WRN Broadcast has seen continued business growth over the past two years, the more so since we acquired another company focused on managed services. But the market continues to evolve and while 3D makes a lot of headlines, the main growth we are experiencing is in HD playout, OTT delivery, content management, archiving and storage, and the continuing demand for seamless distribution around the world. So, as we prepare to leave for this year's NAB Show, our particular interest is the developing technologies that will continue to help facilitate that growth. Our focus is the delivery of service quality for our clients. We adopt a simple philosophy; we put the customer at the centre of our business culture and in everything we do. It's a partnership between customer and service provider and our success in winning business is a direct result of that approach. 

WRN Broadcast is not a technology company (although you'd be forgiven for thinking it is) - but we understand technology and, more importantly, how it can be used most effectively. We identify, utilise and deploy the best available technology in order to meet and exceed our customers' expectations and requirements. We work hard to understand our clients' businesses and develop the most effective and robust solutions to meet those needs. So our NAB will most definitely be focused on what will help us to continue to facilitate that partnership approach.

So what will we be looking for in Las Vegas? One of the great features of the annual NAB Show is the mix of the large, established technology leading vendors occupying the big stands alongside the backroom geniuses - the small guys with the small booths who, you might imagine, show up with a piece of kit that turns out to be the solution you've been dreaming about. In my view they are interdependent, in the sense that a company like WRN Broadcast needs both; we rely on the technology leaders but we get excited about the surprise discoveries that we did not expect to find. 

We're particularly keen to see what's new in OTT delivery solutions. The convergence of broadcast and broadband has long been anticipated but the emergence of the connected television has introduced a new dynamic that is quickly gaining critical mass. Will this be at the expense of the proprietary set-top box based platforms that have long been promised and, in some cases, are long delayed in coming to market? As well as OTT, we'll also be looking for new IP codec solutions for TV backhaul.

Although we don't take a stand at the show, we are taking the opportunity to entertain existing customers who are attending as well as meeting prospective clients. We've produced a brand new promotional video for NAB this year, that presents the range of products and services that WRN Broadcast offers, in a dynamic and contemporary way and ends with our new tag line: Let's work together. The video will be available to view on our website - www.wrnbroadcast.com - from Tuesday 12th April, after we've shown it to our guests in Las Vegas.

It's going to be a busy NAB this year with the WRN Broadcast team's diaries already pretty full with appointments to meet existing clients and suppliers and opportunities to meet new suppliers and prospective clients coming in every day. We look forward to coming back from Las Vegas with new ideas, new products, new relationships and, with some hard work and a following wind, some new customers. 

I will be joined at NAB by four of my London-based colleagues, Jonathan Low, Michael Ward, Dave Travis, Tim Ashburner, and our North America Consultant, Doug Stewart. 

David Treadway,
Managing Director,
WRN Broadcast.