When I recently saw the headline “Solving the TV station hardware dilemma” on the Broadcast Engineering website, I stopped to read.
Even though the article turned out to be about integrated playout (i.e., channel-in-a-box) automation servers rather than a debate about hardware versus software in a broadcast facility, it got me thinking about the shift in broadcasting toward IT-oriented technologies, and what vendors are doing about this market transition.
Our research has found that the move to IT-based operations is one of the broadcast industry’s most important technology trends. This will obviously have a major impact on the broadcast technology vendor community.
Some commentators, such as boutique investment bank Silverwood Partners, say there is a diminishing hardware opportunity, and that value is migrating to software-based products. So, what are broadcast technology vendors doing to change their product ranges and business models?
To better understand these issues, we asked the nearly 800 broadcast technology vendors who responded to the 2010 Big Broadcast Survey about the makeup of their current and future product portfolio. Vendors were asked to break down the sources of their revenue by product hardware, software, maintenance and service.
Click here to read the full article, including four charts that break out the research results.
