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This is the ninth in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. 

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This is the fifth post in a series of articles about how broadcast technology vendors were ranked and benchmarked on a variety of metrics by the respondents to the 2013 BBS.

Previous articles in this series described the 2013 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, the 2013 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table, the 2013 BBS Global Brand Opinion Leaders League Table, and the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table.

This article follows on from the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, by focusing on one of the most important metrics for any technology company – Quality.

2013 Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality Rankings

The broadcast 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.  Likewise, many end-users include technical performance and quality as a part of their procurement strategies.

The table below shows the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table, which shows the top 30 ranked brands for “Quality” by 2013 BBS respondents.

An explanation of how these results were calculated can be found at the end of this article.

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Please note that both audio and video brands are included in these rankings, and that the table below shown brands in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study. 

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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.

Given the diversity of the vendors in this list, it’s worth asking whether factors such as organization size, breadth of product range, geography, or technology impact the perception of quality.

Since the ultimate manifestation of quality is in the actual product delivered to end-users, it’s useful to understand what products are produced by the vendors on this list, and whether this has an impact on the perception of quality.

2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Quality Rankings by Frequency of Product Category

The table below shows the products produced by the vendors in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table, according the 2013 BBS segmentation.

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Out of the thirty product categories in the 2013 BBS, a total of twenty are produced by the vendors in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table.

Product categories included in the 2013 BBS, that are NOT listed in this table include:

Broadcast Business Management Systems, Communication Links, Ingest / Transcoding / Streaming, Library & Storage Management, Near-line / Off-line, and Archival Storage, Playout / Transmission Servers, Production Servers, Workflow / Asset Management

The top three products in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table are audio products – Microphones, Audio Mixing Consoles, and Speakers.

This is an interesting data point. Although there are 30 product categories included in the 2013 BBS, only five are directly related to audio.  Yet, the top three product categories in the 2013 BBS Quality rankings are audio products. Why are audio brands so prevalent in these rankings?

One possibility is that for many people, audio is all about the quality and fidelity of the sound.  Thus quality is the ultimate metric for audio brands. Indeed, our research consistently shows that many pure-play audio companies have extremely high quality ratings.

Another thing to consider is that (as mentioned above in bold), the rankings posted on this website always contain both audio and video brands. Since there are fewer audio brands in the study, there may be a higher concentration of responses per brand on a relative basis when an audio professional responds to the survey.

Another issue is that the top 3 ranked product categories Microphones, Audio Mixing Consoles, and Speakers – are typically found in high-profile environments, and particularly in real-time or live environments where there are not always second chances to re-do a show, event, or recording.

Interestingly, the same can be said for many of the video-oriented products in the above chart.

Video products including cameras, production switchers, and video editing are typically found in live production or mission-critical studio applications. And the primary function of many test & measurement products, which are also produced by three of the brands in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table, is to measure quality and fidelity.

Many of these products tend to be high ticket items that are produced by the industry’s larger vendors. This begs the question of whether organization size plays a role in the perception of quality.  Larger companies often have a broader product offering, but does this translate into a higher perception of quality?

The table below examines the correlation between size of vendor / product range and the market’s perception of quality, by showing the number of product categories (as defined by the 2013 BBS segmentation) offered by each brand listed in this ranking.

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Sure enough, the vendors at the top of this chart are larger vendors that provide multiple product lines.

Having said that, the majority of the vendors in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table are single product category companies (as defined by the 2013 BBS segmentation).

This shows that specialist vendors, whether large or small, who have expertise in a particular areas of technology are often able stand out from the rest of the market, including vendors who may be much larger.

Year-Over-Year Changes to the BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table

Twenty-four of vendors in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table were also listed in this ranking last year.

The following six companies are new entrants to the 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table.  They are listed in this ranking in 2013, but they were not listed in 2012.

Blackmagic Design, Cisco, Leader Instruments, Riedel, RTS Intercom Systems, Yamaha

The following six brands were listed in the 2012 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table, but are not listed in the 2013 rankings:

Clear-Com, Dolby, Isilon Systems/EMC, Mackie, Panasonic, Wheatstone

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How These Results Were Calculated

Based on how they answered a series of screening questions in the 2013 BBS were answered, relevant brands were algorithmically determined for each research participant. Each 2013 BBS participant was then asked to rank a variety of relevant 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.

Global response data from all BBS respondents was then aggregated and averaged in order to generate a global “Quality Score” for each brand based on these responses.

The brands with the top 30 scores for quality were then included in this ranking table. These brands were then sorted by alphabetical order to create the tables shown in this article.

The product table in this article was created by cross-referencing the top 30 ranking brands for global Quality Scores in the 2013 BBS with the product categories these brands produce, according to the 2013 BBS product segmentation.  The complete list of brands and product categories included in the 2013 BBS can be found here.

When reviewing this information, please note the following:

The inclusion of any brand in the tables in this article is dependent on available sample size.  The minimum sample size for inclusion in the tables shown herein is 30 respondents per cut of the data. Therefore it is possible that a highly regarded brand may have been excluded from any or all of the tables in this article due to insufficient sample size.

Both audio and video brands are included in the calculation of the rankings in this article, whereas these brands are typically separated in actual BBS reports. The inclusion of both audio and video brands may have a significant impact on the vendor brands included in these rankings.

All data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, NOT in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2013 BBS.

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The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Unless otherwise specified, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2013 BBS, regardless of factors such as organization type, organization size, job title, purchasing and geographic location.  Please be aware that responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different. Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2013 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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Related Content:

The 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) – overview of available reports, including covered brands and product categories

Largest Ever Study of Broadcast Market Reveals Most Important Industry Trends for 2013

Tracking the Evolution of Broadcast Industry Trends 2012 – 2013

Analyzing Where Money is Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry – The 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index

Broadcast Technology Products Being Evaluated for Purchase in 2013 – 2014

Devoncroft Partners: 2013 Broadcast Industry Market Research Findings

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – The 2013 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – The 2013 BBS Net Change of Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 3 — The 2013 BBS Global Brand Opinion Leaders League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 4 – The 2013 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table.

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© Devoncroft Partners 2009 – 2013. All Rights Reserved. Findings May Not Be Reproduced or Quoted Without Written Permission from Devoncroft Partners.

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