Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Jul 17th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Christopher SlaughterCEO |
US cable giant Comcast is beta-testing a streaming video service, imaginatively named Stream. The service seems squarely targeted at “cord-nevers”, and initially its only pay-TV channel will be HBO, along with “thousands” of on-demand movies and shows. Whether it will actually be a “proper” OTT service is open for debate, but regardless, it definitely bears closer observation. |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
No Honor Among Thieves: Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz is threatening legal action against a leech website, Megasearch.co.nz, for… get this… violating Mega’s trademark and copyrights! The search site makes Mega content searchable and judging by the graphic in the story, it’s largely pirated content. (One wonders if Mega might want to keep its pirated files unsearchable, so content owners and the FBI can’t find them easily…) Meanwhile, Kim Dotcom is trying to get the US courts to order the Federal government to return about $67 million in seized assets. He’s not a fugitive, he says… I guess he just doesn’t feel like going to America. |
Kevin JenningsProgramme Director |
Emmy nominations are in: for some, the glass is definitely half-full, for others, it’s decidedly all-empty. Meanwhile, Google’s Chromecast is set to become an important component of the US Emmy Awards. The streaming video service will be made available to the Television Academy’s voting members to allow them to access nominated TV programmes. Chromecast will give academy members exclusive access to an app that will show the Emmy-nominated content, while cutting back on distribution costs of the producing and shipping DVDs. It’s hoped the move will also cut back on piracy. |
Mark LayVice President, Singapore |
Ahhh, summer… and the annual running of the geeks in San Diego. A reported 130,000 nerds (and a good number of stars) endured mile-long queues to participate in Comic-Con, which has unsurprisingly become one of Hollywood’s biggest shop windows. Of course, that also means it provides tremendous opportunities for piracy, particularly of the blurry YouTube variety. Although widely denounced, it’s unlikely that the over-enthusiastic me-first fan-boy behaviour can be entirely reined in — although there is a simple solution. |
Anjan MitraExecutive Director, India |
Good to see the Indian Broadcasting Foundation lending its weight behind pay-TV broadcaster Sun TV Network, which has been denied security clearances by the Ministry of Home Affairs on the grounds that have been questioned by MIB and even a senior government law officer. With a government panel also refusing permission to Sun to bid for FM radio licences, the company’s share prices too took a hit. Political chess game apart, such moves dent PM Modi’s promises of business-friendly environs. |
Christopher SlaughterCEO |
It’s not exactly a huge logical leap, but a new study is predicting that as OTT services increasingly become mainstream, Netflix will increasingly lose market share in the US. The white paper was commissioned in part by CASBAA member Ooyala, and forecasts pretty staggering growth in OTT revenues, as well as a proliferation of new market entrants. Bear in mind, however, that this week Netflix announced Q2 results showing it added another 3.3 million subscribers, news that pleased Wall Street no end. |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
Down in Australia, the government has launched its consultationdesigned to figure out if regulatory agency ACMA is keeping up with the fast pace of changes in the communications industries. I don’t think there’s a regulatory agency anywhere that is really keeping up, but it’s great that the Aussie Communications Minister is asking the right question! In any case, the question has very quickly become political and the knives have come out, with one lawyer close to the FTA broadcasters denouncing “ the ACMA’s quite rigid, black letter, and often litigious approach to broadcasting regulation which imposes an onerous financial and operational burden on the industry in a challenging economic environment.” Sounds like a few other regulators I know… |
Kevin JenningsProgramme Director |
Chinese online video providers including Sohu, Tencent and Youku have set up an Internet video union and have agreed on members’ responsibilities and obligations related to adhering to video copyright. The companies have said they will provide viewers with genuine and quality films and TV programmes on their own platforms. Meanwhile home produced content production is ramping up with the online portal iQiyi announcing just last week that it plans to turn out at least 30 dramas with a total of 500 episodes this year. |
Jane BuckthoughtAdvertising Consultant |
The research company Nielsen has launched a measurement system in six markets in Asia that uses the same metrics as television to measure digital ad campaign audiences. Rather than using the click-through rates, conversion rates or cost per video views, the company’sDigital Ad Ratings uses reach, frequency and GRP metrics combined with audience demographics to calculate audience sizes for digital advertising. The system has launched in Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia. Havas Media and Komli are two companies to have already started using the system. |
Christopher SlaughterCEO |
If this is a new Golden Age of Television, it’s worth remembering the story of King Midas; if everything you touch turns to gold, sometimes there’s just too much gold out there. While it’s easy to dismiss over-abundance of great content as just another “high quality problem,”search, discovery, and marketing are serious issues for our industry. Midas solved his problem by washing in the river Pactolus; somehow, I doubt if our solution will be as simple. |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
A consulting company estimated that the global economy lost $800 billion due to piracy last year. “Owners of pirate distribution sites are making millions from malicious advertising on sites sharing stolen movies and television shows while placing Internet users at increasing risk,” says the report. |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
Can Indian cable MSOs become ISPs and gain sufficient scale to play the kind of role that the US cable industry plays? This analysis looks at the MSOs one by one and concludes they’re a long way from following the US model. |
Kevin JenningsProgramme Director |
Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology are reportedly starting a TV news network in a massive $50 million Hollywood studio being dubbed ‘Scientology’s CNN’. It’s rumoured that Cruise will play a significant role in the Scientology news network and is planning to take on the major movie studios, the TV networks and cable stations with the creation of Scientology Media Productions. |
Anjan MitraExecutive Director, India |
What do you do when in India you are unable to take a firm decision? Set up a committee and/or suggest a monitoring cell. And, that’s exactly what Department of Telecoms has proposed. DoT is proposing a separate body to monitor net neutrality, which could add to a plethora of such government agencies. Meanwhile, another authoritative DoT panelcame out with a series of recommendations that were not bad from our industry’s perspective: they include relatively strict regulation of the “network layer” but not the “application layer” (and video content services are applications). That Committee also spoke of the need to ensure consumer access to LAWFUL content. (The emphasis is mine, but the inclusion of the word by the Committee is important.) Watch this space for more updates on the neutrality maze. |