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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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| NBCU is doubling down on its investment in digital platform Buzzfeed, ponying up another US$200 million. Buzzfeed claims it will remain “fully indie” despite the investment; although NBCU is also expected to take on a bigger role in handling ad sales for the digital portfolio. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that AMC Networks has also announced it’s taking a minority stake in Funny or Die (along with Turner and HBO), again, with cross-platform ad sales at least partly in mind. To what extent these deals represent the starting gun for the “bloodbath” of media consolidation Vice boss Shane Smith has predicted remains to be seen; it’s worth noting, however, that this year has seen more than 30 M&A deals involving large media companies, with some US$4 billion invested by “old media” giants into new media startups.
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| In the USA, it seems the recent elections may mean the end of soup-to-nuts “Title II” regulation of the broadband industry, which was imposed in the name of “net neutrality.” The Trump transition team announced that their lead transition staff for communications issues are two well-known opponents of net neutrality. One of them called the FCC’s current approach “crony capitalism pure and simple,” apparently referring to the Obama Administration’s links to Silicon Valley. A more thoughtful criticism is that the current rules may “actually inhibit capital expenditures and broadband deployment.” Unwinding the rules would be difficult, though, so a Bloomberg commentator opined that the re-stacked Commission after January 20th may just choose to leave the rules in place, but pretend they don’t exist. Wow, America learns from Asia!!! |
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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| There has been lots of chatter of late about Amazon Prime going global with “launches in 200 markets worldwide in December“. This could be significant as Amazon Prime Video is the other 800lb gorilla in the OTT video space. As I mentioned previously, anyone who spends $3 billion per year on tv shows, movies and music is one to keep an eye on. Actual facts are hard to find but what we know so far is that video is “on it’s way” to India, at a rumored very-low price of a low 499 rupees, including other benefits. In China, Prime is launched with no digital content. Recently, Jeremy Clarkson and the Grand Tour lads said that the show will be available worldwide in December. Exactly how one can view it and how much it will cost is still a mystery. And in Oz folks can sign up now and watch a limited catalogue. Stay tuned.
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
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| South Korea’s CJ E&M has announced it will launch a new TV channel for its Multi-Channel Network (MCN) broadcasting “DIA TV” in January 2017. The service will provide one-person media content to both digital and TV viewers. One-person media broadcasting was previously only available on mobile devices or PCs but in what they claim a world first, CJ E&M will air content on cable TV for the first time. With over 40 million subscribers and more than 1 billion views on YouTube per month, DIA TV is shifting gears from MCN to MPN (multi-platform network). Working with DIA TV will give individual broadcasters more support and allow them easier access to celebrities. DIA TV listed one of the strongest strengths on in one-person media broadcasting is its two-way communication system, which allows individual creators to interact with audiences in real time.
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Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
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| After having exited sports telecast business by selling it to Sony, Zee group is charting a growth path through acquisitions. Few days back, Zee announced a deal with Anil Ambani’s Reliance ADA group for taking full control of Reliance’s TV ops and a 49 per cent stake in its FM radio business for approximately US 283 million, signalling the younger Ambani brother’s interest in shedding media assets, which still includes a DTH operation, to cut debts. With Dish TV announcing a deal earlier November to take control of Videocon D2h DTH services, it seems the Indian market is finally witnessing some consolidation. Keep tuned in for the next big M&A deal announcement. |
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Andrew Lin
Regulatory Assistant
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| Just two days ago, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) announced that 4,800 websites have been blocked from 2015 to the end of September 2016, due to various offences under the law. Requests for the blocking of these websites came not only from the Royal Malaysian Police, but other enforcement agencies as well including the Health Ministry, Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism, and Bank Negara Malaysia. In addition, MCMC has been emphasizing the importance of educating the youth about the dark side of the internet. It is good to see that different government organizations within Malaysia are working together to combat these illegal platforms; we hope the regulators will focus on copyright violations, as well! |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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FTA-TV advertising regulators are ever-vigilant against the horrible sociopathic (read: commercial) tendencies that seem to creep into the broadcasting industry. (God forbid they should ever cast their eyes on the Internet’s bottom-feeders!) This week brought a couple of brilliantly schoolmarm-ish examples. But first, a little promo: people interested in pay-TV advertising rules can now find updated and complete summaries for 17 Asian markets on CASBAA’s “Asian Pay-TV Ad Rules” website. It’s reserved for CASBAA members, so you’ll need a member login to access the data. (To get a login if you don’t have one, write to kevinng@casbaa.com)
• In the UK the tireless Advertising Standards Authority has stepped in to protect us from ourselves and banned the new Heinz Beanz advert – in which a succession of people tap out an Ed Sheeran-ish tune on empty cans. The ban came after nine complaints from viewers that children might mimic the commercial and cut their little fingers on a jagged scrap of metal. Heinz reported that it has posted video tutorials on how to safely perform the “#Can Song” on social media sites, and said the ad did not show anyone putting their fingers inside an empty can, but nonetheless they’ve been ordered not to allow the ad to air again. Well, thanks to the Internet, you can still view it, here (with the added safety warning – we wouldn’t want you to cut yourselves).• Meanwhile in Hong Kong, TVB got its knuckles rapped for actually doing….well, advertising. They were guilty, said the Communications Authority, of “mingling programme and advertising material” in a showbiz program used to promote their My SuperTV OTT pay-TV service. This followed on an earlier case where the regulator whacked the broadcaster for too-heavy promotion of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Again, TVB complained bitterly that the guidelines about program sponsorship were not at all clear, and again they threatened to take the regulator to Court. A silver lining: things are getting nasty enough that the regulator might actually take steps to clean up the rules.
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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| Immediately cancel one of your lunches next week! Seriously! Grab a 6-inch Subway and a soup and load up this fantastic 35 minute video by Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research. In “Has Content Been Dethroned By Distribution” Richard weaves in videos of statements made by leaders in the media industry from Disney, HBO, Discovery, Turner, Chernin, Apple, Netflix and others to look at the major issues facing the traditional players in the media business. A better understanding of where the business is going may just help you “solve the platform issue, solve the data issue and solve the knowing your consumer issue.” I was taking notes. Of all of the links in this week’s News Views, THIS is the one you need to click on. |
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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| A couple nice articles on Disney; Variety has named CEO Bob Iger “Showman of the Year” for 2016, with a nice 4500-word cover story on the man, the myth, and the legend. (Also featured, a nice video interview with Iger, conducted by director J.J. Abrams, which isn’t exactly an ad for the Star Wars franchise.) Although less epic in scope, AdWeek also ran an interesting piece on how Disney approaches millenials, in particular, through partnership with toy-maker Hasbro.
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
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Well. After a good deal of controversy, PEMRA in Pakistan has announced the results of the auction of three DTH licenses and awarded Mag Entertainment, Shahzad Sky, and Startimes Communications Pakistan Ltd. licenses priced at PKRs. 4.898 billion each. There was a lot of opposition to the auction, including from the Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA), and the cable operators. But after a negative court injunction was overturned, PEMRA was determined to go ahead. PEMRA sees a “domestic” DTH ecosystem as important to fight against Indian content that overspills the border and is carried on cable systems.
But Oo! Oo! What do we spy in the results? Startimes, one of the winners, is a subsidiary/joint venture of a Chinese company! Not exactly domestic… (BTW, they are a serious player – Startimes is already a major DTH player in 16 African countries, and states on its website that its intention is to be one of the world’s leading media groups. They’re headed in the right direction!) Well, the auction was held, but the courts have barred PEMRA from actually issuing the non-exclusive licenses (valid for 15 years), until judicial review, so there is plenty of time for this particular TV melodrama to go on and on. |
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