http://www.watblog.com/2009/08/05/indian-entertainment-and-media-industry-to-grow-10-5-per-cent-during-2009-13pwc/

Check this article on Tom’s blog.

Signs of Times Redux: The World’s Next Mass(ive) Medium?

Technology companies, Location Owners, Broadcasting companies have been experimenting with this new medium using new technologies but so far  have failed to create an impact. Digital Signage is still not in the Media Agencies buy list?!

What could be the reasons?!

1. Cost?! 2. Content?!! 3. Metrics?!!

While the  Digital Signage market in China was a spectacular success, the Indian market is yet to accept the new medium.  Despite, OOH having a strong partnership with Focus Media (a chinese digital signage company) it had failed to create an impact in the Indian market. The industry leaders like OOH, LiveMedia India, DSN Global are being cautious and are afraid to quit as substantial amount of money, time and effort had been put into creating this new market medium.

Will Digital Signage go mainstream? If so when and how?

This deal is definitely going to trigger off  debates on Open source movement. While Oracle claims that is shall use the acquisition to improve its product offerings and build tightly integrated systems lowering the costs for their customers, there is little mention about MySQL, Open Office and Java.

Is Oracle going to support MySQL? Most of the consumer web-based applications are MySQL based. What will be Oracle’s commitment to MySQL?

Oracle may push Open Office and Java development efforts as the company has long been itching to compete with Microsoft. The addition of Open Office and Java to its product offerings will provide it an opportunity to take on Microsoft’s core revenue earners.

We may have to wait one year to see how the acquisition is going to work out for Oracle.

The report claims to have studied all these products and used about 65 attributes to categorize them.

The report costs about $400.

Zoom Media raised about $30 million funding recently from ABS Capital Partners.

This is a very positive sign for the Digital Signage Industry.

Read more here

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101635

http://www.visionchina.cn/phoenix.zhtml?c=215970&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1261724&highlight=

Number of screens in Operation 66,000

Revenue/Screen per Quarter (approx)  $500

Revenue/Screen per month = $135

What does it mean? Just about a week back….I arrived at an operating cost of approximately $480 per screen per month.

What the revenue figures tell us is that, to make digital signage a success, the first focus should be on bringing down the  costs, which means bringing down the Capex as well as Opex. We will look into details later next week how we can do that.

Vision China reports the earnings based on broadcasting hours, which I still need to figure out.

The company reported that it has a revenue of $ 1023 per broadcasting hour.

The company had approximately 31,824  broadcasting hours/Quarter.

—–

Advertising rates

The company reported that it had sold 8.83 minutes of advertising time per broadcast hour.

Elsewhere it has indicated that its advertisement slots are about 15 seconds duration, which means that it had about 32 advertisers per broadcasting hour.

32 advertisers pay $135 per month.

It translates to $5 per month!!!!!!!! That is cheap!!!!

—————————

And guess what!!!! The company reported a profit of $12.8 million i.e close to 30%.

Wow….is what all I can say. I shall do bit more analysis in the next few days and post an update.

For long, I have been following MythTv and eagerly waiting for new 0.22 release.

Other than MythTv, I found Boxee to be good though it lacks recording ability.

Some other platforms to be checked out are:

Freevo

Entertainer

Am I missing anything else here?

It is like having a wardrobe full of clothes and what you chose depends upon the occasion.

Also beware of long-term vs short-term thinkers approach. I for one here would go with short-term thinkers approach.

1) Assess your current requirements – Check what software is going to serve the purpose now and save your costs in term of personnel requirements

2) Future road map – “My requirements are going to change in one year. I would need a more sophisticated system”.  So do you want to pay upfront for the features you may not need? Remember, the system data of Digital Signage mostly is going to be irrelevant after a year. So your switching costs are  going to be low. Why pay for all those future requirements now?

3) Asset Management – What are going to be your Digital Signage assets?

1. Hardware (Gets depreciated) 2. Content 3. Data Analytics (If your BA is doing good job)

Can these be secured outside the system?

Once you have your requirements clearly laid out, it is going to be easy to shortlist your vendor and go for system implementation.

Before we arrive at the figures, let us look at  various expense items that are incurred in maintaining a Digital Signage system. I reiterate these are pure expense items and it is not about how they look on P& L or Balance sheet.

For example, if hardware is Capexed- then depreciation will appear in P&L. However,  Hardware can also be converted into Operational cost if the systems are leased.  A lot is going to depend upon how the whole system is going to be put in use. Tangible ROI vs Intangible ROI Ad-driven network vs Inhouse network.

Said that, let us look at various expense items-

Network Level

1) Personnel costs to maintain the system

Campaign Manager

Content Manager

Systems Manager – The systems manager will be responsible to ensure that all screens are functioning as required and  generate reports as required.

System support guy – Would you require a seperate support guy if it can  be handled by Systems Manager. Yes if it is a small network? You need to plan depending upon your network requirement.

Digital Signage Product Head – The person in charge and who would interface with various divisions. Can he triple the role of BA/Campaign Manager?

Business Analyst  – To track performance of the system as per the benchmarks set.- Can this role be handled by a Campaign manager? If it is a small network definitely yes.

The number of personnel vary according to the size of the network and complexity of the network.

2) SAS based or Purchased Software

A systems manager may be sufficient in case of SAS based where as in case of Purchased software additional personnel may be required to maintain hardware, software and liaison with the company.

3) Content Development costs

The costs here will depend upon the type of content that needs to be generated. Can you template your content requirements. How often will your content change? Can you outsource content development effectively?

4) Connectivity costs /screen – How is it expensed? Can it be accommodated at a nominal price into the existing systems network?

5) Account for some additional hardware inventory (Displays, mounts and Player.

6) Other costs of space and admin infrastructure

These are the various expense items that will be incurred in running a Digital Signage system.  Like with any project, a well thought out plan will help save some costs but also bear in mind there will be certain learning costs that you will have to put aside, no matter how well thought out the plan is. It is quite a common experience requirements keep changing.

Please feel free to let me know if I am missing anything.