Page 62 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 1 2012

THE CHANNEL | PROFILE
NAME Martin Burkhalter
JOB Chief Executive Officer
COMPANY Vizrt, Bergen, Norway
PRO
FILE
the numbers. We now have over 600
employees spread across 37 offices
worldwide who serve our customer
base of over 3500 TV channels and
600 Internet media sites in 90
countries. Vizrt's product suite is
used by the world's leading
broadcasters, publishing houses
and telecom operators, including:
CNN, CBS, Fox, BBC, Sky, ITN, ZDF,
SVT, Star TV, Network 18, TV Today,
CCTV, NHK, The Globe and Mail,
The Telegraph, Welt Online, Etisalat
and Telia Sonera. Additionally, many
world-class production houses and
institutions, including both the New
York and London Stock Exchanges,
utilize Vizrt solutions.
For traditional broadcasters, the
only constant has been change.
Their once-captive audience can
now access hundreds of TV
channels, 24/7 social media sites,
and online venues like YouTube. To
stay relevant, broadcasters must
extend their content and brand into
the online and mobile arenas in
order to reach their viewers
wherever they go.
Vizrt answered this challenge by
developing software products that
address every aspect of the digital
media creation, production, and
distribution workflow. The value
proposition of Vizrt’s integrated
workflow is that assets can be
produced, managed and delivered in
a very streamlined, cost-effective way.
Because of our unique products,
news reporters can now use their
cell phones to capture live footage
and send in their field reports. At
the station, journalists can ingest,
browse, manage, and produce
media assets for live shows. In the
studio, live news, sports, and
election coverage can be enhanced
using HD virtual sets, data driven
graphics, and input from social
media users. On-camera talent can
interact with graphics displays
using touch screen monitors as well
as control live graphics playout to
on-set monitors using Apple iPads.
Whether it’s stereo 3D, high
definition, or standard definition, the
same video content can be
effortlessly repurposed for multi-
platform distribution via the web
and mobile.
MY CAREER
Soon after I joined Vizrt in 2006 as
chief commercial officer, I was
promoted to chief operating officer.
In May 2010, I was appointed chief
executive by Vizrt’s board following
the untimely passing of our former
CEO Bjarne Berg.
Under Bjarne’s leadership, the
company had grown exponentially
and was poised for considerable
growth at the time of his death.
Because of this, Vizrt’s Board of
Directors wanted the new CEO to be
someone with experience leading
and expanding large, complex
organizations. Prior to managing
Vizrt’s operations, I held several
positions in commercial marketing
ventures, including SVP and MD of
Reebok International’s EMEA
(Europe, Middle East, and Asia)
region; and CEO of Intersport
International Corporation—both
major suppliers of sports and
lifestyle products.
I also served as the SVP and
sports director of The Lillehammer
Olympic Organizing Committee for
the 1994 Winter Games.
I couldn’t have asked for a more
exciting time to take the helm at
Vizrt. Already established as the
premier vendor of broadcast graphics
software, Vizrt is expanding yet
again—broadening its innovative
product lines to help our customers
harness new opportunities and
revenue streams in the midst of a
digital media revolution.
ABOUT VIZRT
Vizrt’s dramatic growth is evident in
LATEST INITIATIVES
One of the most daunting
challenges facing broadcasters is
making their high resolution
graphics-rich media content play
well on the smaller screens of
today’s smartphones and tablet PCs.
At Vizrt, we recognized early on
that optimizing the viewing
experience for the thousands of
mobile device models on the market
would be technically complex. Since
all mobile devices differ in terms of
bandwidth, memory, graphics
rendering, storage, and multi-touch
displays, we needed to implement a
software-driven mobile architecture
based on open standards like
MPEG-21.
As a result of both strategic
technology acquisitions and in-
house software development, our
mobile workflow and servers are
now inherently device-aware. Users
no longer need to worry about how
their video and graphics must be
scaled back to fit PC, tablet, or
phone screens because our mobile
workflow handles it for them on the
fly. A journalist free from technical
restrictions tracks down, edits and
distributes content faster and more
efficiently.
FUTURE STRATEGY
The digital media revolution is here
to stay. So Vizrt’s future strategy is
to continue developing solutions
that support the efforts of digital
media professionals. Our goal is to
perfect a unified workflow of
advanced, modular tools that let
customers produce, manage, and
deliver media content across their
enterprise as well as to web, mobile,
and anywhere else it needs to go.
More importantly, our solutions are
designed to enable our customers
to produce more content for more
outlets cost-efficiently, without
sacrificing quality or negatively
impacting the bottom line.
OUTLOOK
With so much talent and technology
at our disposal, Vizrt looks forward
to the challenges ahead as we push
further, giving digital media
professionals the means of realising
limitless creative possibilities. ■
www.vizrt.com
62 | ISSUE 1 2012 | THE CHANNEL