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4 TVBEurope Opinion


‘A little insight, hard work, great team and enduring passion for the business. If that’s my legacy at TVBEurope, I’ll happily take it’


www.tvbeurope.com November 2013


EDITORIAL Editorial Director Fergal Ringrose


tvbeurope@mediateam.ie Media House, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland +3531 294 7783 Fax: +3531 294 7799


Acting Editor Neal Romanek


neal.romanek@intentmedia.co.uk


Staff Writer Holly Ashford


holly.ashford@intentmedia.co.uk


Intent Media London, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England +44 207 354 6002


Editorial Consultant Adrian Pennington Associate Editor David Fox USA Correspondent Carolyn Giardina Contributors Mike Clark, David Davies, Richard Dean, Chris Forrester, Mark Hill, Dick Hobbs, John Ive, George Jarrett, Heather McLean, Bob Pank, Nick Radlo, Philip Stevens, Reinhard E Wagner


Digital Content ManagerTim Frost Office Manager Lianne Davey


Head of Design & Production Adam Butler


Editorial Production Manager Dawn Boultwood


Senior Production Executive Alistair Taylor


Publisher Steve Connolly


steve.connolly@intentmedia.co.uk +44 207 354 6000


Off the stage By Fergal Ringrose


BY THE time you read this I’ll have departed the editor’s chair at TVBEurope. I stepped down from the brand at the end of October. I actually made this decision almost a year ago, returning home to Dublin from the 2012 Royal Television Society’s annual Thames Valley dinner. Walking through Heathrow airport, the thought suddenly occurred to me that 2013 would mark 20 years since my first issue of TVBEurope — and with that realisation came an immediate and clear decision that it was time to step aside and let someone else take up the reins. I went home that evening and headed up into the attic with a torch to dig out my first issue of TVBEurope. And there it was, at the bottom of a box of back issues — a yellow-paged, dust-laden April 1993 issue. Twenty years. Decision made. But I also knew it could not be just a question of walking straight out the door at that point. On top of our regular publishing schedule and editorial calendar (already fully mapped out for 2013) we also had commitments to deliver our Beyond HD Masters and IT Broadcast Workflow events in


June and July, and of course to publish The IBC Daily through the September show on behalf of the IBC Partnership. Having been there at the start


of TVBEurope in 1993, I’m enormously proud of its growth from debutant to market- leading title for the European broadcast technology business. In print, events and digital I leave the brand in excellent shape with a superb team in place for future success, led by acting editor Neal Romanek, staff writer Holly Ashford, editorial production manager Dawn Boultwood, sales manager Ben Ewles and sales executive Richard Carr, and publisher Steve Connolly. In that first issue in 1993 we carried stories about the battle between 1125/60 and 1250/50 as nascent standard for high definition broadcasting in Europe; the launch of the Digital Betacam compressed digital component VTR format; introduction of the Open Media Framework engine by Avid and 70 other vendors at NAB; early plans by HBO and Viacom to launch hundreds of niche channels enabled by new digital compression technologies; and the possibility of using automation to increase broadcast station efficiency and reduce costs.


In other words we commenced a series of European television technology journeys, many of which we’re actually still on today — analogue to digital, standard definition to HDTV (and beyond), linear to nonlinear, uncompressed to compressed, proprietary to generic, tape- based to tapeless, hardware to software, unicast to multicast, manual to automated, video to data, broadcast to IT. Our mission was to follow — and wherever possible, to lead — those change management journeys as they applied to European broadcasters. In launching TVBEurope we also believed passionately that the broadcast equipment-buying environment had fundamentally changed; it was not simply engineering-driven, but also business-driven. Engineers could no longer make key equipment purchase decisions in isolation, based purely on technical specifications. Buying teams comprising financial, operational and creative management would instead purchase new systems through collaborative business decisions and return on investment analysis. That thinking was really what separated us from our


competitors at the outset. Publishing dry engineering diagrams and descriptions alone would no longer be sufficient. If return on investment was central, then the overall business case must be examined and understood by both end-users and solutions providers. If the process of broadcast


operations was becoming more complex (which it was) and all of its aspects required explanation in our pages, then we would (a) need the best editorial team in Europe and (b) must simply work harder than everyone else to tell the right stories every issue, every month, every year. No mystery there: a little insight, hard work, great team and enduring passion for the business. If that’s my legacy at TVBEurope, I’ll happily take it. And thanks to your loyalty and support, I’ve been lucky enough to have the best seat in the house for the last 20 years. Many thanks indeed. What’s next for me? I don’t


know, time will tell. As Saturday Night Live creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels wrote in a recent Vanity Fair piece, “Unless you get off the stage, you cannot make another entrance.” That really applies to us all, doesn’t it?


Sales Manager Ben Ewles ben.ewles@intentmedia.co.uk +44 207 354 6000


Sales Executive Richard Carr


richard.carr@intentmedia.co.uk +44 207 354 6000


Managing Director Stuart Dinsey US SALES


Michael Mitchell


Broadcast Media International, PO Box 44, Greenlawn, New York, NY 11740


mjmitchell@broadcast-media.tv +1 (631) 673 0072


JAPAN AND KOREA SALES Sho Harihara Sales & Project,


Yukari Media Incorporated sho@yukarimedia.com +81 6 4790 2222 Fax: +81 6 4793 0800


CIRCULATION


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TVBEurope is published 12 times a year by Intent Media London, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London, N1 8LN, England


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© Intent Media 2013. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owners. TVB Europe is mailed to qualified persons residing on the European continent. Subscription rates £64/€96/$120.


Allow 8 weeks for new subscriptions and change of address delivery. Send subscription inquiries to: Subscription Dept, Intent Media, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough LE16 7BR, England. ISSN 1461-4197


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