Things used to be a lot simpler for broadcasters. Generally what they produced had a single destination: television. Today, multi-channel needs and the digitization of many decades of video archives is driving investment in Broadcast & Media Asset Management (MAM) technology.  MAM systems facilitate the production, workflow, management, storage, deployment, and archiving of time-based media such as audio, video, episodic television, news, sports, and other forms of broadcast.

Though we've been covering the Digital Asset Management market in-depth for nearly five years now, as we began to look at technology more geared towards video management and broadcasters in particular, it fast became obvious that the market, technology, and buyers were all very different.

• DAM technology buyers tend to be CMOs, marketing managers, brand stewards, ad agencies, or photo librarians who primarily are managing imagery and brand-centric marketing collateral
• MAM buyers, on the other hand, are television studio managers, cinematic producers, TV channel archivists, sports producers, and increasingly, corporate video managers who need to catalog, search, and deploy terabytes of time-based media

So, we've created a new stream of evaluation research just for those enterprises that need to manage and deploy time-based media, which as we mention in today's press release, has become mission-critical for media & entertainment companies.

We believe it's very unique research, and you won't find other firms covering and evaluating in-depth (10-15 pages each) firms like Dalet, Vizrt, Harris, or Avid. We're also looking specifically at the video management software from vendors who also sell DAM platforms, such as North Plains, Autonomy, and celum. They typically sell these MAM tools separately, or as $80-$100k additional components.

Over the next year, we'll gradually evaluate more MAM vendors, as well as CDNs such as Brightcove and Limelight, which we already have begun to investigate in a recent Advisory Paper.  

The broader reality is -- whether or not you're in the broadcast, media, or entertainment industry -- in the age of YouTube, we have all become broadcasters now. YouTube is just one destination channel for the likes of modern broadcasters. The main challenge you'll face is that MAM technologies are complicated, very expensive, and not very mature. We're excited to be covering this space in more depth, and look forward to helping you make good choices here.