Posts Tagged ‘Snell’

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 5 – The 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, technology trends, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 01 2011

This is the eighth 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.

Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask broadcast professionals worldwide to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendor to understand its position in the market relative to the the industry as a whole as well as their company’s direct competitors.

In previous articles we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table, the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table, and 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table.

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This post follows on from the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, by focusing on one of the most important metrics for any technology company – quality.

In an industry that prides itself on the fidelity of its sound and images, the perception of quality is a very important metric for broadcast technology vendors.  Many vendors use quality as one of the key components of their market positioning, and customers often use technical performance and quality as a part of their procurement strategies.

To determine the market’s perception of the quality of broadcast technology vendors, respondents were asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Quality” 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 in the study.

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The 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table

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As with previously published rankings, this list contains a broad mix of vendors including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

In order to better understand what drives the perception of quality in the broadcast technology industry, let’s look deeper at the vendors on this list, beginning with the type of products produced by each vendor.

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Frequency of Product Category – Audio Takes 4 of Top 7 Spots

What about the product categories themselves?  Are some product categories inherently perceived as having higher quality?  If so are these products judged differently than other types of products by customers who are evaluating them for purchase?

As shown in the chart below, there is a very broad range of product categories included in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table – vendors that make products in 23 of the 26 product categories that were covered in the study.

However, when one looks at the frequency of the product categories produced by these vendors, it’s immediately apparent that the top categories are audio products.

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2011 BBS Quality League Table — Frequency of Product Categories:

 

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The top two products categories for quality are both from the audio side of the business – microphones and audio consoles.  In fact, four of the top seven product categories in this ranking are audio related, with only highly complex video products — video editing, camera lenses and ENG cameras — being included in this group.  This is an interesting data point, especially when one considers that out of 26 product categories covered in the 2011 BBS, only five were in the audio space.

The other product categories that appear multiple times are clustered in the live production and studio environments, and include camera lenses, studio cameras, production switchers, production servers, test and measurement and video transport.  Interestingly these products tend to be high ticket items that are produced by the industry’s larger vendors.

Since the industry’s largest vendors tend to operate in the most product categories, let’s evaluate the number of times each vendor appears in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table to see if there is a correlation between size of vendor / product range and the market’s perception of quality.

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2011 BBS Quality League Table — Number of 2011 BBS Product Categories per Brand:

When considering what drives the perception of quality, one question to consider is which type of vendor appears more often in the above ranking – those that are focused on a single type of product, or large multi-product vendors.

While our research does not evaluate each product produced by every vendor, we do put vendors into categories based on their product lines.  This gives a good representation of whether a particular vendor has a narrow or broad product-line-up.

The table below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories produced by each brand (as defined by the segmentation used in the 2011 BBS).

 

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As shown above, the vast majority of the companies in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table provide products in just one of the product categories we measured as part of the study.

Please note that this is not a measure of company size, but rather a measure of how many product categories each of the above vendors was included in for the 2011 BBS. For example some of the “single product category companies” on the above list — such as Adobe, Dolby and Shure – are quite large.

Yet with 21 out of 30 vendors on this list producing a product in only one 2011 BBS category (out of 26 measured) it appears that that focused, specialized companies are regarded as quality leaders in the eyes of the market.  Nevertheless it’s also worth pointing out that large companies can also be considered industry innovators. For example, in the 2011 BBS study, Avid is covered in seven product categories, Snell is covered in five product categories, Sony is covered in four product categories and EVS appears three times.

To further illustrate this point, the chart below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories per vendor in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table.

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Number of products per vendor – Single Product Companies Dominate Quality Rankings

A breakdown of how many product categories are produced by each vendor in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table is shown below:

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With more than two-thirds of the vendors in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table producing a product in just one 2011 BBS product category, this table clearly suggests that focused companies who apply their efforts to specialist product areas are often able to generate a higher perception of quality in the eyes of the market.

Of course, companies are listed here based on how many 2011 BBS product categories they produce, which is not an absolute measure of the products produced be each vendor. There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 2011 BBS category. In total, the 2011 BBS looked at 118 vendors in 26 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.

Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data in these charts is presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  Finally please note that this study evaluated a total of 118 brands.

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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 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.

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

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Related Content:

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 4 – the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 3 – the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

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

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010 Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

More Information About the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey from Devoncroft Partners

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 4 – the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 25 2011

This is the seventh 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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Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask broadcast professionals worldwide to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

In previous articles we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table, and the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table.

This post looks at 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 spend heavily on research and development in order to create advanced technologies that 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, respondents 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 innovation are shown below for the global sample of all respondents.

Please note that these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study. 

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2011 BBS Innovation League Table:

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There are a wide variety of companies on this list, including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

Let’s look specifically at the how these companies and their products were ranked in the 2011 BBS, beginning with products and technology.

As shown in the chart below, these companies make products in 23 of the 26 product categories that we covered in the 2011 BBS.

The top products for brand leaders are split between audio and video – with microphones, signal processing and video transport each appearing five times.

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2011 BBS Innovation League Table — Frequency of Product Categories:

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The 2011 BBS Innovation League Table is split fairly evenly between audio and video companies.  There’s also a healthy mix of hardware versus software products represented on this list.

Does company size play a role in innovation?  Larger companies offer more products and are consequently used in more places than their smaller counterparts.  But this does not necessarily translate into innovation.

As shown below, innovative products are produced by both small focused companies, as well as by larger multi-product vendors.

Let’s look at the number of product categories that each of these brands produces (as defined by the segmentation used in the 2011 BBS).

The table below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories produced by each brand.

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2011 BBS Innovation League Table — Number of 2011 BBS Product Categories per Brand:

 

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As shown in the table above, vendors producing products in only one 2011 BBS category 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.

At the same time, larger companies are also represented on this list of the broadcast industry’s top innovators.  For example, Grass Valley is covered in 8 product categories in the 2011 BBS, while both Evertz and Snell are covered in five product categories.  These are examples of larger companies who have managed to instill innovation across their product lines.

Of course, companies are listed here based on how many 2011 BBS product categories they produce, which is not an absolute measure of the products produced be each vendor. There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 2011 BBS category. In total, the 2011 BBS looked at 118 vendors in 26 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.

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 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  Finally please note that this study evaluated a total of 118 brands.

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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 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.

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

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Related Content:

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 3 – the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

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

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

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

More Information About the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey from Devoncroft Partners

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Thoughts on the Grass Valley – PubliTronic Deal, Including Press Conference Slides

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor M&A | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 13 2011

Yesterday, Grass Valley announced that it has acquired Dutch Channel-in-a-Box (CiaB) vendor PubliTronic via an online press conference.  This in an interesting move for a number of reasons, and Grass Valley did a good job of explaining its rationalize for the transaction.

During the presentation Grass Valley showed a slide deck that outlined its reasons for buying PubliTronic, provided an overview of the CiaB market opportunity and laid out its strategic objectives for this space.

Grass Valley says the broadcast market is changing more rapidly than ever, and that it is working to position itself as the “trusted transformation expert,” which can provide the appropriate mix of hardware, software and services to broadcast customers facing unprecedented change.

Grass Valley says it wants to become “the premier video technology solutions company.” This plan includes software, services, differentiated products, moving “down market” where opportunities are greater, and moving into emerging markets where there is higher growth.

The company sees integrated playout as a prime example of a fast growing, but currently underserved market. During the press conference GV said that the CiaB space is one of the fastest growing areas of the broadcast market, and that the acquisition of PubliTronic will help it go after this space, while better serving the needs of its customers.

It will be interesting to see how Grass Valley executes on this deal and deploys the PubliTronic products (now rebranded as Grass Valley K2 Edge).

There’s no doubt that Grass Valley is one of the premier brands in the broadcast industry, but many of their products such as switchers, servers and routers are hardware based and used in live production and studio applications.

Conversely, the CiaB market is all about software, and some traditionally hardware-focused companies have had a difficult time making the transition to a more software-centric approach. Of course Grass Valley’s video servers are widely deployed in the playout space, and the company undoubtedly has extensive technical expertise in this area, so maybe the transition will be smooth.

While the purchase of a 32-person playout software company is not a “bet the company” move for Grass Valley, it’s still critically important for the company to get this acquisition right.  New CEO Alain Andreoli, made it clear at IBC that he (and new GV owner Francisco Partners) sees software and services as core to the company’s future success.  The PubliTronic deal is a significant step in this direction.

There’s no doubt that the PubliTronic product offering is very capable.  However, Grass Valley is far from alone in going after the CiaB market.  Miranda, Snell, Evertz, Playbox and VSN are all vying for leadership in this space, and there are rumors that both Harris and Harmonic (Omneon) will be throwing their respective hats into this ring before NAB 2012. Expect to be hearing a lot about integrated playout / CiaB over the next six months.

At the end of the press conference Grass Valley CEO Alain Andreoli said that this deal shows that Franscisco Partners is committed to building a new Grass Valley and that it’s putting its money where its mouth is in order to do so.  It’s going to be very interesting to watch
how this shakes out over the next year or two.

The slides from the Grass Valley – PubliTronic announcement press conference (or at least most of them) are shown below.  They are worth reading as they do a good job of explaining the market dynamics, Grass Valley’s strategy, and the PubliTronic product offering.

 

 

 

 


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Related Content:

More Broadcast Vendor M&A: Grass Valley Buys PubliTronic, Enters Integrated Playout / Channel-in-a-Box Market

Press Release: Grass Valley Extends Leadership in IT-based Playout Solutions with Acquisition of Integrated Playout Solutions Provider PubliTronic

Press Release: Grass Valley Announces New K2 Edge Automated, Multichannel, Integrated Playout Solution

Announcement Coming From Grass Valley

BC 2011 Trends: Cloud, Channel-in-a-Box, 3D

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More Broadcast Vendor M&A: Grass Valley Buys PubliTronic, Enters Integrated Playout / Channel-in-a-Box Market

broadcast industry trends, Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor M&A | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 12 2011

Grass Valley announced today that it has purchased PubliTronic, a Netherlands-based broadcast technology supplier.  Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

PubliTronic provides integrated playout or channel-in-box (CiaB) solutions for broadcast playout applications.  According to Grass Valley executives, CiaB solutions have been deployed by approximately 5% of the market today and represent “one of the fastest growing segments in broadcasting, [and is] expected to increase significantly over the next three years.”

PubliTronic’s CiaB product provides an integrated playout package featuring a video server, media management, automation, broadcast graphics and other master control functionality.  PubliTronic’s products will be incorporated into the Grass Valley product line-up and will be re-branded as the Grass Valley K2 Edge.

The acquisition of the PubliTronic product line complements the existing Grass Valley server product business and puts Grass Valley into the automated playout business, which is shaping up to be one of the next battlegrounds in the broadcast technology business.  It was certainly one of the most important trends at the recent IBC 2011 trade show.

With the purchase of PubliTronic, Grass Valley joins the growing list of broadcast vendors who are making major bets in this area.  In addition to Miranda, Evertz, Snell, Grass Valley, PlayBox and VSN; who are now all vying for leadership in this segment, I’ve heard rumors that other firms including both Harris and Harmonic (Omneon) could launch CiaB products by NAB 2012, making this both a hot topic and a very crowded space.

With most CiaB systems providing similar functionality, it will be important for Grass Valley to differentiate itself from its competition.  In a statement, the company sought to do this, saying: “What this acquisition brings to customers is much more than a simple “channel-in-a-box” solution. Our next-generation K2 Edge™ server is a sophisticated and very powerful multichannel, integrated, automated playout system that delivers benefits to our customers from day one.”

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Related Content:

Press Release: Grass Valley Extends Leadership in IT-based Playout Solutions with Acquisition of Integrated Playout Solutions Provider PubliTronic

Press Release: Grass Valley Announces New K2 Edge Automated, Multichannel, Integrated Playout Solution

Announcement Coming From Grass Valley

BC 2011 Trends: Cloud, Channel-in-a-Box, 3D

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 14 2011

This is the fourth 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.

 

Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask a global sample of  broadcast professionals to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

This post looks at how our global sample of broadcast professionals ranked 118 different broadcast technology vendors in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors (to see a list of the brands covered in this study, please click here).

Respondents were asked to rank their 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.

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.

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.      

 

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2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

 

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A total of 43 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, illustrating the geographic variation of opinion.

In terms of frequency of appearance in this table:

 

  • 19 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region

 

  • 9 brands appear three times

 

  • 2 brands appear two times

 

  • 13 brands appear one time 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 in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table: 

  • Adobe, AKG, Apple, beyerdynamic, Canon, Cisco, Dolby, Fujinon, Genelec, Grass Valley, Neumann, Panasonic, Schoeps, Sennheiser, Shure, Solid State Logic (SSL), Sony, Tektronix, Yamaha

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Brands appearing three times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table: 

  • Aja Video, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Clear-Com, JBL, Rohde & Schwarz, Snell, Studer, Wohler

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Brands appearing two times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

  • Audio-Technica, RTS Intercom Systems

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Brands appearing once in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

  • Electro Voice, Evertz, EVS, Harris, Ikegami, Lawo, Mackie, Omneon, Quantel, Riedel, RTW, Telex, Barco

 

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Frequency Analysis of the Brands in the in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:  

In order to provide a better understanding of which brands were most highly 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.

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Frequency Analysis of Brands in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

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

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

Two 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.

  • Audio-Technica (Asia Pacific), RTS Intercom Systems (Americas)

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

The following 13 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:

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

  • Barco, EVS, Lawo, Quantel, Riedel, RTW

 

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

  • Omneon

 

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

  • Electro-Voice, Evertz, Harris, Ikegami, Mackie, Telex

 

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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 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 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 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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The 2011 Big Broadcast Survey – Now Available

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, Broadcast technology channel strategy, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 10 2011

After many months of work, I am pleased to announce that the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) has been completed, and that reports from the study will be published soon.

If you’re not familiar with the BBS, it’s an annual demand-side study of the global broadcast industry. BBS reports help readers improve their strategic decision making, customer engagement, marketing strategy, product planning, and sales execution.

More than 8,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries participated in the 2011 BBS, making it by far the largest and most comprehensive market study of the broadcast industry.

Three types of reports are available:

  • The BBS Global Market Report is the broadcast industry’s first global demand-based study of the purchasing habits of technology buyers.  This report examines industry trends, major projects being planned, products being evaluated for purchase, current and future plant infrastructure and operational structure, broadcast technology budgets, and HD upgrade plans for a wide variety of products.

 

  • BBS Global Brand Reports are available for more than 100 broadcast technology vendors.  These reports provide deep insight into how each company is perceived by the market, along with comprehensive benchmarking of broadcast technology vendors on a wide variety of metrics, through a series of league table rankings

 

  • Twenty-six separate 2011 BBS Product Reports provide detailed vendor brand ranking for individual product categories. These reports enable users to benchmark their brand directly against specific competitors through a detailed understanding of the opinions of technology buyers who purchase, specify or use each product type.  

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If you would like information about these reports and how they can help your business, please get in touch.

In addition to these paid-for reports, we will also be publishing highlights from the study on the Devoncroft website.  These articles will be posted on a semi-regular basis, so please check back often.   

You’ll also be seeing information from the 2011 BBS in a wide variety of other industry websites and trade magazines.

The tables below show the product categories and broadcast technology vendor brands covered in the 2011 BBS.

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 Product Categories Covered in the 2011 BBS:

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Broadcast Technology Brands Covered in the 2011 BBS:

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AmberFin Closes Funding Round — Fourth Transcoding-Related Transaction in Past Few Months

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast technology vendor financials | Posted by Joe Zaller
Sep 10 2010

Ingest and transcoding vendor AmberFin announced today the company has secured additional investment from UK-based venture capitalist Advent Venture Partners. The amount of the funding round was not disclosed.

AmberFin, which was spun out of Snell & Wilcox in April 2008, says it will use the new money to capitalize on the expanding demand for file based workflows.

According to the company, AmberFin has recently closed a number of strategic business wins, and been active in three key industry initiatives to grow the file based workflow market, the VCO Forum, the JPEG2000 alliance and the joint EBU/AMWA FIMS project.

Company CEO Jeremy Deaner said that an increasing number of broadcast industry players are investing in file-based workflows, and that “AmberFin is well placed to service this growth business as our expertise and technology encompasses both existing Broadcast video workflows and new IT centric working practices.”

There has been quite a bit of activity in the transcoding space recently, and the announcement by AmberFin is the fourth transcoding-related transaction in recent months.  In addition to the AmberFin funding deal:

  • Ripcode was purchased by RGB networks
  • Elemental Technologies closed a funding round led by Steamboat Ventures
  • Telestream purchased the operating business of rival transcoding vendor Anystream

Reliability Rankings of Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 27 2010

This is part of 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, posts which rank broadcast technology vendors include:

 

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Today let’s look at how respondents ranked broadcast technology vendors for reliability.

Broadcast technology products are purchased by discerning customers for what are often mission-critical applications.  Thus the reliability of products is a paramount concern for buyers of these products. 

To measure the rankings of the reliability of vendors, respondents were asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Reliability” 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. 

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Reliability – Top 30 Broadcast Technology Brands (Alpha Order)

There are a wide variety of vendors on this list, including large & small companies and those who produce audio and video products. 

  

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Number of products per vendor – Single Product Companies Dominate Reliability Rankings

When reviewing these results it’s important to understand how many products are produced by each vendor on this list.  This will help us to understand if whether reliability comes from small focused companies, or large multi-product vendors. 

 The 2010 BBS evaluated 27 separate product categories.  As with the previously published top 30 quality rankings, single product companies (those who were covered on only one product category in the 2010 BBS) dominate the rankings for reliability.

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

With 21 out of 30 vendors on this list producing a product in only one BBS category (out of 27 measured) it’s clear that focused, specialized companies are regarded as reliability leaders in the eyes of the global broadcast 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 Snell is covered in 5 product categories. 

  

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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 are the clear reliability leaders, while companies based in the Americas and Asia trail the pack. 

Keep in mind that 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 reliability list for the 2010 BBS.

Out of the 27 product categories covered in the 2010 BBS, 20 appear on this list; making reliability more concentrated than other metrics such as quality (which had entrants from 23 product categories).

Audio products lead the list of products produced by the top 30 reliability leaders, with audio consoles and microphones topping the rankings.  ENG cameras and studio cameras, along with audio monitors also make a strong showing.

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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.

  

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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.

Quality Rankings for Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 08 2010

This is the fourth 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, posts which rank broadcast technology vendors include:

 

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

In an industry that prides itself on the fidelity of its sound and images, the perception of quality is a very important metric for broadcast technology vendors.  Many vendors use quality as one of the key components of their market positioning.

To determine the market’s perception of the quality of broadcast technology vendors, respondents were asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Quality” 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. 

 

As with the top 30 innovation rankings published earlier, this list contains a broad mix of vendors 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 – Single Product Companies Dominate Quality Rankings

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 quality 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 quality list is shown below:

With 22 out of 30 vendors on this list producing a product in only one BBS category (out of 27 measured) it’s clear that focused, specialized companies are regarded as quality leaders in the eyes of the market. 

This finding reinforces a previous post called Purchasing Preferences of Broadcast Technology Buyers – “Best-of-Breed” or “One-Stop-Shop?, which shows that broadcast technology buyers overwhelmingly prefer to evaluate products from individual suppliers and create best-of-breed solutions.

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. 

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 are the clear quality leaders, while companies based in the Americas and Asia trail the pack. 

In terms of individual countries, the Germany and the USA are tied with 11 companies each on the Top 30 Quality Rankings.  Japan, the UK, Finland and Belgium round out the rest of the countries where the quality leaders are headquartered.  Keep in mind that 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 quality list for the 2010 BBS.

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

Audio products lead the list of products produced by the top 30 quality leaders, with microphones, audio consoles and audio monitors topping the rankings.

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.

 

 

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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.

Innovation Rankings for Broadcast Technology Vendors — The Top 30 Globally

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | 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.