart above.  In this case I did not look at geography, but at the size of the broadcaster.

The results are shown in the table below:

Broadcasters By Size -- Best of breed preferred purchase method

 

As you can see, the results are fairly consistent, and once again there is an overwhelming preference is to evaluate multiple vendors and choose best of breed solutions. 

You’ll note that there is an extra bar on this chart — the one for US Network Broadcasters.  As an interesting point of comparison,  I have also included these results since I happened to have collected this data during the research.  US networks are some of the industry’s largest customers and they are usually in the largest cities (such as New York) where many vendors have sales offices.  US broadcast networks show the strongest preference towards buying from a single supplier when compared other broadcasters — more than double other large (1000+ employee) broadcasters.

If you’re a broadcast technology vendor, is this consistent with your experience?  Please let me know.

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The IABM’s US Member Days, and New IABM / Screen Digest Global Market Study

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 20 2009

Last week I attended the IABM’s US member meetings in both San Francisco and New York.  The meetings had pretty good attendance and were very informative.

I was there to present information about my current market research findings as part of my partnership agreement with the IABM, but the highlight of the meeting was Graham Sharp’s overview of the new IABM / Screen Digest global market study.

Over the years, I have bought just about every broadcast technology market report, and in my view the IABM / Screen Digest report is the best source for broadcast industry data on market size, growth and share. This report is ordinarily published every other year (this not being one of them), but due to the economic conditions there was significant demand for an updated report this year.  The IABM obliged, with an informative report that is priced 50% lower than the full bi-annual report.

You can find information about the new report here.  In the meanwhile, here are some of the high level findings that were presented at the meeting.

This study has very up-to-date information.  It takes into account actual results of vendors through June 2009 and adds projections through the end of 2009.  It then provides an overall market forecast through to 2012

At a high level, the study found that the overall broadcast technology market declined 9.5% in 2009.  This number was the subject of much discussion among member companies, especially in light of the following table, which shows a breakdown of how vendors reported / forecast their revenues for 2009:

 

Broadcast Technology Vendor Revenues in 2009:

Revenue Growth 0-10% revenue decline 10-15% revenue decline 15-20% revenue decline 20%+ revenue decline

2.8%

1.4%

27.9%

54%

13.9%
Source: IABM/Screen Digest 2009

Clearly there is some discrepancy between the numbers in the above chart and the overall 9.5% decline for the total market.   Vendors at the meeting wanted to know how it’s possible that this report shows a (mere) 9.5% drop in the overall market when so many companies have seen such significant revenue drops (as shown in the table above)?

Indeed there is much anecdotal evidence that the broadcast technology market is down much more than 9.5% for 2009.  As I posted previously, during IBC 2009, many vendors told me that their revenues were down by 20-40%.  However I also found some bright spots at IBC – particularly in those areas that have to do with making broadcasters more efficient and saving them money – e.g. automation, workflow optimization, asset management, business systems etc.  Perhaps growth in these areas has made up for some of the losses in others.

For its part, the IABM and Screen Digest are standing behind the projections, and say that that the following needs to be taken into account when looking at these numbers:

  • Sources of income to customers (advertising, license fees, subscriptions)
  • Product revenue vs. service revenue and the trend towards outsourcing
  • Regional differences
  • ForX rates, which have been extremely volatile the past few years
  • Dynamics in individual market segments and product categories

 

Here are some other interesting things / highlights of this report:

  • The total market size is pegged at $25BN, with $16BN (63%) coming from product revenue, and $9BN (37%) coming from service revenue.  Service revenue includes Rental/hire, transmission, managed services, systems integration, support contracts and consultancy.
  • This means that service providers such as playout centers and others are counted as part of the market size.  This is consistent with previous IABM reports, but perhaps not with the way most vendors count their revenues.  Indeed, to a typical vendor a playout / service provider is a customer.
  • Service revenues in Europe are now higher than product revenues, and (IMO) will likely continue to increase worldwide as broadcasters move to more outsourcing in order to shift cost from Capex to Opex.
  • By 2012, the market size will be back to where it was at its peak in 2008

 

When all of this is explained (which takes a while), you can understand how Screen Digest arrived at these numbers, but this does not mean that all the vendors at the meetings agreed with them.  What this highlights is that the industry is changing.  I’ve made several posts about this including my Impressions of IBC 2009 and Silverwood Partners’ Take on IBC 2009.  This reports is also consistent with a question I posed in the post HDTV… just a “pause” on the path to transition to IT-based broadcasting? which said that the transit ion 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.

All-in-all the new IABM/Screen Digest report looks well worth considering if you are involved in the financial or supply side of the broadcast technology industry.  You can get more info on this report here.

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Comprehensive Research Report Reveals Industry Trends and Highlights Broadcast Technology Vendor Brands — Free Summary Available

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 17 2009

Although I have mentioned it in many previous posts, I have not yet written specifically about the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), so I thought I’d take the opportunity to do that now.

Published in May 2009, the BBS is one of the largest ever and most comprehensive studies of broadcast technology vendor brands and industry trends (nearly 5,000 people from 110 countries participated in the study). The 2009 BBS provides insight into the perceptions of leading broadcast industry vendor brands by practitioners across the world. It also delivers vendor brand ranking in nine product categories; all of which can be segmented by geography and customer type.

In order to help promote my research I have entered into a partnership with the IABM, the broadcast vendor community’s trade association.  As part of this agreement, the information in report, its data collection and methodology, were reviewed by the IABM prior to publishing. The IABM now promotes Devoncroft research as part of its ongoing Market Research and Intelligence Services.  In return, Devoncroft provides IABM members with a discount when they purchase reports.

I have published two types of reports with the data from the 2009 BBS:

The BBS Global Brand Report provides a comprehensive overview of the market perceptions of a variety of broadcast vendor brands, including a ranking of brands in a series of industry “league tables.” It also provides a large number of “brand scorecards” that look at the perception of each brand segmented by customer type and geography — e.g. broadcasters in EMEA.

Nine separate BBS Product Reports rank vendor brand rankings in individual product categories (automation, cameras, conversion, modular infrastructure, master control switchers, multiviewers, production switchers, routing switchers and video servers)

The reports described above are paid-for products, and I am happy to say that they have been well-received by the industry.  However, I have also published a 26 page summary document that highlights the some of the key findings from the 2009 study, which is available free of charge.  This report provides an overview of industry trends and a listing of the top vendor brands in a variety of categories such as reliability, quality, innovation and customer service.

 It’s pretty interesting reading, and the best part is that it’s free once you register.

You can register for and download the free report here http://bit.ly/2Z125

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Brand Schizophrenia? Regional/customer variations in perception of broadcast vendor brands

Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 09 2009

Last week at the IABM’s market workshop meeting in the UK, I presented an overview of  the Big Broadcast Survey.  During the presentation, I talked about how there is dramatic variation in the perception of broadcast industry vendor brands, based on factors such as geography and customer type. 

I used an example of how the perception of one company whose brand I studied is very different based on who you ask, and where the people you ask are located.   A number of people contacted me after the presentation to discuss this topic, so I am posting the charts from this part of the presentation here.  

I didn’t name the company during the IABM presentation, and I am not going to name it here.  The reason for showing this is not to single out one vendor (believe me, there are plenty of similar examples).  Instead, it’s to highlight the fact that brands may be perceived very differently in different parts of the world.  The broadcast industry, like many B2B markets, is global and vendors (large and small) need to be aware of the regional differences.

Keep in mind that when looking at these charts, they all show the perception of the same company’s brand — just from different perspectives. 

 

Let’s start by looking at how this company is perceived by broadcasters.  

I surveyed more than 1000 broadcasters about a variety of topics, including their perception of vendor brands.  The resulting broadcast industry brand status “league table” is shown below, with the company in question highlighted in red.

 

Regional Variations -- broadcasters

 

 

So what do broadcasters think of this company?

As you can see, this brand:

  • is very well regarded by broadcasters in the Americas
  • falls to the middle of the pack with broadcasters in EMEA
  • is not held in a particularly high regard by broadcasters in Asia

 

 

Next, let’s look at how a different group of respondents, systems integrators, view this company based on the same criteria. 

Here are the results:

Regional Variations -- systems integrators

 

SIs are an important partner for any broadcast technology vendor, and in some cases their opinion of a company can mean the difference between winning and losing a lucrative deal.

To sum up this one: 

  • SIs in the Americas like this company a LOT.
  • SIs in EMEA regard it as being in the middle of the pack
  • SIs in Asia appear to not think much of this company

 

 

Finally, let’s move away from brand status, and look at a key brand driver, customer service.  Rather than look at customer service from the perspective of a specific customer category, I’ve summarized the rankings on a regional basis. 

Once again — as shown below — this company is perceived very differently in different parts of the world.  They rank #2 in one region and #11 in a different region.

Regional Variations -- customer service

So what’s the take-away from this?

Vendors need to understand that the perception of their brand is one of the things that can drive their business, so they need to pay attention to the way they are perceived.

If you’re interested in reading more about this, be sure to download the free summary report from the Big Broadcast Survey.  It’s 26 pages long and gives a good overview of some of the broadcast industry’s leading brands, broken down regionally. 

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IABM Partnership Announcement

Uncategorized | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jun 19 2009

While I was finalizing the first version of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), I showed it to a number of people to get their feedback.  One of the first was Roger Crumpton, who heads up the IABM and was the driving force behind the excellent IABM Global Market Study, which is published in conjunction with Screen Digest.

I initially approached Roger to get his view on pricing the BBS.  However, when I took him through the study he got excited about its content and suggested that we work together.    Roger told me that the BBS fills a need in the market and provides IABM member companies with unique insight that was previously unavailable.

We decided to create a partnership  – after the IABM conducted due dilligence on the study, its methodology and its findings — whereby the IABM will help to promote the study in exchange for me offering their member companies a 15% discount.  We also agreed to “synchronize” the segmentation of my future reports with the segmentation in the IABM / Screen Digest report.

I am excited about this partnership as I think it can bring benefits to both Devoncroft and the IABM.

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