Posts Tagged ‘Transition to HDTV’

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

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, content delivery, market research, technology trends | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 07 2011

 

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

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In previous articles, I’ve written about the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which shows the most important trends in the broadcast industry for 2011.  As a follow-up I wrote about how the commercial importance of these trends has changed over time.

Tracking broadcast industry trends is important because it provides insight into which areas are receiving the most attention from technology buyers.  However, it’s important to note that industry trends are a reflection of what customers are thinking and talking about, not necessarily where they are spending money today.

Indeed, the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index includes a mix of current and future commercial priorities, some of which broadcasters have not yet determined how to implement. Thus, while trends are important they do not necessarily translate into where broadcast technology buyers will be spending their budgets in 2011 and 2012. 

Technology spending in the broadcast industry tends to be project-based. Projects might include international elections and sporting championships, to the long-term planned capital upgrades of broadcast infrastructure and facilities.  Thus, an understanding of the major projects being implemented by broadcaster professionals around the world provides useful insight into the capital expenditure plans of the industry.

We presented broadcast professionals with a list of major projects and asked them to indicate which ones they are currently implementing or have planned / budgeted to implement in the next year.  Their responses were then used to create the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index, which is shown below. 

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One look at the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index illustrates the difference between what people are thinking and talking about (trends), and where they are planning to spend their budgets (projects). Although “multi-platform content delivery” dominated the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, the corresponding project “distribute and monetize content on multiple distribution platforms,” ranked #9 out of 15 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index.

By a significant margin, more broadcast technology buyers said that they are budgeting for “upgrading infrastructure for HD/ 3Gbps operations” than any other project.  Upgrading infrastructure for HD / 3Gbps operations was also the dominant planned project in the 2010 BBS. 

This project correlates directly with “transition to HDTV operations,” which was ranked #2 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.

The projects ranked 3rd, 5th and 6th – upgrading transmission & distribution capabilities; building new studios / OB vans; and launching new channels – are also related to the transition to HDTV operations, as these transmission upgrades, new studios, and new channels will almost certainly be at least HD capable, if not fully HD.

Many of the other top ranked projects are related to the file-based / tapeless workflow, which ranked #3 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. For example, many respondents indicated that they planning workflow / asset-management; archive-related; and automation projects.

The rest of the list offers a mixed picture of project activity across the world, and includes everything from upgrading audio and newsrooms to multi-platform distribution being chosen in large numbers. 

As mentioned earlier, multi-platform content delivery ranked #9 in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index.  Despite the importance to organizations of monetizing content on multiple distribution platforms, it appears many broadcast professionals have not solidified their business plans in this area.  This likely means that there will be significant opportunities in the future for broadcast technology vendors who offer a suite of products for multi-platform content delivery.  The current excitement surrounding OTT video, connected TV, and mobile DTV is evidence of this, but these initiatives represent a relatively small proportion of the money being spent on broadcasting technology in 2011.

Interestingly, despite the fact that they may have the potential to deliver increased efficiencies and new revenue streams, there are several major projects that appear towards the bottom of this list. The two most obvious instances are the low ranking of “consolidate operations in regional hubs (centralcasting), and “outsourced operations (playout),” which are the bottom two projects on this list. This is because although these are high value projects, they will be undertaken by a relatively small number of organizations — i.e. large broadcasters.  This highlights that the 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index is a graphic representation of the number of all planned projects across all respondents, regardless of organization type, size, or location.  It does not measure size, value, or relative commercial importance of planned projects.  Please keep this in mind when reading this information and interpreting these findings.

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

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Related Content:

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

The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

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

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

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©Devoncroft Partners 2009-2011

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Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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So what changed between 2010 and 2011? 

There are two ways to look at this:

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

 

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Changes in Numerical Ranking of Broadcast Industry Trends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Changes in Commercial Importance of Broadcast Industry Trends

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

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

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

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Why Tracking Movement of Trends is Important

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

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

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

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

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Related Content:

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

The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

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

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

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©Devoncroft Partners 2009-2011

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

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

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

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The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Related Content:

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

The 2010 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

The 2009 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is here.

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

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

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What are the Commercial Drivers for the Global Move to HDTV Operations?

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 13 2010

For the most part, large scale broadcast industry CapEx tends to be project-based.  Our most recent research into where money is being spent in the broadcast industry shows that the top two projects globally are “upgrading infrastructure for HD / 3Gbps operations” and “upgrading transmission and distribution capabilities,”  both of which are undoubtedly influenced by the move to HDTV.

As broadcasters migrate to HDTV operations much of the industry’s infrastructure is being replaced, making the move to HDTV a strong driver of broadcast industry CapEx. 

At a time when we are now several years into the HD transition, what continues to drive broadcasters to move to HDTV operations?  Are broadcasters moving to HD to for engineering reasons (e.g. delivering better image quality to viewers), or for commercial reasons (e.g. to remain competitive in the marketplace)?

As part of the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey, 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.

In order to better understand the drivers behind each trend, respondents were then asked a series of questions about the one industry trend that they indicated was most commercially important to their business – e.g. respondents who indicated that the transition to HDTV operations was the trend most important to their business were asked  why this is the case. 

The results are shown in the chart below:

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Q. Why the transition to HDTV operations the most important to your business?

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On a global basis the most important overall driver for the move to HD is simply completing the job.  In many parts of the world, broadcast professionals are now in the middle of multi-year complex HD migration projects, so this should not be too surprising.  

The second and third ranking factors cited by respondents as drivers for their transition to HDTV were delivering improved picture quality to viewers and the competitive demands of the market.  More engineering-oriented drivers such as taking a technology lead and future-proofing operations were seen by most respondents as much less important.

Like all data of this type, there are of course variations based on respondent demographics.  For example:

  • the competitive demands of the market were ranked as the most important HD driver for US broadcasters, while state funded broadcasters as well as those in Asia ranked completing the job as the their top driver
  • respondents from Australia, MEA and the UK cited more technology-oriented drivers (taking a technological lead in the market and future-proofing operations) than those from other areas where HD is perhaps more mature
  • broadcasters who derive most of their income from subscription revenues cited competitive demands of the market as their top driver for migrating to HD, while both commercial and state funded broadcasters said that completing the job was most important to them

 

Despite these differences, it’s clear that the key drivers for the move to HDTV are commercially oriented.   In today’s environment, the broadcast procurement process is usually based on carefully considered commercial factors, and often as part of a major planned project. 

As written previously, our research shows that the top priorities for the broadcast industry in 2010 include completing the transition to HD, achieving cost savings through operational efficiencies, and generating new revenue streams.  These projects all have a strong commercial justification, and will continue to drive a large share of the industry’s CapEx.

Interestingly, these results highlight why the buzz about some new technologies such as 3D has faded over time as potential buyers begin to appreciate the commercial issues associated with their deployment.  Indeed, many of those who commented on industry trends at the IBC 2010 exhibition commented that the market has become more realistic about 3D.

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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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Transition to HDTV to Drive European Broadcast Project Spending

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Sep 20 2010

This article was originally written for and published by the IBC Daily News.

Much of the technology spending in the broadcast industry is project-based, and for the past several years the transition to HDTV operations has been one of the key drivers of large scale CapEx by broadcasters and other broadcast professionals in the EMEA region.

Our research shows that the transition to HDTV will continue to be the top driver of technology spending.  But which product categories will be the beneficiaries of this spending, and just how long will the transition continue?

This article uses data from the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), the broadcast industry’s largest ever and most comprehensive study of the broadcast industry, to help answer these questions.  We’ll do this by looking at three key drivers of broadcast technology spending: the major planned projects in EMEA; the current and future technical make-up of the broadcast infrastructure in EMEA; and finally the projected HDTV upgrade cycles for a variety of product categories.

 

Major Planned Projects in Europe

In an industry where major projects drive technology spending, it’s important to understand what projects are being planned by broadcast professions.

The chart below, which provides a breakdown of the projects planned by more than 1,400 broadcast professionals from EMEA, shows that upgrading infrastructure for HD / 3Gbps operations is by far the most common project in the region.

It also shows that workflow / asset-management and archive-related projects will be deployed in EMEA, along with new studios and new channels (many of which will certainly be HD-capable).

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The Technical Make-up of EMEA’s Broadcast Infrastructure

But how much of the HD transition in EMEA has already been completed, and how long will move to HDTV operations continue to drive spending?

To find out we asked our research participants about the state of their broadcast infrastructure, and their plans to upgrade their equipment to HD.  It turns out that not only is there still a considerable amount of HD upgrades to be done, but also that customers intend to carry on with these upgrades over the next several years.

While more than half of the broadcast infrastructure in EMEA is SDI, only about a quarter has been transitioned to HDTV operations. 3Gbps appears to have not yet been widely deployed in the region.

Interestingly, 19% of EMEA’s broadcast infrastructure is still analog.  This begs the question of whether this infrastructure will be upgraded directly to HD, skipping out SDI all-together.

With such a considerable amount of analog and SDI infrastructure in the EMEA today, the transition to HDTV, and the CapEx required to make this happen, would appear to be far from over.

Indeed, when we asked respondents to project the technical make-up of their infrastructure in 2-3 years time, the picture was quite different.  For example, respondents predicted that in 2-3 years the amount of analog infrastructure in EMEA would fall to just 7%, while the amount of HD infrastructure would jump considerably.  This strong increase in HD infrastructure will come from the upgrading of current SDI plant, as well as migrating analog equipment directly to HDTV.

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HDTV Upgrade Plans in EMEA

So having established that the transition to HDTV operations will continue to drive CapEx for broadcast infrastructure, what equipment categories will see the benefit of this spending?

BBS respondents were asked detailed questions about both the current state of the plant infrastructure, as well as their plans between now and 2012 to upgrade a variety of individual products types to HDTV.

Overall about 20% of respondents have fully upgraded each product category to HDTV, with another 25-40% partially upgraded.  This implies that there is still a considerable amount of HDTV upgrades to come in the coming years as analog and SDI plants, along with those that have partially moved to HD are converted to full HDTV operations.

Understanding how the factors discussed above drive CapEx should help industry participants to better plan their business strategies as we enter 2011.  Tracking major projects is important because they are one of the industry’s most important drivers of technology CapEx, because projects drive capital budgets, which ultimately drive product purchase.   When interpreting these findings, it’s important to note that these results look across a wide geographic region.  Granular analysis of the information in this article is available from Devoncroft Partners.

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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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Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry? — A Review of Major Projects Being Planned

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Mar 25 2010

This is the second 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.

In the current environment, everyone in the broadcast business wants to know what parts of the industry are doing well, where money is being spent, and what is driving this spending.  While there is no absolute answer to these questions, the findings from the 2010 BBS go a long way towards answering them.

Much of the technology purchasing in the broadcast industry is driven by major projects ranging from international events such as elections and sporting championships, to the long-term, planned capital upgrades of broadcast infrastructure and facilities.  Thus an understanding of which major projects are being implemented by broadcaster professionals around the world provides insight the capital expenditure plans of the industry.

Major Projects Planned for this Year

As part of our 2010 broadcast industry market study, more than 3,000 broadcast processionals – including radio and TV broadcasters, cable/satellite/IPTV operators, playout centers, post production facilities, and cable programmers — were asked to provide information about the projects they are currently implementing or are planning to implement in the next 12 months.  

Respondents were presented with a list of major projects and asked to indicate up to five choices that they are currently implementing or have planned / budgeted to implement in the next year.  The chart below shows the percentage of respondents who indicated they are planning to implement each project.  Respondents were also asked to provide budget details for each project.  This budget information along with a granular breakdown of planned projects is available in the 2010 BBS Global Market Report from Devoncroft Partners.

Which technology projects are you currently implementing or planning to implement in the next 12 months?

 

 

By a wide margin, more respondents selected “upgrading infrastructure for HD/ 3Gbps operations” than any other type of project.  It’s interesting to note that last year, in our 2009 broadcast industry market study, that the transition to HDTV operations was ranked by respondents as the technology trend most important technology to their business – and by a similarly wide margin.  In the time since the 2009 BBS was published, broadcast professionals have apparently translated top-ranked trend this into action through real-world projects that are either currently being implemented or planned for the current year. (For reference, you can read about the 2009 industry trends here).

In addition to upgrading infrastructure for HD/3Gbps operations, respondents also indicated that they plan to upgrade their transmission and distribution capabilities – presumably to support their transition to HDTV and to prepare for analog switch-off.

As shown in a previous post about the broadcast industry’s most important technology trends for 2010, the transition to HDTV operations was one of the top-ranked technology trends this year as well.  Indeed there is a strong correlation between how respondents ranked which trends are most important to their business, and the major projects they are planning or implementing. 

The major projects ranking 3rd and 4th in terms of how many respondents plan to implement them were “installing or enhancing a workflow / asset management system”,  and “archive-related projects.”  The high percentage of broadcast professionals planning to implement these projects highlights the fact that the industry is striving for ways to become more efficient and to monetize content in more ways.  It’s also good news for asset management, storage and library management vendors.   

The top four-ranked projects are closely aligned with 2010’s most important trends in the broadcast industry (link), which show that the priorities for the industry are to continue the transition to HDTV operations, while at the same time find ways of being more efficient (through automated and file-based / tapeless workflows), and generating new revenue streams (through multi-platform content distribution).

These results also show that the industry will continue to push ahead with new content creation and delivery projects.  Ranking 5th and 6th on the list of planned projects are “build new studios / OB vans,” and “launch new channels.”  Undoubtedly the vast majority of new studios and OB vans will be HD capable; as will many of the new channels.  It’s also clear from these findings that many of the new channels will undoubtedly have a strong automation component (the #7 project on this list), regardless of whether they are HD or SD.

The rest of project list which was selected by at least 10% of respondents includes offers an interesting picture of project activity across the world, with everything from upgrading audio and newsrooms, to multi-platform content distribution.

It’s worth pointing out here that in the 2010 ranking of the broadcast industry’s most important trends, that multi-platform content distribution was ranked #1 in terms of being “most important” to respondents businesses in the future.  Time will tell whether this will translate into the #1 planned project as was the case with the transition to HDTV operations after it was rank as the most important trend last year.

Finally, let’s examine the four planned projects that appear at the bottom of this list: “install or revamp business management system,” “consolidate operations in regional hubs,” “work with management consultants on business /technology transformation,” and “outsource operations e.g. playout.”

These are all very large projects that will most likely be done by only the largest broadcast professionals.  Keep in mind that the planned project chart in this article shows the responses of all global participants in the 2010 BBS broadcast industry study, regardless of organization type, size or location. Thus it measures the number of planned projects, but does not measure their size, value or relative commercial importance.  The 2010 BBS Global Market Report from Devoncroft Partners provides granular analysis of planned projects, broken down by organization type, size and location.

 

 

 

Published by Devoncroft Partners, the annual Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) is the largest and most comprehensive studies of broadcast industry trends, technology budgets and projects, 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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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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