Convention 2012 Day 2 Press Release
Convention 2012 Day 2 Panel Summaries
A quick recap of yesterday’s event and the introduction of the CASBAA 2020 program kicked off a technology-and-innovation-as-a-differentiator day. This will be a theme that underlies much of the day’s dialogue.
The In Conversation series continues to be a platform for insightful knowledge sharing with the first being a wonderful look at the progress and developments Foxtel in Australia has made. Although operating in a challenging environment, there are ways to stay competitive, for instance by securing exclusive content to create a compelling offerings.
With the DirectTV interview, the notions are similar; leverage technology to deliver content to consumers in the way they want, especially in a market where the similarities in content type and offerings limit the ability to differentiate.
Then again in Tablets, Terminals and Consumption, the recurring theme of taking care of consumer needs from the point of view of enhancing the experience for consumers. It is important to make sure consumers enjoy the service experience and identify with what the service brand stands for, and only then will monetization opportunities extend themselves.
Sports are a big thing in the industry and are often the “battering ram” for many markets. Interestingly, here too, the need to innovate and differentiate is apparent. The market has become very discerning, subscribers are demanding more than just the live feeds. They want the statistics, the athlete profiles, and interviews, often simultaneously with the live feed. Technology and innovation has a huge part to play in this space and some of the possibilities are very exciting, as is the opportunity to package sports content targeted to female consumers. Perhaps the gender inequality in sports viewership is not as apparent as was first thought, however, it is obvious that the market is not currently tapping into this wider audience base.
With Video on Demand, it was clear again just how much technology can do and how it brings brands closer to consumers. These are enablers that can compliment tactics that manage the maximization of windowing strategies, especially for movie related content.
Following on from yesterday’s security focus, today’s session on securing content looked at one of the weak links in the security chain and exposes how hackers are exploiting these weaknesses, often without operators even knowing. Whether improving the security robustness of set top box deployments or making security central to corporate operations culture, anything that can be done to improve security and protect content is a step to winning the battle against piracy.
And speaking of piracy, there is no question that this is an issue that will affect everyone in the industry in some way or another. But there is still no clear consensus as to the way forward. There is still no clear leadership, nor ownership of responsibility to make things move. The opinions are split as to the reasons for piracy; consumers don’t acknowledge the fundamental right for content creators to receive payment for their work and hence refuse to pay, and consumers obtain content illegally because there are no legal avenues to purchase the desired content. Then there is the complex issue of embedded devices purpose built to source pirated content streams. Whichever way the industry is heading, it’s not in the direction of the pirates.
Moving to a review of Indonesia reveals the potential for massive growth. Yet nothing is ever straightforward in this industry it seems and Indonesia also throws up its fair share of challenges. Nevertheless, there are interesting market segments to approach, lots of room for development and consumer demand is in on the rise.
To cap the day’s events, a distinguished panel of the industry’s leaders shared their views on the path ahead for their respective business and markets. There was much optimism and certainly no lack of passion or determination from the panelist and all the speakers who graciously gave their time to participate in this event.
And what better way to bring CASBAA 2012 to a close than to salute someone who has led CASBAA to become the big family it is today, the winner of the 2012 Chairman’s Award and former CEO, Simon Twiston Davies.