How is the Pro Video and Broadcast Market Set to Evolve?

Now more than ever, we’re starting to witness the growing importance of video as an effective communication strategy, with businesses starting to embrace the opportunity to provide new offerings of digital content and engage with a more diverse audience. A great example of this has been amongst Houses of Worship, where live broadcasts and video streaming of services has enabled them to reach a wider congregation. Similarly, the higher-ed institutions continue to use professional video equipment for lecture capture, catering to distance learning.

Shift to IP Drives Production Forward

Whilst lockdown has provided an opportunity for many sectors, brands, and content creators to experiment with the use of video remotely, production crews have felt the blow of scaled-down or postponed events. This has led to companies needing to undergo significant operational shifts to combat such challenges, with a sudden need to accelerate their efforts towards virtualisation and IP workflows. Moving away from an on-premise video production towards a more decentralised model has never been more important. It is this focus that will continue to play a crucial role as a vital contingency specification when building new facilities and workspaces moving forward. In the more immediate term, virtualising operations will enable employers to keep headcounts lower on site, as more operators work from home or remotely in respect of the new safety constraints.

The Evolution of Content Creation

Whilst the production of content has been impacted, we’re also continuing to see how the creation of content itself is undergoing a transition. With a range of easy-to-use tools and devices available at our fingertips, combined with the explosion of platforms to publish content to, anyone can now become an experienced content creator. This trend is highlighted in our latest research, which shows that user-generated content is now regularly watched by a greater proportion of Gen Z’s than both news and reality TV.

As the barriers to entry have all but vanished, it is now more important than ever for creatives to focus on content quality to ensure they stand out. As the video content creation market grows, so too will the addressable market for entry-level professional devices, despite facing tough competition from the perceived value proposition of prosumer image acquisition devices.

The Battle for Professional Devices

While professional acquisition devices continue to offer a stronger long-term investment with more robust ergonomics and professional recording feature sets, entry-level professional devices with intuitive connectivity and live streaming options are increasingly attractive. The appeal here is not just for up-and-coming content creators entering the professional space, but also for companies without extensive media production experience looking to quickly and efficiently enter the realm of content creation, both to build staff’s confidence and upskill their use of video technologies.

What we can expect moving forward post COVID-19 is a further expectation for professional acquisition devices to include features that enhance integration and ease of use. Camcorders that can live stream direct to a platform online or to a social media feed are already experiencing an uplift as virtual events, livestreaming, and webinars all come of age as mainstream marketing tools. Professional devices with built-in, fast track shooting modes that accelerate the learning curve for the first-time end-users are set to impact the market landscape significantly.

New Video Recording

Our latest video recording from our popular YouTube series discusses the Pro Video and Broadcast market in more detail:

• What acquisition devices are currently of growing importance?
• How has COVID-19 altered the Professional Video and Broadcast market?
• How are these changes reflected in the type of video content being created?
• What should manufacturers, resellers and channel partners be taking away from this?

To download the video recording, please click on the button below. If you would like to speak with someone to learn about our services, please get in touch with Ben Thrussell via ben.thrussell@futuresource-hq.com

About the author

Chris Evans

Chris specialises in providing market insight and analysis across the professional video technology industry and video content supply chain. Chris draws on a background in video production to apply an end-to-end understanding of workflow, end-user needs, and product specific knowledge across a range of research methodologies and services.

His areas of expertise include: cloud technologies in live broadcast; virtual and remote production; user generated content and live streaming; the sustainable future of the video entertainment industry; large format and >4K video acquisition; vertical specific use cases for pro video products and services.

Chris joined Futuresource in 2017 as a member of the broadcast equipment team. As video technologies have proliferated into an everyday tool for a diversity of professional applications, Chris has taken leadership of Futuresource’s Professional Video services. Chris holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Film and English from the University of Southampton.