Since the arrival of new EBU TECHNICAL director Lieven Vermaele, the EBU has stepped up its cooperation with key industry players. This includes direct contacts with individual companies, as well as working with industry consortia. An important consortium at the suppliers' side is the UK-based International Organisation of Broadcasting Manufacturers (IABM).
A converged, but more complex world
| At last week's IABM conference "Making business pay in a converged world", several suppliers sketched their view of the current market conditions and their experiences. Typical comments heared were the growing reliance on IT-technology, the almost universal "multi-vendor" character of technical projects and a lack of combined expertise in traditional broadcasting and IT technology. From the broadcasters' side, Lieven emphasis the need for the industry to follow open standards to make equipment really interoperable. He also noted there is a fundamental lack of knowledge on the impact of using traditional IT equipment and networks in a broadcasting environment.
For the end user, broadcasters have to be active with their brands on all platforms. This means providing different services on all networks for all devices. Not a replication of services, but selection and adaptation in function of context are crucial. IT based production environments are necessary to realise this in a flexible and efficient way. |  |
Advice
All participants agreed the world, including the media industry, has become more complex and that it is not easy for all players to adapt to the new realities in a flexible way. The growing fear of longer-lasting severe weather in the financial parts of the world, does not help. Fortunately several speakers were willing to provide tips for supply partners on how to navigate a storm. One of the most important points mentioned, is to make sure customers know the supplier's business is robust, because the default assumption otherwise will be it isn't. This is not only important for the end-supplier, but also amongst suppliers directly. Other advice given was to ruthlessly cut costs and to re-organise and restructure instead of just saying goodbye to staff (if a supplier has to resort to that measure). Cutting down on training however was not recommended. Especially not when the company faces a restructuring. For broadcasters, there was advice as well, including recommendations to simplify workflows and to plan more for change.