ES Broadcast: A Year of Growth

More Partner Manufacturers, More Staff, More Support

At the beginning of the year we proudly announced that we had become a fully authorised Sony Professional Solutions Specialist (SPSS) for broadcast and professional products.

This was a great leap forward for the business as it added to an already impressive list of manufacturers that we support and represent. Amongst the 50+ brands ES sell are the likes of Canon, ARRI, Fujinon and Vitec and the addition of Sony means that we now offer a vast array of products to the market with more competitive pricing than ever before.

Along with forging new manufacturer relationships, we have also recruited additional experienced staff members to the team including further sales, engineering and customer service personal to provide our clients with the best possible service.

At the beginning of summer we appointed Ben Murphy as Commercial Director. Ben has nearly 15 years of experience in the broadcast industry, having previously held management and directorship appointments at broadcast equipment supply and integration companies. His in-depth understanding of the market and technology will ensure ES Broadcast continues to forge ahead as a market leader.

Flexible Solutions -  We Help You Get the Assets You Need Now

As a reseller of both new, used and ex-demonstration equipment, ES broadcast can offer flexible options across a wide variety of equipment from cameras, lenses and grip to routers, glue and servers. Whatever the requirement – whether it be the latest 4K technology, HD equipment or even old SD legacy items – the expert team as ES Broadcast are here to make it simple for clients. In house engineers fully test every piece of used equipment to ensure quality and reliability.  Our team comprises of knowledgeable individuals with a combined experience of over one hundred years in the broadcast industry.

We also offer an array of finance options though a variety of funding partners in the UK, Europe and further afield. Hire purchase, operating leases, payment holidays and many other creative solutions can help your business manage cash outlay when you need to grow your equipment fleet, our team can guide you to find the best suited option for your business.

Our hire division goes from strength to strength

At the start of 2012, ES Broadcast launched ES Broadcast Hire as its own entity with a single focus: to service the Outside Broadcast market - providing companies worldwide with the very latest, high-end broadcast equipment for both short and long term hire.

At the helm of ES Broadcast Hire is Managing Director, Warren Taggart, who joined the team with a wealth of experience and knowledge around all aspects the OB market and the associated equipment.

As the first rental house in the UK to make a major investment in 4K outside broadcast equipment, ES Broadcast Hire now has a very substantial fleet of the cutting edge products. This includes Fujinon UA80x, UA14 and UA22 lenses, Canon UJ90x, CJ12 and CJ20s and a fleet of nearly 20 channels of Sony HDC-4300 4K cameras, with more to be added over the coming months.

ES Broadcast Hire has grown very rapidly and at the beginning of 2016 the operation was greatly expanded with the outright purchase of Gearbox Rental – now integrated and rebranded under ES banner. Along with adding a large volume of assets to our rental fleet, this acquisition also brought further expertise to the team with Stephen Ratcliff joining as Hire Director. Stephen brings with him two decades of industry experience meeting the needs of OB companies, broadcasters, studios and production companies all over the world.

In addition to our expanding base in Greater London, a new office in Manchester means ES Broadcast Hire is now able to offer equipment and support not only to hubs like Media City, but right across the north of the UK.

But the expansion in 2016 has not been limited to the UK: next to join the team was Charles Alexis based in Munich. A fluent multilingual speaker, Charles is ideally placed to service our growing European client base and understand their rental equipment needs.

Decommissioning

Another service offered under by ES Broadcast is decommissioning of pre-existing studio or broadcast facilities and have completed decommissioning projects for major broadcasters all over the world.

We bring a team of professionals to carefully propose, plan and then dismantle installed equipment within client’s spaces handling all the logistics and safe disposal obligations.  The most popular reason we find people have for making use of this service is that is takes away the headache of what to do with all of that obsolete or no longer adequately utilised equipment taking up valuable space, all the while adhering to all of the Health and Safety regulations governing the disposal of electrical equipment.  

Should there be any value in the equipment that we remove, a part-exchange figure is offered against replacement equipment. This has proven to be an invaluable service to many of our customer who may not have realised they have the budget to invest in the items on their ‘wish list’ until they learn the value of the used equipment filling up their racks.  

Projects

When gearing up for a major live broadcast event, one headache that must be solved by the rights holders is where to purchase the kits for each various aspect of the broadcast - For example the build-up, pre-recorded athlete/player profiling, after-event interviews and of course the live feed of the game.

ES Broadcast has recently been commissioned to manage a project which included crew, logistics and a large number of ENG kits including camera, lenses, lighting and audio for a major football event. This enabled the customer to keep their costs down while at the same time using brand new equipment, specifically tailored to their needs, that we then put up for sale post the event.

Throughout all of our projects we are fully involved from planning phase, testing, purchase, logistics and eventual return of equipment. We are now fully equipped to offer this solution to other organisations and will actively look to grow this area of the business.

Outside Broadcast Vehicle Sales

A very important part of our business, that has been thriving in recent years, is our outside broadcast vehicle sales division. We started focussing on this in 2011 and ES Broadcast has now successfully sold trucks all over the world in various different sizes, configurations and standards.

With the vehicle often being the single greatest capital purchase for and OB company, finding a way to reduce this cost is one way to significantly reduce cost base and give a company a competitive edge often allowing customers to invest more of their budget in other essential areas such as the latest cameras, EVS and lenses. Equally an under-utilised vehicle on the books can be a big problem and turning this into cash quickly is essential.

ES broadcast has a wealth of contacts globally in the OB market and excel at matching vehicle buyers to sellers and vice-versa. We can assist in valuations of trucks and then use our vast customer network - amassed over the last 8 years -  to advertise these vehicles on behalf of our OB clients through various digital and printed media to ensure we are able to find a new home for their vehicles.

As an equipment sales company, we are able to couple these vehicle sales expertise with close relationships with all of the major manufacturers of OB equipment unit to offer a “turn-key” solution for our customers - ensuring that their production vehicle fully equipped to begin serving productions as soon as it is delivered.

Case Study

At the start of 2014 we were contacted by one of our major European outside broadcast clients and tasked with the project of selling 12 SD outside broadcast vehicles in various sizes as they looked to build HD Vehicles.

On the face of it, this seemed like a giant task, however never one to shy away from a challenge we swiftly rolled up our sleeves and began the process we always follow when selling any used OB vehicle.

As these were SD vehicles, we did of course have some slight reservations over the remaining need for SD vehicles in mainland Europe.

However, upon fully inspecting the vehicles we saw for ourselves how well they had been looked after during their working life and how many of them would present an easy opportunity to upgrade many of the chassis to HD.

As we began to complete sales on many of the vehicles we were reminded how diverse the market within Europe actually is. Although much of the news which drives the industry tends to be about the latest and greatest technology, there was certainly still appetite in the market to continue to invest in good quality SD vehicles to add to fleets

Throughout this process we were also able to couple the vehicles with plenty of SD equipment be it cameras, lenses, EVS, vision mixers etc from our existing used kit stock and our client base who were looking to upgrade their SD assets to current technology. This also enabled our customers to clear much of the store rooms - equipment all OB companies undoubtedly have lurking in their facilities -and provide plenty of customers with complete systems ready to begin work.

Overall we were able to complete the project ahead of schedule - all 12 vehicles had been sold before the year was up. This is just one instance that shows how we as a business are able to diversify our model and adapt to our clients’ changing needs and expectations - providing good quality equipment in both the new and used; SD, HD and 4K marketplaces.