15 December, 2017

If you’re only just finding out about Disney’spurchase of most of 21st Century Fox’s assets, you need to seriouslyreconsider your news diet. CASBAA Chairman Joe Welch (from 21st Century Fox,btw) first mentioned the rumours in his opening remarks at theConvention, and now just over a month later, thedeal is done. Well, done as in agreed, notdone as in passedregulatory approval, although it seems to have the tacitapproval of a certain real-estate-developer-turned-politician. Andwhile we can muse all afternoon (and probably will) about anti-trust concerns and thelogic of vertical integration, let’s be honest, it’sall about taking on Netflix. Oh, and in case you wondered, TheSimpsons predicted this ages ago.

Regulatory tidbits from this week:

BigBrother is watching you and is worried about your emotional health…especially when you’re a Netflix subscriberwatching the same programme over and over and over. A Twitter storm beganon Sunday over after Netflix tweeted:”To the 53 people who’ve watched A ChristmasPrince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?” If you haven’theard of AChristmas Prince, it’s a harmlessschmaltzy rom-com about a reporter and…a prince. Perhaps notsurprisingly the tongue-in-cheek tweet caused pushback from people concerned just how Netflix was using their “personal” dataand Netflix was quick tolimit the fallout, stating “Theprivacy of our members’ viewing is important to us“. Shaming itssubscribers, even in jest, for watching a feel-good film didn’t sit well witheveryone. One user evencompared the tweet to “bullying”. For the most part thoughthe banter raised a smile with some humorous responsesfrom Netflix and the Twitterati.

On the subject of Big Brother, rival Australian mediacompanies, Fairfax Media, News Corp and Nine have announced they are to explorea co-operative which will see them sharing anonymised digital identitiesacross their three respective media platforms. The Australian anonymous digitalidentity co-operative will aim to improvequality and effectiveness of audience targeting. Should the scheme goforward, it will also allow for more accurate reach, frequency capping and ‘onboarding’ of data sets and provide stronger, more effectivecompetition against Google and Facebook.

This is my last day working with CASBAA with this being mylast OTT New Roundup. As such, I figured that since the members make CASBAA I’donly feature stories about members. Discovery, A+E and Turner are all featuredin TVnetworks are buying original digital series for their apps. Zee’s DittoTVand OZEE will soon be replaced by its newdigital entertainment platform ZEE5 with mobile operators Airtel,Vodafone, Idea, BSNL and Z5. Staying in India, Discoveryties up with Vodafone, Reliance Jio, Facebook and Youtube for mobile-firstchannels. I’m sure you are up to your eyeballs in Disney/Fox news buthere’s an OTT perspective with, Disney-FoxMerger Gives The Mouse Everything It Needs To Fight Netflix. Andto finish off, a MUST READ. Regarding OTT business models, you know the rulesand so do I but this article from the LA Times nails it, TheOnly Business Model That Will Work For OTT. You wouldn’t get this(article) from any other guy. More OTT stories at the CASBAA OTT Group Newsfeed.

“If you build it, he will come” or, in 2017, “show the gameon TV, they will watch”. A newreport from PwC underlines the value of revenues in the US from sportsmedia rights which, in 2018, will surpass income from ticket sales to a value ofUS$20.1bn. Whilst PwC predicts this will rise to US$23bn by 2021, future growthwill hinge on the ability to deliver an immersive sports experience and thoseclubs that aren’t bound by exclusive rights terms and who should be quicker tomove from curated to viewer-controlled content will most likely see thebenefit.

Speaking of sports media rights, there may not be masses ofpeople in Asia (relatively speaking) who watch US NFL football. But it’s worthnoticing the huge experiment just launched by the NFL and their distributionpartner, Verizon. Starting next month, NFLgames will be delivered by Verizon free to all consumers (through itsrecently-purchased Yahoo and AOL services) on a true OTT basis, to anymobile device linked to any internet ISP.  Verizon’s plan is to monetisethe content for mobile viewing through ads, and also to build up its onlinebrands. The deal looks to have been great for the NFL, which has been besetby falling viewership but still managed to get a hefty increase inVerizon’s rights payments. (Another reason for the deal is to try tooutflank the people who’ve taken to streamingpirate feeds on Facebook and YouTube, helped by those platforms’ searchalgorithms.)

Taking a brief hiatus from APAC this week and putting thespotlight on Brazil. For the first time ever, thecreator of a Youtube channel offering piracy tutorials for users of Kodi boxeswas successfully prosecuted and charged by a TV industry group in Brazil. Thebox in question is called HTV; member company Cisco has been supporting the Pay-TV operators and anti-piracy organisations in Brazil by providing them theforensic analysis and intelligence on the HTV network. On top of payingdamages, the YouTuber has been ordered to remove all content that supportspiracy, and to refrain from further posting such material. Given the technicalnature of ISDs, it’s become increasingly easy to find online tutorials abouthow to download the apps or “add-ons” that allow users to stream infringingcontent, or videos offering troubleshooting support. Many of these tutorial channelshave a significant following, so while cases against ISD syndicates havetypically targeted uploaders and retailers, pursuing the creators of thesetutorials is not an implausible strategy…. just an unprecedented one.

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all I’m getting inmy inbox alerts are headlines referencing India’s ban on condom advertising. So,to spare you that particular story, instead I’ll draw your attention to aChristmas campaign of a different sort in the UK. Thisone, by Crimestoppers UK, focuses on our favourites, those IllegalStreaming Devices, and why they shouldn’t top the gift list this year.

Yes, the regulation on condom ad watershed hours reallyignited a round in the ongoing Indian culture wars. Sex – even safe sex – fallsinto the prohibited category of “vulgar, indecent,” and not somethingto be talked about, opined the conservatives. Nonsense, said the modernists,this is the Internet age; kids are talking about it no matter what TVregulation says. The Indian Express said the rule “reeksof a paternalistic state out of touch with the people”. Besides which,condoms are essential to meeting India’s populationand healthchallenges, and theyshould be MORE advertised, not less. Unusual for a rather technicalregulatory change, thestory got wide global play, which seemed to embarrass some Indians.

CASBAAmade a splash in New Delhi this week, with a speech calling on thegovernment to liberalise contracting for satellite services between Indiancompanies and international satellite operators. India’s“digital dream” would benefit, said CASBAA Chairman Joe Welch. Governmentspokesmen at the conference said sympathetic things….but made nocommitments.

Okay, so I missed this one, as it came out during the CASBAAConvention week. Cinemaindustry interests in Australia have filed a petition with a court to block theEPG and authentication server for a notorious ISD network, known as HD Subs.(In a bit of Newspeak worthy of Orwell, TorrentFreak has decided to call thispirate syndicate that steals and redistributes lots of HD channels a “premiumIPTV service”.) Meanwhile, TVBhas followed up with a similar petition against seven other ISD box services (whichfeature Chinese content alongside lots of English-language and Indian programming).There’sa hearing set for the end of this week – it remains to be seen whetherAustralia’s ISPs will accept this approach or whether they want to spend moneyon lawyers to oppose it. (Australia’s law was changed in 2015 to permitsite blocking, and plenty of websites are already blocked, but this would be anew use of the legal authority.)

Since this is my last appearance in News Views, I thoughtI’d share something REALLY important: the Best TV Shows of 2017. TheGuardian’s list of 50 best shows is stupidly big (and a bit of atease, since it’s not even complete yet). Meanwhile, TheAtlantic points out in its list that Netflix alone accounted for morethan 1000 hours of TV in 2017, making it tough to narrow things down to just 10shows; theNew York Times concurs. Vulture puts up eachof its TV critics’ personal list of bestshows, and it also picks the bestindividual episodes. Alan Sepinwall has pulled together his 20 Best,and Maureen Ryan at Variety found her20 Best list surprisingly well-populated with female showrunners andshows about women. There will doubtless be many more lists before the end ofthe year, but in the meantime, there’s plenty to consider as you prioritiseyour binge-watching over the holidays!

And finally, could you choose only 25 films a year to beadded to the US Library of Congress’ National Film Registry? Thisyear’s entries include The Goonies, Dumbo and Titanic, all films which aredesignated as having cultural, social or aesthetic significance.