4 November, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Nov 4th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO Lots of announcements at the US China Film & TV Industry Expo in LA this week, including the formal announcement that Dalian Wanda is buying Dick Clark Productions for the bargain basement price of US$1 billion. In addition to the launch of a US$100 million film fund, there were plenty of insights shared regarding Chinese audiences, advice about how to make and market films in China, and how to actually get things shown on China’s screens: “Co-investment, Chinese elements, and at least one Chinese main character.”  We’ll be digging into some of these issues next week at the CASBAA Convention with Bennett Pozil of East West Bank — if you haven’t registered yet, you’ve still got time!

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Not to be outdone, China Internet giant Alibaba has restructured its media business entirely, and announced a US$1.5 billion fund for new projects. All its media assets are now clubbed together under the Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group, which includes Youku Tudou, UCWeb, Alibaba Pictures, and its online gaming, literature, music, and digital business units.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

More news in the continuing evolution of pay TV in the US.  Hulu has just announced that Fox and Disney channels will be part of its new skinny bundle when it launches next year. Fox will contribute Fox, Fox Sports channels and Fox News. Disney, meanwhile, will make its portfolio of Disney/ABC networks, including ABC, Disney Channel and Freeform, as well as ESPN available on the service. Apparently, “NBCU, which acts as a silent owner in the streaming service, is also in talks to bring its programming to the live TV offering.”  It seems that “streaming TV is starting to more closely resemble the very thing it was meant to replace.”

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

Well, if Twitter India trends on November 1 were to be believed, the top trending topic/hashtag related to, what many would say, India’s most talked about TV news anchor Arnab Goswami. Both loved and hated (in equal proportion, one would believe), Goswami’s resignation as President-News and Chief Editor of Times TV Network set the social and online media on fire. Even small details, including his future assignments, became news in mainstream print media too. A comment piece in a trade website aptly dubbed the development as “from reporting news to becoming news”. The cult of celeb journalists continue.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Things may be reopening in Bangkok, but they’re definitely not normal, after the death of the king.  Radio and TV broadcasters are being told they can return to normal programming, but they should avoid boisterous and rude jokes.  The Temple of the Emerald Buddha has reopened, and it seems even the tourists are behaving.  It’s clear that the nation remains in mourning…as even a casual reader can see.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

It’s by no means a done deal, but those CBS / Viacom “recombination” talks are still in what CBS CEO Les Moonves says are “early stages.”  In fact, in what might or might not have been a World Series reference (congrats Cubs!), he told an analyst call “…we aren’t even in the second inning yet.”  Meanwhile, on the Viacom side of the street, international head Bob Bakish has been named interim CEO.  And straight out of the gate, he addressed the subject of the merger: “We’re not going to stand still while it’s being evaluated.”

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Along with Discovery’s Q3 earnings, they also announced a joint venture with Major League Baseball’s BAMTech. This JV will form BAMTech Europe, a streaming-video technology provider catering to broadcasters and OTT players across the continent. Could this be the start of the “Netflix of Sports”. Eurosport, which Discovery gained full control of last year, will become their first client with roll-out “in 2017 across all of Eurosport Digital’s products, which today include Eurosport.com and Eurosport Player.”  Further investment into streaming would be consistent with David Zaslov’s view that, “one of the things that has stopped the growth of cable is the price of all that sports.” 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

New
research out from Media Partners Asia confirms that OTT services are starting to take a bite out of pay TV subscriptions in six key regional markets.  The Asia Video Consumer Panel surveys 1000 consumers each in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, to explore how they engage with video content.  Among the key issues highlighted: day-and-date content, user interfaces, access to bundled packages and problems with dubbing and subtitling.  MPA Executive Director Vivek Couto will be onstage at the CASBAA Convention next week; again, if you’re not already signed up, why wait?

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Netflix COO Ted Sarandos has said that the company might consider offering offline playback—at least in developing markets where cable and wi-fi constraints make it more practical. No word on which countries as yet but there are a few markets in Asia that definitely qualify – and a few Asian OTT players already out there who offering download playback, so it certainly isnt a new concept but things might get very interesting very soon in our own back yard.  Meanwhile in what seems a counter-intuitive move Apple has announced that it’s new content aggregation app for the Apple TV   doesn’t support Amazon Prime or Netflix.  As mentioned in News Views last week, the new App will let end users search through all kinds of content across third-party applications and more than 1,600 sources. Netflix says it has no plans to work with Apple on being included which sort of makes sense from their perspective – putting Netflix in with the masses would dilute the chance of being able to find more Netflix original content, but is frustrating if you are a consumer looking for a one stop content aggregator where one size fits all.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme