18 November, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Nov 18th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO Something funny happened during the CASBAA Convention 2016 last week: Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.  We cut live to CNN for his acceptance speech, and then sat around trying to figure out what it meant.  Only the day before, GroupM’s Irwin Gotlieb had pondered the media industry’s complicity in Trump’s rise, saying “…we’ve behaved in a manner that suggests that we’ve deserved what we’ve got.”  Certainly there’s been a lot of hand-wringing in Hollywood, which over the years has both promoted and pummeled Trump. Particularly among journalists, the post-election soul-searching has been acutely troubled: “Narcissistic self-immolation is the ideal form of suicide for an industry distrusted by the public but thirsty for post-election content.”  And given his often combative relationship to news outlets during the campaign, there’s been plenty of speculation about how a Trump Presidency might hurt press freedom in the US, among many, many, many other things.

 

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Say what you want about the outcome, but the 2016 presidential election cycle was unlike any the news media has ever experienced. As you might expect, cable news reaped significant benefits from the volatility of the race in the form of huge ratings.

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Machinima CEO Chad Gutstein has been a busy guy lately.  Just 10 days after speaking at the CASBAA Convention in Macau, he has sold his company to Warner Bros.  As Chad explained during his session, Machina targets millennial males, and delivers some impressive demographic and usage numbers.  Warner previously invested in Machinima, and now that it’s in full control, will roll the service into its Warner Brothers Digital Networks arm.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

And speaking of Convention follow-ups, SBS Viceland launched in Australia this week, delivering improved ratings over SBS 2 (which it replaces) on its first day on air.  During his session in Macau, Vice Media Co-President James Schwab highlighted Australia and New Zealand as key early markets for Viceland in the region, and announced the company was launching its first full-service Asian office in Indonesia.  Next up, Viceland launches in France on Canal+, marking the company’s first non-English language service.

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Google, in a commendable addition to its “safe browsing” policies, is now going to suspend for 30 days “repeat offender” websites which are found (intentionally or otherwise) hosting malware several times.  (Google doesn’t specify what “several” means.)   People will be warned by Google to avoid such sites as dangerous, and unlike today, sites won’t be able to just take down the offending malware and be reinstated.  Most such malware hostings are reported to be the result of automated advertising systems; as we have often noted with respect to content piracy websites, criminal syndicates purposely insert malware into their ads distributed by “bottom feeder” ad agencies and frequently found on piracy websites.  Google said the problem was caused by only a small number of sites, but one analyst said “we can infer that it is a big enough issue in that it affects Google Safe Browsing’s reputation.”  Another analyst says the biggest effect will be to turn site operators away from “auction-led, topic-driven advertising slots, where anyone can win a place in your domain, and even potentially target your domain as an outlet via keyword crafting….30 days is an eternity in search-engine exile.”  The Pirate Bay scoffed at Google’s move, suggesting that, well, they have to work with dodgy ad agencies, because legitimate ones won’t place ads on pirate sites.    (Now that’s a sure sign of success for the ad industry “follow the money” codes of practice being promoted by the likes of GroupM.)  Now, if only Google would get more serious about de-listing “repeat offender” piracy sites!

 

 

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

The merger of Indian DTH operators, Zee Group’s Dish TV and Videocon d2h, when finally completed after regulatory approvals, will create a pay TV behemoth that few in India would be able to rival in terms of size. The combined subs base of 27 million+ and the array of services the combined entity can offer could turn the bottomline blacker than black. Opportunities beckon though pitfalls lurk at every corner; notably the latter as over-zealous
regulators can upset the applecart. Still, are these signs of the consolidation that Indian media had been talking about for over a decade?

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Ericsson just came out with their fantastic Mobility Report. An outline of it can be found here with the full PDF of the report, available for free download, here.  As a good amount of video viewing in Asia happens on mobile, this report is of particular interest. “Mobile video traffic is increasingly dominant: Mobile video traffic is forecast to grow by around 50 percent annually through 2022 to account for nearly 75 percent of all mobile data traffic.”  “India grew the most in terms of net additions during the quarter (+15 mil), followed by China (+14 mil), Indonesia (+6 mil), Myanmar (+4 mil) and the Philippines (+4 mil).”  Also just out is the TIVO Video Trends Report. US and Canada only, but shows great detail on how the landscape is changing.

 

 

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Multidevice usage in Asia-Pacific continues to grow. But as more consumers in the region use a changing mix of smartphones, PCs and tablets, many advertisers are struggling to keep up with creating effective cross-screen campaigns to reach them. Designing advertising campaigns to reach these multidevice users remains a key challenge for marketers, who are trying to understand whether these users exhibit different behaviors when viewing digital ads on different devices. The answer, it appears, is “sometimes,” and it depends on the country.

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Fast, reliable, broadband continues to shake up the traditional media industry in amazing ways. AT&T’s “bombshell” of its new Direct TV Now service offering a core bundle of more than 100 channels at a “head turning” $35 per month makes one wonder if there is any profit left in this business. “The potential day of reckoning for the existing pay-TV ecosystem may finally have arrived.” Then we have Amazon giving away about $3 billion per year of TV shows, movies and music, to ensure continued renewal of its 2-day shipping Prime Membership. How does that work for existing players who expect to get paid from their viewers? There is also now a company that lets one watch HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu and other services OFFLINE for $1 per episode. And to wrap up, you knew it was coming, a service that bundles 8 SVOD channels for $9.99 a month. Interesting times indeed.

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Cable operators in Pakistan have decided to register their protest at the country’s imminent DTH auction which is scheduled for the end of November. In a somewhat dramatic move, the protestors have begun a hunger strike with some operators threatening to switch off their cable services unless their demands are met. The cable operators are worried that the arrival of DTH services will affect the livelihood of thousands of people in the Pakistani Cable TV industry. Meanwhile the Pakistani government has announced that 12 companies are being considered for three licences in the DTH auction which is set for November 23rd. It is generally accepted that DTH services will offer higher quality channels and coverage, something that much of the average cable TV connection in Pakistan does not offer.

 

 

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

The social media have given a thumbs up to PM Modi’s ambitious initiative to flush out black money by announcing demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 notes on November 8 even as delegates and speakers at CASBAA Convention in Macao discussed digital, online security and other global trends. Still, honest intentions apart, paucity of cash have hit the Indian media industry. While likes of Dish TV extended credit facility to customers, others are still struggling to tide over the turn of events. But not everybody is complaining and multiplexes are one of them. Can this turn away big investors? Stay tuned.