Advanced Television

Survey: Indy prodcos struggling with connectivity

June 15, 2016

A survey of how independent production companies view their connectivity services, undertaken by the Digital Production Partnership (DPP), has found most companies are still relying upon low cost, consumer broadband.

The survey was distributed to Production Company Members of the DPP. 29 indies completed the in-depth questionnaire consisting of 40 questions. The survey explored how production companies use connectivity, how much they spend, the quality of their provision, and the role they feel connectivity could have in their businesses in the future.

The survey results have been released to DPP Members in Connectivity for Production: A DPP Survey Report. Publication of the survey was enabled by global communications infrastructure provider, and DPP Member company, Zayo Group.

“The survey reveals that most indies are still ‘making do’ when it comes to connectivity,” says DPP Managing Director, Mark Harrison. “Despite the fact that connectivity is used in almost all aspects of their business, the majority still rely on consumer quality provision rather than specialist network services. The opportunity for both customer and supplier could be huge.”

Around half of respondents reported that they still spend less than £1,000 per year on their connectivity, although most have experienced issues with reliability, speed and integrity of service. More than half of production companies had experienced corrupt, stolen, lost or inaccessible content as a result of issues with their connectivity.

The typical indie has remained with the same supplier for the last five years, and regards changing supplier as a difficult challenge. Paradoxically, while around two thirds of respondents claimed their office-based connectivity provision met most of their needs, almost the same number believe better services would make them more efficient.

“Production companies are brilliantly pragmatic,” says Harrison. “They evolve work-arounds to deal with lack of budget, or access to high quality services – and this is what they have done with connectivity. The big question is: is that pragmatism creating inertia that’s preventing production from benefiting from the connected tools and services now available to them?”

“The survey highlighted to me the surprising lack of relationship between connectivity suppliers and production companies,” admitted Sophie Clarke Senior Production Manager, from DPP Member company Studio Lambert. “It also highlighted how much we put up with low connectivity just because we assume we have no control in improving it – although actually we haven’t really had the chance to engage in how to improve it. This work from the DPP is finally starting that engagement.”

Over the next few months the DPP will be sharing the survey results with connectivity providers and cloud services vendors, and will be exploring how connectivity services for production could evolve more effectively over the next three years.

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