26 May, 2017

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending May 26th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO More details are coming out about Facebooks plans to start a TV service, including reports that deals have been signed with online producers Buzzfeed and Vox, among others. Now, whether this means the company is desperate to be YouTube or not is another matter, but for our industry, it might actually be good news. After all, If Facebook is spending as much money to licence content as has been reported, they will finally have some skin in the game. And hopefully THAT will mean the company might actually start blocking all those slime-balls using Facebook to sell illicit streaming devices that pirate our content.

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

For those who might be curious about the outcome of CASBAA’s regulatory roundtable last week in Jakarta, here’s a pretty good and succinct summary.

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

In the USA, the “Net Neutrality” battle is underway. The FCC has issued a notice that it is thinking of revoking its 2015 decision to subject ISPs to full on “Title II” regulation. Comments will be received through the summer, and later in the year the FCC might actually make the decision. The “don’t touch our Internet” slogans are being widely propagated and millions of comments already received (some real and some fake). But some of the pro-regulation types are actually admitting that it’s not about content transmission on the internet – Title II regulation is a tool to achieve price controls over internet suppliers. One commentator offered that “What the ideologues want is a public sector Internet.”

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Also in Thailand the Internet is very much a subject of debate, but the topic is censorship. Social media and online video companies are coming under sustained pressure to remove content the government says is illegal. That’s not new. But this week the police said they would also target viewers who looked at pages that might be illegal. And the Bangkok Post complained that “the always questionable campaign to clean the internet of nasty material now is out of control.”

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

While some in the TV world think that Netflix is the player to watch, Amazon is slowly encroaching more and more into the space. Their initial modest complement of general entertainment product has now moved on to be a US$4.5 billion dollar programming budget. Over the last year they added 100 OTT “Channels” partners and this week they have announced that they will offer close to 50 live and on-demand streamed channels in the UK and Germany. See article from Techcrunch for the best coverage. Since the geographical constraints of the pay TV business have been significantly reduced, I have a great suspicion that the pay TV operator of the world, in video forms from live linear to VOD could well become Amazon. And if their success in numerous other business segment follows them, we may now be seeing a glimpse of what the future pay TV landscape looks like.

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President

Verizon has confirmed the company’s plans to launch an OTT streaming service later this year, according to comments made by the CEO at J.P. Morgan’s Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston this week. Verizon will use the combined platform of AOL and Yahoo – and their 1.3 billion users – to test the new platform. The company expects to close on its acquisition of Yahoo mid-June, so the over-the-top service (in the US at least) could arrive any time after that.  It’s thought the content streaming service will presumably be launched alongside Verizon’s existing Go90 ad-supported mobile video services.

 

 

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

Audience measurement globally continues to make news; not always for good reasons. Last week we dwelt on how India’s Republic TV was accused by competitors of alleged malpractices resulting in a face-off involving a TV news industry body and Broadcast Audience Research Council India. The issue continues to simmer. Technical experts have revealed other channels also resorted to the same malpractices to increase viewership. Unnecessarily caught in the cross-fire amongst TV news channels, BARC India explained such issues should be sorted out amongst TV channels as its job was to “measure what India watches.” Keep tuned in for this developing saga.

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

We’ve known it would happen – with all the malware infections coming from piracy websites, it was only a matter of time before some slimeball found a way to use illicit streaming devices (ISDs) to spread malware. Now there are reports from the UK that it’s happened there, and the popular KODI app is one of the vectors. Those responsible for the apps say they are fixing the vulnerabilities. (I’ve heard that before.) To my knowledge, nobody has yet researched the technical vulnerabilities of the piracy apps used on Asian ISDs…..anybody want to bet on them being technically secure?

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President

Pakistan authorities have announced that the Ministry of Information is planning to change PTV Global to a children’s entertainment channel. This will be Pakistan’s first ever official TV channel that caters to children. The move will help promote children entertainment industry and create awareness among children about their rights, culture, tradition and values and we can expect to see this part of the entertainment industry flourishing. No word on plans for PTV Global’s international distribution.This also serves as a timely reminder that CASBAA is hosting the UNICEF Child rights Award again this year in association with the ABU and we are calling for entries for the 17th Asia-Pacific Child Rights Award from broadcasters and producers in the region. Programmes both for children and about children are eligible and can cover any children’s rights issue. To join the competition, please submit your entries online here.

 

 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

This past week, we’ve joined the rest of the media community in mourning the passing of Sir Roger Moore, who died at the age of 89. Before he became Bond, of course, he played Simon Templar in “The Saint” on TV, and was as dashing in black and white as he ever was in color. But more recently, we remember when he came to the CASBAA Convention in 2003 as a UNICEF Ambassador; check out a clip from that here.  RIP.