Inside Budget, Outside Broadcast...

A staple feature of my inbox in the last few weeks has been emails advertising the auctioned sell-off of the last outside broadcast equipment from SIS Live – the consequence of last October’s decision to close the company’s OB division, after they failed to agree renewal terms with the BBC for its sports contracts, writes Ben Murphy, Sales Director, WTS.

The subsequent truck sell-off lingered over the UK OB market for many months and meant that most OB companies held off on plans for new vehicle builds - waiting to see what would happen to these considerable assets. With all the trucks now off the market, many into the UK, there seems to be renewed interest in building vehicles, both to bolster already established large fleets and step up capacity for newer players.
Trawling the fiercely debated comments sections of the online reports revealing SIS’s market withdrawal, it’s clear to see how the news polarised opinion within a sector that SIS chief executive Gary Smith said had become a “commodity marketplace where price is the dominant factor.”
Not so, said some online readers, who took to the comments boards to vent their opinion; namely that OB suppliers now operate in “a competitive commercial environment where top-quality service and recognising your customers' changing requirements is absolutely essential,“ as one anonymous broadcastnow.com user put it.
So where does the debate on the future of the OB market stand now? Is price everything? Or are broadcasters and production companies willing to meet the cost of a high quality service?
The answer of course lies somewhere in the middle. OB end-users recognise that the sum of uncompromising quality plus competitive price equals great value, and they expect their providers to know this too. Certainly the balance of quality and cost has been uppermost in the thoughts of clients for whom C2S Systems, the systems integration and OB vehicle arm of WTS, has carried out truck builds so far this year.
We are seeing a much more budget-led mentality to new truck builds, with clients exhibiting a willingness to consider a variety of vendors to achieve their dual goal of quality and value.
Whilst these budgetary constraints may sound a note of caution, there is certainly reborn confidence seeping back into the global OB marketplace. To such an extent that we feel confident in imminently moving our systems integration operation to much larger, purpose-fitted premises.
It’s not just the necessity of maximising quality while minimising cost that trickles down all the way from the end-user via the OB service provider to us as systems integrators. Our whole approach to integration is dictated by the marketplace climate. As OB providers walk the tightrope of managing costs while undertaking overdue investment, we are finding that (whilst there is still demand for the very large, trailer based OBs) there are a lot of medium-sized builds being considered and commissioned.
These smaller units lend themselves to city centre jobs where parking can be an issue and by using the most modern choice of equipment, such as hybrid routers, they can still pack a huge amount of production versatility into a smaller, more cost effective foot-print. We anticipate this being amplified when IP camera technology takes hold – if you have good infrastructure from a venue, you may no longer need huge OB trucks to do complex events.
So what is happening at the cutting edge of the market? Well, 4K is of course having an impact with OB company owners debating what they invest in next. Not to say that HD camera channel sales are declining, but some clients are looking at models that will simply do the jobs at hand rather than buying the top spec HD camera, or buying used items then using the money saved to dip a toe in the 4K camera market. When planning a new truck, most are talking about the possibility of IP routing in order to accommodate 4K, buying 4K capable vision mixers or looking at utilising 4K cameras today in HD productions – using picture stitching technology to create HD cut-outs that can pan and scan around an 8Kx2K canvas.
At WTS we find this an exciting time to be so entrenched in the OB world – our carefully crafted set of services bring to the fore the breadth and depth of our expertise; not only as a true systems integrator but also as one of the world’s largest suppliers of broadcast equipment.
That relationship between integration and equipment supply has always been a close one. But the expectations of an industry that is taking strides in a new direction mean that now more than ever the symbiosis between the two is crucial. Our equipment buying power enables us to meet the cost restraints of a project, whilst our close relationships with equipment venders and in-house systems expertise mean that we can offer truly innovative, flexible solutions.

The article is also available to read in BFV online.

(IT/MH)