IABM Business Intelligence (BI) Regional Reports provide IABM members with insight into the latest broadcast and media industry developments for a specific region. Over the course of each year, these reports build into a full overview of all the major regional markets around the world.
This edition of the BI Regional Reports focuses on Europe and the latest news and research findings in the region, including trends in the Broadcast and Media Technology Industry and Media Technology Demand Drivers.
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According to IABM data, UHD adoption has grown slowly in recent years, from the 14% reported at NAB Show 2018 to the 20% reported at NAB 2019. Deployments have risen although there is still a high percentage of companies unlikely to launch any UHD offerings.
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This article is from The IABM Business Intelligence Digest from June 2018. The full report can be viewed here The transition to HD remains an important spending driver in Asia-Pacific, similar to other developing regions such as Africa. While some of the developed broadcast and media markets in the region have adopted HDTV, such as Australia and Japan, developing countries are still in the midst of transitioning to HD. The transition to digital broadcasting in developing countries, such as India and Indonesia, will see the offering of HD channels significantly increase as terrestrial spectrum is freed up. As in the case of other developing regions, satellite broadcast-ing is important to the development of HD in APAC, as well as the progression of digital TV subscribers. Satellite service providers have turned to emerging regions to compensate for low growth in maturing markets such as North America and Europe; many satellite service providers have expanded their capacity in the region to allow for more extensive coverage. In developed broadcast and media markets in the APAC region, such as Japan and Australia, HD is the mainstream broadcast-ing format. These markets are investing in higher resolution formats – Japan was the first country to...
This article is from The IABM Business Intelligence Digest from April 2018. The full report can be viewed here We examine specific trends driving broadcast and media technology spending in Latin America. The trends we discuss are: - Transition to Digital Broadcasting - Transition to HD and UHD - OTT and Multi-Platform Delivery The transition to digital broadcasting is a government-led initiative that has encountered many problems in Latin America. The transitions to HD, UHD and multi-platform delivery are instead natural evolutions of broadcasters’ infrastructures. Transition to Digital Broadcasting The transition to digital broadcasting has only been completed in Mexico, with several countries ongoing. The digital switchover is a lengthy process especially when the region is at different stages of the transition – countries that are ahead with the digital switchover cannot easily re-allocate digital frequencies for mobile use while neighboring nations still use these for broadcasting. The switchover also requires coordination between different parties (government, broadcasters, suppliers, customers) to ensure the smooth transition between analog switch-off and digital switch-over, whilst maintaining efficiency and minimizing issues. This can make it difficult to implement effectively and achieve tight deadlines, especially as each country deals with its own individual economic and political...
This article is from The IABM Business Intelligence Digest from September 2018. The full report can be viewed here The transition to new media offerings is a trend influencing the whole media ecosystem, forcing broadcasters to drastically transform their technology infrastructures. More specifically, broadcasters are trying to make their legacy technology coexist with new media technology in a next-generation infrastructure capable of delivering both linear and non-linear offerings. In the US, the skyrocketing growth of new media offerings has been particularly disruptive and put a lot of pressure on traditional broadcasters to rapidly deliver alternatives. In Europe the incentives to react have been lower because the adoption of OTT services has had less impact on subscription growth with traditional Pay-TV operators. This is due to the coexistence on the market of cheap cable and Pay-TV subscriptions and well-established broadcasting operators. However, the trend is real and the shift to new media offerings has to be achieved by European broadcasters. The challenge is to build content catalog and customer experiences at the level of at least the standard set by Netflix or Amazon. Data from Digital TV Research show that Pay-TV subscribers are set to increase in Western Europe by nearly...
This article is from The IABM Business Intelligence Digest from September 2018. The full report can be viewed here The deployment UHD television in Europe is ongoing. More dedicated channels have been launched between 2017 and 2018. Despite the take-up in consumer spending on UHD TV sets – Europe is expected by iDATE to have over 100m by 2020 – adoption by broadcasters has not met initial expectations. However, based on UHD Forum’s data updated in April 2018, we can see that half of the services launched are European initiatives. This shows that, although UHD take-up is still slower than expected, Western European countries show an advance on other regions when it comes to actual UHD deployments. However, considering the number of services compared to all the national markets and the number of existing channels, UHD so far remains a niche market for Pay-TV operators. Until 2017, broadcasters had not launched large and sustain-able services, due to low expected return on investment. However, they had experimented with 4K/UHD at some special live events. But in 2018, we can see an acceleration of UHD initiatives, both for sport and music concerts and also beyond. The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia...
This article is from The IABM Business Intelligence Digest from September 2018. The full report can be viewed here State of Adoption – UHD & VR According to IABM data, UHD adoption has grown slowly in recent years, from the 14% reported at NAB Show 2018 to the 20% reported at IBC2018. Deployments have risen although there is still a high percentage of companies unlikely to launch any UHD offerings. Most UHD offerings have focused on sports content. Broadcasters now prefer IP or hybrid SDI-IP deployments for launching UHD services. With regards to compression standards, HEVC has become the most preferred for UHD delivery. IABM data shows that broadcasters prefer launching 4K (or HD) with enhancements rather than launching 4K offerings only. With regards to enhancements, HDR is by far the most preferred format. VR adoption has not significantly increased in recent years. As mentioned earlier, low consumer take-up coupled with high complexity and cost have all contributed to stifling adoption by broadcasters and other end-users. As we will show in the next section, the main VR deployments have been in sports. One of the reasons behind the low adoption of VR is the lack of certainty around the business...
This article is from The IABM Business Intelligence Digest from September 2018. The full report can be viewed here UHD Ultra-high definition (UHD) refers to a variety of formats, including 4K and 8K (approximately four and eight times HD respectively), but also enhancements such as high frame rate (HFR), high dynamic range (HDR), and/or wider color gamuts (WCG). UHD adoption by broadcasters has been slower than expected for a variety of reasons. Firstly, UHD benefits compared to HD can only be fully appreciated on a large screen and at a shorter viewing distance. Secondly, UHD adoption is linked with IP deployment – broadcasters have been generally reluctant to go UHD with SDI. Despite the low adoption on the distribution side of the business, consumer adoption of the technology has significantly risen in recent years. In the production sector, UHD has also become an established format as major OTT players such as Netflix and Amazon now demand content only in UHD. Broadcasters are generally more interested in the viewing benefits of enhancements such as HDR. In fact, studies have demonstrated how this format is more noticeable to viewers. VR Virtual Reality (VR) relies on headsets (often called goggles) to achieve a...
The transition to digital broadcasting is alarmingly low with only five countries – Australia, Japan, Korea Rep., Mongolia and New Zealand – having completed the transition. Chart 15 above shows the status of the transition to DTT in the region. It is anticipated that by the year 2020, a number of other countries in the region will have completed the transition to digital broadcasting, including Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
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With Sky Sport HQ as the new broadcasting and production centre in Unterföhring near Munich, Sky Germany rightly adorns itself with one of the most modern sports broadcasting centres in Europe. Sky invested in the new building to keep up with its steady growth in Germany and to gain more flexibility through in-house productions. The new broadcasting centre Sky Sport HQ produces numerous live broadcasts of the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga, DFB Cup, Europe League and Champions League and also manages the company’s social media channels. Thanks to its extraordinary concept and the use of state-of-the-art technology, Sky Sport HQ has quickly become a crème de la crème TV broadcasting centre and the flagship of Sky Germany. Sky Sport HQ covers a total area of 4,600 square meters, of which 1,700 square meters are used by four high-tech live studios. The broadcasting centre has 41 rooms. Here, around 50 kilometres of cable were laid to get the technology up and running. According to Sky, the company is able to produce and broadcast up to 12 programmes in parallel on one weekend. Sky Germany operates five sports channels that broadcast around the clock. According to the company, ten additional channels can...
