John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
In Geneva, the global mobile phone industry is doing its level best to grab the satellite C-band spectrum. (Oh, they call it “sharing…” And what other kind of “sharing” theft comes to mind?) The first part of the ITU’s WRC conference was marked by release of dueling studies, with the GSMA claiming that if telcos were only given oodles and oodles of new spectrum, the world would find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The satellite industry responded, noting a fair analysis needs to take account of the costs that would impose on current satellite users (that’s us, boys and girls, plus hundreds of millions of TV viewers), and that the claimed benefits were “grossly exaggerated.” |
Christopher Slaughter
CEO
|
Even with Facebook reporting a 41% surge in revenues, and unveiling new, location-aware advertising, there is backlash building against the social media behemoth. Among the latest salvoes fired was a video by producers Kurzgesagt, "How Facebook is Stealing Billions of Views.” Not really news, of course, and certainly the same sort of issue we’ve been dealing with for YEARS… but it’s still nice to see a very well-expressed case against “freebooting“ being picked up by a lot of the otherwise pro-copyleft sites out there. |
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
In North America, there are insects that emerge from the ground every few years, to create an enormous buzzing noise. In Asia, we have the English Premier League. Right now there’s a lot of noise about renewal of the contracts granting broadcasting rights for the precious matches. In Hong Kong, news that the rights went to newcomer Letv produced an enormous amount of speculation about what it all means for viewer. In Thailand it was reported that beIN Sport had won the rights, and immediately there was speculation about how they would sublicense the rights. The competition in Malaysia was rumored to have gone into another round, with Astro trying to retain this key asset. The rights in Singapore seem to have gone to Singtel again. And in Vietnam, the government is fiercely lecturing the TV industry to band together and not pay too much for the rights. All in all, it’s a dynamite spectator sport! (The bidding, as well as the soccer…) |
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
|
Starhub just announced some great financial results booking a net profit of $118.7 million for the three months ended Sept 30. This is up 21.5 per cent, compared with the same period in the previous year. Starhub also "are excited to be exploring the partnership with Netflix," said StarHub chief marketing officer Howie Lau. "However, he added : "Discussions right now are in a commercial stage, so we are not able to share too much details.” Aravind Venugopal, from CASBAA member Media Partners Asia, has a piece this week analyzing the proposed partnership. And, as we found out last month from the NYT, “in many countries, Netflix faces an uphill challenge." |
Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
|
We have been saying it since February, but were also sceptical for certain sub-categories like news. A day after a rout in a State elections, which raised doubts on efficacy of PM Modi’s regime, the Indian government liberalised investments norms in over a dozen sectors, including news media for TV. Interestingly FDI limits have been raised from 26 to 49% for television news & current affairs, while the corresponding norm for print medium has been left untouched. This cleared proposal had been opposed by a section of Indian media, including home-grown media czar Subhash Chandra . With investment levels increasing for carriage services like DTH, cable TV and teleports too, experts think biggies like Comcast may review their entry into India. A brave political move indeed. |
Yegee Chun
Regulatory Assistant
|
Thailand’s CTH pay-TV operator got its start as a consortium of small cable companies. But gradually its business model has shifted more and more to DTH broadcasting, and now it is dumping the cablecos, who are starting to squawk. |
Kevin Jennings
Programme Director
|
A US federal appeals court issued a decision this week that affects whether the International Trade Commission can actively clamp down on digital files being imported into the country. Initially relating to a dental company importing digital files of 3D braces, the knock on effect of the ruling will make it harder to fight pirated video being shown on foreign piracy websites. Google and one or two consumer advocacy groups expressed worry about "content gatekeepers" while the MPAA and the Recording Industry Association of America urged that the ITC should have the ability to address copyright infringement. The ruling has brought into question the ability of the ITC to address copyright infringement in the digital context in its efforts to address 21st Century challenges while referring to laws which date back to the 1930s . This one is going to run and run… |
Jane Buckthought
Advertising Consultant
|
Sony has announced that it is discontinuing the production of Betamax video cassettes early next year. The introduction of the video cassette forty years ago gave viewers choice over what and when they wanted to watch for the first time and marked the start of the On Demand TV as we know it today. Regarded as technically superior to the rival format VHS it was eventually VHS that became widely adopted format for the video cassette, before both were surpassed by the VCD, DVD Bluray and more latterly streaming. |
Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
|
Indian Space & Research Organisation (ISRO)’s latest satellite launched, GSAT15, brings good news for users of satellite capacity. But the joy could be limited for broadcast and telecoms sectors. Agreed GSAT15 carries 24 KU-band transponders, which could be used by DTH operators whose growth plans presently are severely hampered by inadequate supply of transponder capacity, but it remains to be seen how many transponders are allotted to needy DTH ops. India’s commendable satellite story starts meandering here. Indian customers’ need for satellite capacity and ISRO’s lack of interest in clearing foreign satellite capacity just don’t match leading to helplessness all round. |
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
The NCC in Taiwan wants to propose three major legislative revisions, and some of the clauses would actually lessen regulation on the cable industry. I can understand that, as the current commissioners inherited a legislative hodgepodge written in the last century that overregulates just about everybody; nobody’s very happy with the status quo. Hearings are planned… but don’t expect quick action. That’s not a hallmark of Taiwan’s democracy. |
Kevin Jennings
Programme Director
|
Time Warner Cable has announced it is trialing using a Roku Box to offer its service to customers in New York. The goal is to transition cable customers onto internet-powered apps and devices and replace the traditional cable set top box. The trial service is an extension of the company’s TWC TV app, which lets subscribers access live television on mobile devices and smart TVs while on their home’s Wi-Fi network. Testers will get a Roku 3 player for free as an incentive and will be given access to more than 300 TV channels as well as being able to access online video streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix. |
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
|
On the heels of 2020 session at the CASBAA Convention, YouTube is seemingly taking advantage of the HUGE buzz we created (smirk) by announcing their grand plan to make VR accessible to everybody. "The goal is to ‘democratize virtual reality’ and ‘bring VR to everybody, no matter who you are or what your favorite piece of content is’.” For live sports, VR is really moving forward. A very cool company, NextVR, has developed a custom lens-to-lens system for capturing and delivering live and on-demand virtual reality experiences in true broadcast quality. One punter says "I Watched an NBA Game With Next VR and I Can’t Go Back to Normal TV”. |
Yegee Chun
Regulatory Assistant
|
The co-founder of South Korea’s most popular chat app, KakaoTalk, has resigned after being accused of failing to prevent child abuse imagery being spread via the service. The platform stated that it is making genuine efforts to filter out such material, but that it implies a degree of censorship that would infringe on the privacy of users; privacy that KakaoTalk began to better safeguard last year after receiving backlash for submitting regular communications logs to local authorities. |
Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
|
Recent chai pe charcha (discussion over tea) and Silicon Valley digital bonding with a tech-savvy PM Narendra Modi notwithstanding, tech biggies are finding it difficult to push through initiatives in India. If it was Facebook’s internet.org mission that ran into a wall of net neutrality proponents, it’s now Microsoft, which is under attack by telcos and broadband players for its plans to harness ‘white spaces’ for last mile connectivity. |
