Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Mar 3th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Feb 24th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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John Medeiros |
A major breakthrough in the UK this week, with Google and Microsoft agreeing to demote sites hosting pirated content in UK search results. The industry has been pushing for this for years, and finally, with the support of the UK government’s Intellectual Property Department, a Code of Conduct has been agreed with the US search giants. In addition to moving any sites with infringing material to the second page of search results, the Code also commits both companies to stop using predictive “auto-complete” search terms that promote piracy (such as “watch for free” or “download for free”). All of which is great news…. BUT. The Code of Conduct only covers the UK; now we’ve just got to get Google and Bing to implement the same policy in the rest of the world.
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Christopher Slaughter |
The Auckland High Court has ruled that fugitive p̶i̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶g̶p̶i̶n̶ “internet entrepreneur” Kim Dotcom can, in fact, be extradited from New Zealand to face trial in the US over his Megaupload website. No perp walk is expected immediately, because of course, he and his co-defendants are going to appeal. In the meantime, he is nonetheless claiming victory, because the judgement states that under NZ law, he can’t be extradited for copyright infringement, just fraud. It’s sort of a bizarre claim, but then again, not too much about Kim Dotcom isn’t bizarre. This story has been playing out since 2012, so don’t expect a resolution any time soon; remember, the Napster trials went on for seven years.
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Mark Lay |
The realm of streaming media had some particularly interesting stories this week. Walt Mossberg gives a roundup of what he learned at Code Media. A must-see presentation at Code Media is one by Ben Thomson where he explains the great unbundling. The Wrap has a great piece on How Crunchyroll Turned a Niche Audience Into a Streaming Powerhouse. The never-ending speculation and rationalisation doesn’t stop with apposing pieces on why or why not Apple should buy Netflix. And if Netflix hasn’t changed the game enough, they are now doing it with reality TV with the debut of Ultimate Beastmaster. They will release six different versions, featuring 108 competitors with 60 different episodes of the show tailored to local audiences in the U.S., Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Germany and Japan.
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Kevin Jennings |
In South Korea Kakao, operator of the country’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk and portal website Daum has announced it is upping its game in relation to online video. It has streamilined its multi-platform video services “Kakao TV” to take on foreign services such as YouTube. The company unified its two existing video services and the new video service will be available not only through PCs and mobile devices but more importantly will also be made available on Kakao Talk, South Korea’s most-used mobile instant messenger app. Kakao also said it was using popular Korean hosts, better known as broadcast jockeys (BJs), as Kakao TV play directors and expects the presence of popular content creators will help the platform attract new viewers.
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Christopher Slaughter |
As an industry, we’ve worried for years about whether people are watching our ads; now the people who’ve been eating our lunch are starting to get the same stomach ache. A new study from Interpublic’s Magna Global says 2/3rds of US consumers skip online video ads as soon as possible, and 75% of them do it out of habit. But even though they’re skipping, Magna has also found that the impressions made in the few seconds viewers are watching are still valuable; which is a good thing, since later this year, YouTube is going to be dropping its “unskippable” 30-second ads completely. Stay tuned for a new standard — the six-second online spot.
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Jane Buckthought |
Knowing where your on-line advertising is being placed is difficult to manage. Jaguar Land Rover issued a statement on Friday that said it was “very concerned” with online ads being used on extremist sites and it had stopped all UK digital advertising until an investigation had been completed. Ads for the Jaguar F-Pace appeared on YouTube next to a pro-ISIS video that had been viewed more than 115,000 times, but have since been removed.
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John Medeiros |
We’ve written a lot about new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who spoke at the CASBAA Convention in 2015; now he’s repeating the same “light touch” regulatory message he delivered on our stage, this time on CNBC. What he says seems pretty sensible to us, but there are still people convinced that internet service supply is a monopoly…….I just don’t see that. (Every US urban area I know has at least a couple, and sometimes more, of internet providers.) Of course, Pai has plenty of supporters, too, and even though the broad-gauge “Title II” regulation of internet providers continues to be supported by a powerful lobby of people saying we should be alarmed about the possibility it will be relaxed, Pai is still not saying anything about that yet.
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Mark Lay |
Every week or so I ask my kids what they have failed at recently because if they aren’t failing some, then they haven’t been pushing hard enough. In the business of re-landing rockets, SpaceX would be a great child. Now, I love seeing rockets blast off but there is something even cooler seeing them land
again. Out of 11 attempts at re-landing rockets (flying robot that’s great at math), SpaceX has had 3 failures and 8 successes. Their last landing on Sunday, as part of their successful launch of their Falcon 9 with a 5,500 pound payload of cargo to the International Space Station, was spectacular.
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Christopher Slaughter |
Mainland streaming giant iQiyi has raised a warchest of US$1.5 billion to fund its ongoing battle with Alibaba and Tencent in the mainland China market. The Baidu subsidiary is expected to use the new funds for content development and building out its subscription business (about which Ericsson might very well have something to say!). But even though they’ve recently bought 300 hours of CBeebies content, don’t expect iQiyi to go on a shopping spree in Hollywood, especially with Wanda’s billion-dollar purchase of Dick Clark Productions stalled by the Chinese government. However, despite headlines declaring that deal to be dead, it remains to be seen whether mainland officials have actually killed it, or if they are just pondering if it is as “irrational” as some critics think.
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Kevin Jennings |
News from Pakistan that the broadcast regulatory body PEMRA has requested Government funding for the long-awaited transition from analogue to digital. PEMRA requested Rs75 million as seed capital to set up its own Universal Service Fund for the proposed project and is looking for further funding in excess of US$3 million. The proposed structure promises not only improved services but software would be developed for monitoring up to 250 channels, compared to only 50 being monitored at present. While PEMRA intends to charge registered licence holders to fund the USF, the Pakistani Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has already set up a Universal Service Fund where telecom companies contribute 1.5 percent of their gross annual earnings to establish telecom infrastructure. Regardless, the request from PEMRA is likely to be approved with little resistance. A few people are crying foul but mostly because projects are continuously delayed and costs continue to escalate.
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Christopher Slaughter |
Next Monday morning here in Asia, expect productivity to drop as the 89th
Academy Awards get going; just don’t expect the winners to be mega-blockbusters of years gone by. And while there is always the chance of a long-shot, maybe don’t push your luck by betting on it. The show is almost certain to have political overtones this year, but it’s unlikely to be the subject of tweets from the White House, apparently. Oh, and in case you wondered, La La Land is going to win a few things.
Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Feb 17th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Feb 10th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Christopher Slaughter |
Earnings season again, and lots of info coming out in various reporting calls: Time Warner had a good Q4, and the company is confident that the deal with AT&T will close by the end of the year. And on a side-note, the standalone streaming service HBO Now has crossed 2 million subscribers in the US, and sees a “big untapped subscriber opportunity” in the States.
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Mark Lay |
The first earnings release of Viacom under new CEO Bob Bakish have generally been seen as positive, with revenue rising 5.39 percent to $3.32 billion. More importantly Bakish outlined a Radical Revamp of Cable Operations designed to focus the conglomerate’s resources on six core channels and a decision to rebrand Spike TV as the Paramount Network in early 2018. Core channels being: Paramount Network, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV, Comedy Central and BET. CNBC provides us with a great interview of Bakish outlining these turnaround plans.
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Christopher Slaughter |
Elsewhere, 21st Century Fox reported a 27% jump in profits, driven by higher US ad sales around baseball and politics; making it “…the star of the quarter.” Meanwhile, CEO James Murdoch dangled a direct-to-consumer carrot on his earnings call, saying that it was an option — stronger wording than his December comment that Fox was “in no hurry” to go direct-to-consumer. Oh, and Peak TV? Fox expects to produce more than 20,000 hours of entertainment worldwide this year. Just sayin’…
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Mark Lay |
Also releasing earnings this week was Disney, with earnings of $1.55 per share, vs expected EPS of $1.49. “Chairman and CEO Bob Iger said more deals are on the way with over-the-top providers, including pacts that could help boost penetration rates for the sports channel.” And while he didn’t exactly clear up the succession question, Iger told analysts he was open to extending his contract, due to expire in 2018, “…if it’s in the best interests of the company.”
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Christopher Slaughter |
And finally in our earnings review, online retail giant Amazon is touting the success of its Prime Video product; users more than doubled their consumption of digital media on the platform in 2016. CEO Jeff Bezos described “tens of millions” of new paid members, but didn’t give specific sub numbers, so it’s hard to tell whether their overnight launch in 200 markets outside the US has paid off yet. One thing that is clear, however, is that Amazon is going to continue to bet on original programming; investment in programming and marketing will “…continue in 2017 and likely beyond.”
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John Medeiros |
In European piracy news: Copyright industries want to implement piracy site blocking in Belgium, as in other EU countries – and in Ireland, too. Italian police busted an online retransmission piracy ring. Sweden is looking for ways to tighten up its anti-piracy enforcement, recognizing they are playing catch-up because “when most country’s copyright laws were first laid down, the Internet simply did not exist.” Torrentfreak complains that even “weak” antipiracy measures give pirates a pain in the behind. (I feel so bad for the poor, frustrated pirates.) On the bad-news front, in the Czech Republic, a court let the Pirate Party off the hook, for operating a piracy linking website…..with the “reasoning” that it wasn’t a commercial enterprise, and maybe they didn’t realize it was pirated material. Right; that’s believable. Meanwhile, the UK police have been out knocking on doors of ad industry players involved in placing ads on pirate websites. The policemen have a cup of tea, and then advise their hosts that their ads are supporting illegal activities. No threats…..it’s just about awareness, y’see…..but people seem to listen more when it’s a person in blue making them aware.
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Kevin Jennings |
As we mentioned last week, at no other time of year are TV ads such a hot topic of conversation in the US as they are before, during and after the Super Bowl. And according to Fox, this year, the Big Game was the most-watched program in US television history. A bold claim, but one that also acknowledges that broadcast viewing slipped for the second year in a row. Despite that, this year’s game carried the second-heaviest ad load in Super Bowl history, with 51 minutes and 30 seconds of ads and promos in the 3 hour 47 minute game. And while some of them were considered quite good, plenty of them were underwhelming, and some were rather divisive, giving pundits the opportunity to vent their opinions and slice and dice the TVCs every which way.
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John Medeiros |
Last week, we noted that a UK test case was being pursued to establish clearly that sales of “fully loaded” ISD boxes are illegal. While the case is moving through the courts, the police are remaining active; this week there were five new raids and five new arrests of sellers of “fully loaded” boxes.
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Christopher Slaughter |
Not only has Space X returned to launch, as we mentioned a couple weeks ago, but the company is planning an aggressive schedule of launching its Falcon 9 rockets every two to three weeks this year. In order for that pace to be met, its new launch facility in Florida needs to be up and running, but even so, there are still questions about how realistic the schedule will turn out to be.
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John Medeiros |
Two Aussie lads are facing potential legal trouble for using Facebook Live to stream a recent boxing match. Awww….how much damage could two blokes do? One of them reported that 153,000 people were watching his feed. Foxtel was trying to commercialize that event on VOD at A$59.95 – so that’s A$9.2 million worth of damage. Just a couple of blokes having fun, eh?
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Andrew Lin |
Virginia lawmakers have recently brought up the interest of passing a “Virginia Broadband Deployment Act.” However, this bill would instead limit broadband deployment , as municipalities would be prohibited to offer internet service if an existing network already provides 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds under the proposed legislation. Municipal internet advocates were unhappy with this proposed bill and it even got Google and Netflix chiming in on this issue. Due to heavy opposition, the bill has been withdrawn just hours ago.
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John Medeiros |
Well! Two of the major Pakistan media groups, ARY and GEO, have been going at each other tooth and nail in courts in both the UK and Pakistan, and now the UK regulator has closed ARY down in that lucrative market. The Ofcom decision to revoke the licenses for six ARY channels comes after Dubai-based ARY placed its UK company in voluntary liquidation, after a UK court entered an expensive libel judgement against it, in a suit brought by GEO owner Mir Shakil ur Rahman (MSR – also based in Dubai). The UK high court found ARY had seriously defamed MSR in broadcasts which accused him of being “a traitor to Pakistan who had conspired with Indian intelligence agencies and the CIA to publish fabricated stories maligning Pakistan’s armed forces.” Apparently, ARY wasn’t able to produce any evidence justifying the claims. The judgement and channel shutdown are a first, and they are a cautionary note for “the bare-knuckled Pakistan media industry,” as the Guardian put it. Geo had brought 18 actions in Pakistani courts, and only one in the UK – but legal processes in Pakistan rarely produce results, and the UK court sure did!
Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Feb 3rd. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Mark Lay |
Meanwhile, Facebook is extending its empire-building to new territory, reportedly building an app that will bring its video onto users’ TV screens as part of its efforts “…to shift itself from a mobile-first to video-first entity.” Just last week Facebook told us they were tweaking their algorithm to start showing more longer form videos in their news feed, as it “gears up to launch original shows”. Hmmm… we are in the long-form video business, and on users’ TV screens. Interesting times, for sure.
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John Medeiros |
The Kodi video software has been much in the news lately. (It is frequently used for piracy, by means of easy add-ons.) Law enforcers and content owners are seeking ways to curtail Kodi-powered piracy, but it’s not easy, as laws haven’t caught up. Now there’s a significant test case under way in the UK, where a box seller has pleaded “not guilty” to copyright violations, despite selling boxes that were fully loaded with Kodi pirate add-ons. A legal blog said this case “is likely to be monitored closely by broadcasters and sports bodies eager to preserve the value of their rights in sporting content.” And normally pro-piracy (oh, sorry, pro-“sharing”) website Torrentfreak says it’ll be “nothing short of a miracle” if the seller wins the case.
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Christopher Slaughter |
At the risk of looking like the fan-boy Kevin accuses me of being, I do watch Apple rather closely; this week, CEO Tim Cook rewarded my gaze by hinting about further efforts in the content space. With Services (which includes the App Store, iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud, etc) helping fuel a record quarter, there’s plenty of speculation (again) that the division could soon be more than just dabbling in original content. And although Cook said he’s happy with it, the new Apple TV is reportedly not selling well, which probably explains his comment that “…we have more things planned for it.”
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Kevin Jennings |
Remember back in 2015, when the BBC wound up cutting a deal with the Conservative government to get its charter renewed? One of the strings that came attached to that renewal was the funding of local reporters across the UK; at the time, details were thin, but now the full plan has been released. Meantime, the incoming Chairman Sir David Clementi (the man who originally proposed scrapping the BBC Trust) has started work, already warning that the terms of that renewal deal are going to put the Beeb under “severe financial pressure.”
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John Medeiros |
Vibrations from India’s cultural machine are felt throughout Asia, but particularly in its neighboring countries, where people like Indian movies and TV a lot. In Pakistan this week, the government confirmed that Indian films can once again be exhibited, after a ban of a few months last year. And in Bangladesh, a judge nixed a moralizing lawyer’s request for a ban on three Indian TV channels.
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Christopher Slaughter |
Since the New Year, my morning ritual has changed; I now begin each day with a cold cup of outrage, flavored with a heaping teaspoon of disgust, as I read about what happened in Washington overnight. And while it’s possible that I’ve been slightly overdoing it lately, I’m not quite burnt out yet. So when a National Prayer Breakfast becomes all about Celebrity Apprentice (or was it really all about Ivanka?), and the announcement of a Supreme Court Justice becomes reality TV, frankly, I’m not surprised. I just lean back and take another sip.
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John Medeiros |
Going in different directions: while the UK ISP industry has just begun implementing its “three-strike” notice system, under which ISPs send notices to consumers caught downloading pirated programming, in the US the stakeholders have abandoned the parallel “Copyright Alert System” (CAS). The CAS was informally known as a “six-strike” program, and it generated more than a million alerts in its first 10 months. But it was expensive to operate, and its major proponents in the MPAA and RIAA don’t seem to think it was doing enough good, as hard-core downloaders are simply not deterred by nice little notices, no matter how many they get. It seems to me that unless you give repeat offenders a concrete incentive to comply (for example, tell them their bandwidth would be throttled back after a certain number of notices), they are never going to pay attention. (In practice, neither the UK nor the US system gave people the necessary incentives to comply.)
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Andrew Lin |
Thailand’s NBTC will be getting restructured later this year; the number of Commissioners will go down from 11 to 7, and there will no longer be a separate “broadcasting” committee that governs our industry.
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Kevin Jennings |
The US is gearing up for the NFL Super Bowl this weekend, and while gridiron might not be to everyone’s taste, the Big Game is almost as much about the ads as what happens on the field. And with Kantar estimating that Fox could earn up to half a billion dollars in ad revenue from the game (with 30-second spots reportedly going for a cool US$5 million) , a lot of brands are maximising their ad spend by rolling out online PR campaigns for their Super Bowl ads ahead of the game (or in other words, advertising their adverts). But while sport and advertising have always gone hand-in-hand, this year, politics is entering the mix; Super Bowl Sunday is going to make for an interesting Monday morning here in Asia.
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Christopher Slaughter |
And in case you don’t understand American football, you’re not going to understand it any better after watching “NFL 2017 – A Bad Lip Reading of the NFL”, but it might get you into the Super Bowl spirit!
Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Jan 27th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Mark Lay |
Speaking of big mergers, a MEGA-merger has been rumored between Charter Communications and Verizon. This comes roughly a year after Charter swallowed up Time Warner Cable and also while Verizon is deciding how to ingest Yahoo! “Verizon serves 114 million cellphone subscribers, 4.6 million TV customers and 7 million Internet subscribers; Charter has 17 million TV customers and 21 million Internet subscribers.” Pundits believe that the Trump administration is a lot more amenable to such mergers and that we could see more shortly. This desired “quad play” is something that us in Asia have been familiar with for years.
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John Medeiros |
The NN (Net Neutrality) Wars are raging again in the USA. The nomination of Ajit Pai as the new FCC chairman has been greeted with an internet-media Greek chorus singing of doom, doom, doom. “It’s a disaster for you and me!” “A death sentence.” There’s anger and alarm! Pai is a “right-winger”, who will destroy. Kill. Hate. The hype is pretty nauseating; as Forbes columnist Larry Downes put it, “the misinformation bandwagon has opened an ugly new front.” Downes earlier wrote that the media chorus was abetting a set of vested interests: “The “analysts” that tech reporters are relying on are the same advocates who have pushed for the rules for a decade, often misrepresenting technical and legal realities in efforts to whip Internet users into a frenzy.” Where have we seen this before? Hmmmm. The word begins with C and ends with opyright.
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Anjan Mitra |
India’s Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC India) is attempting to shield itself against critics of its penalty-imposing actions against alleged manipulation of viewership trends by subscribing-TV channels. Move is afoot within BARC to completely review and legally overhaul contracts it signs with subscribers and also enforcing the opt-out clause mentioned in agreements. Aim: streamline the whole measurement process and safeguard against increased litigation.
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Christopher Slaughter |
Let’s have a closer look at that report from Irdeto last week, shall we? The one that said one out of three US consumers watch pirated content, and almost 40% don’t care about the revenue damage it causes the media industry. We sort of skated over it last week when the report came out, but it’s sort of a chilling conclusion; even if illegal streaming might not be on the rise, when a consumer wants to see a piece of content badly enough, they are willing to bend the rules a little to get it. And while we know the fight against piracy is by no means a new thing, here’s an interesting look back at anti-piracy ad campaigns of the 90s. Ahhhhh, youth.
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John Medeiros |
Last week I reported on a “fair use” copyright case involving Paramount and CBS, who own the rights to the Star Trek series/movies. Now we hear the case has been settled; the fan-flick producers have agreed to shorten their planned videos, and make them available for free. That’s apparently close enough to the desired guidelines of the plaintiffs (who don’t want professional-quality knockoffs) that they agreed to settle the case (and thereby saved a gazillion dollars in legal fees). But without a court pronouncement there’s no guidance on the boundaries for others who might want to produce fan-flicks. That’s the problem with the “fair use” system: nobody has any clarity unless they want to lawyer up and get a court to rule.
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Anjan Mitra |
Judicial review has its pros and cons. While broadcasting community few weeks back petitioned the court to review regulator TRAI’s validity to rule on tariff-related issues, another Indian court has asked two State governments as also New Delhi why they were compelling TV subs to switch over to digital services by making people buy STBs. Can’t analog and digital co-exist? This poser came from a high court a day before when MIB reiterated there would be no extension to digitisation’s phase III deadline of January 31, 2017. One step forward, two backwards?
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John Medeiros |
Regulatory asymmetry between traditional broadcasting and OTT TV sounds like a dry topic, but it’s come in for some serious discussion in Thailand, with detailed scrutiny of Facebook Live. Companies that paid a zillion dollars for digital broadcasting licenses are worried that Facebook Live could turn into a serious competitor. (In mid-2016, Facebook reported it had 37 million users in Thailand. Some have turned the platform into a marketplace for trading counterfeit goods…..)
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Mark Lay |
A few interesting articles in the world of streaming this week. Netflix and Amazon, with ballooning programming budgets, are set to poach more content from SVOD rivals, media companies. Apparently, “given the high cost of scripted originals, Netflix will need to incorporate more unscripted content in these efforts. As a result, Netflix (and the other SVOD players) will start to bid away name brand non-fiction shows from cable networks.” And, Hearst’s Esquire TV network is ditching its traditional linear TV business and will “restyle itself as a digital only channel.”
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Jane Buckthought |
Snapchat may or may not become mobile television for younger generations. But the app’s parent, Snap Inc., which appears to be on the cusp of an IPO, wants TV advertisers to think about it that way and spend their money accordingly. Today, it signed a partnership with Nielsen’s mobile Digital Ad Ratings (mDAR) unit, giving brands the ability to buy guaranteed Snapchat audiences by age group and gender. For the most part, it’s the same kind of system—from ordering to measuring the results—that marketers are accustomed to with Nielsen’s TV offerings.
Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Jan 20th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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John Medeiros |
The cogs are still turning on Net Neutrality (NN) issues, in both the US and India – but they seem to be turning in opposite directions. In the USA, outgoing FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler made an impassioned plea to keep the NN rules he wrote. And the FCC accused AT&T of violating those rules, in its DirectTVNow data plan. But both the accusation and the plea seem to be falling on deaf ears, as opponents of the Wheeler approach take positions of power in both Executive and Legislative branches. (It’s important to keep in mind that there is a lot more consensus about keeping the internet open, than about the Wheeler approach, which imposed unprecedented full-on regulation of ISPs in order to achieve that aim.) Meanwhile, in India, the TRAI is moving forward to formulate the details of its approach to NN
issues. (It’s under plenty of pressure from the NN mullahs.) Meanwhile, Star-TV filed a brief with strong argumentation on one aspect of NN — that ISPs shouldn’t be allowed to charge differently for different-origin data.
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Kevin Jennings |
According to a report in the New York Post Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam recently said that he wants to buy into one of the major cable companies. According to the Post’s sources, it could be a company as huge as Charter or Comcast. Any cable deal would help the company grow the demand for its wireless data products and answer rival AT&T’s moves to buy DirecTV and Time Warner. McAdam has already given Wall Street and investors an indication that he’s looking for the right opportunity, telling Wall Street analysts it “makes industrial sense.”
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Mark Lay |
As someone who has been known to dabble in stocks, I noticed a huge move in Netflix yesterday as it was up about 8%. According to CNBC, “The company said it added 7.05 million subscribers during the fiscal fourth quarter…that figure well above its own expectations of 5.2 million…was the largest-ever quarterly subscriber growth in its history….added 1.93 million memberships in the U.S. and 5.12 million internationally ” But maybe the “Bulls Are Making A Big Leap of Faith.” As is Jerry Seinfeld who just inked a deal with Netflix encompassing new stand-up specials, scripted and non-scripted series as well as new episodes of Comedians in Cars.
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Christopher Slaughter |
It took a little longer than expected, but Space X has successfully returned to flight, launching an Iridium satellite this past weekend. Having completed the investigation into last year’s explosion (which it refers to as an “anomaly”), the launch company is about to get very busy; and that’s even before it begins its ambitious (understatement) plan to launch 4,425 satellites to provide “a ubiquitous global service”. It still has to absorb the cost of the explosion, though, and it’s still got a way to go before it proves to NASA that it is safe enough to launch astronauts into space.
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John Medeiros |
There’s been some attention this week to the corollary damage done by piracy. In the UK, the Industry Trust spoke out, warning that “the vast majority of parents who engage in digital TV piracy have no idea of the associated risks to their families.” Kids who got ISD boxes and sticks for Christmas are exposed to pornography and malware, said the trust. In South Africa, there was a different warning: a consultant’s report warned that 1 in 3 torrent sites contain dangerous malware, and 45 percent of the malware found on the sites was of the “drive-by” type that infected a computer just from viewing the material – no supplementary clicks required.
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Mark Lay |
Stratechery has a very thoughtful piece this week titled The Great Unbundling. It looks at media models of the past and present and then tries to define how the future will look. It’s fantastic piece for those responsible for taking their media business forward. “Once those (behavioural) shifts start to happen in earnest there will be feedback loops in everything from advertising to content production to consumption that will only accelerate the changes, resulting in a transformed media landscape that will impact all parts of society. I’m starting to agree that the end is nearer than many think.”
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John Medeiros |
True Visions is still being threatened with big fines by the consumer advocate lobby in Bangkok, over its rejiggering of its content bouquet. The platform operator pointed out that relatively few consumers seem upset, as only 500 subscribers (of 300,000) have cancelled their contracts and asked for a refund. But the upset ones are the loud ones, it seems.
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Andrew Lin |
Taiwan’s National Communications Commission (NCC) is preparing a draft media funding bill for public discussion in the next legislative session. Currently, the government military, and political parties are banned from investing in media companies, and NCC Chairwoman Nicole Chan says there is no plan to change that in the near term. However, the NCC acknowledges that media companies need access to funding to produce high quality content, and is therefore proposing a public fund be established to invest in content development. In other Taiwan cable news, the NCC is predicting that the island’s cable networks will be full digitised by the end of 2017.
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John Medeiros |
A little light reading: Paramount and CBS are pursuing a copyright action to block production of a feature film using the world of “Star Trek” and made by a so-called fan-fiction outfit. But this outfit was aiming to make money, by using professional actors (including some who actually appeared in previous Star Trek series), paying lavish attention to detail, achieving high production values and marshalling a proposed production budget of just under US$2 million. So…..is this “fair” use of the established copyrights????? I sure don’t think so…..but in the U.S., only the court knows for sure.
Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Jan 13th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Jan 6th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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John Medeiros |
Interesting development in Thailand, where the NBTC has asked ISPs to block several dozen pirate websites, based on their distribution of pirated videos. The action came after a request by a Thai movie industry association. The group noted this is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are many more sites out there, distributing illegal content on a subscription, or ad-supported, basis. So far the NBTC request has only been conveyed orally, and it is not clear whether the ISPs will follow the request. (There’s already talk about “you have to tell us which movies are illegal, and we will just take down those links.”) And if one or more ISPs refuse the request, there may or may not be a penalty on them.
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Anjan Mitra |
Though in a year of media disruptions and demonetisation bomb that made all business segments yelp with pain, the government is confident 2017 will bear fruits for policy decisions taken previous year. But goalposts continue to change as there was yet another analog sunset date extension. Though TRAI vows to continue pushing for an ambiguity and litigation-free regulatory mechanism, a section of the industry moved the court questioning whether TRAI can issue guidelines at all or not on issues related to broadcast industry and copyrights. New Year has brought fresh episodes in the Indian soap opera’s new season.
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Kevin Jennings |
Government officials in Bangladesh have announced that they have imposed a ban on foreign TV channels airing local ads. The ban is supported by a clause in the 10 year old Cable Television Regulation Act, which states foreign channels downlinked in the country cannot air local advertisements. The decision comes against the earlier demand by Media Unity, a guild of local TV station owners and professional units of the stations who announced a protectionist 6-point charter of demands in November, including closure of downlinks of illegal foreign TV channels in Bangladesh, stopping broadcast of dubbed foreign serials in local channels and imposing a ban on advertisements in foreign channels.
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Mark Lay |
The holdout of big four US networks, CBS, has finally done a deal to become part of Hulu’s live streaming service. “With 21st Century Fox, Disney, Turner and now CBS on board, our new live service will offer one of the most valuable sports, news and entertainment lineups anywhere — from ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS Sports and TNT to ABC, CBS, FOX and The Disney Channel”, said Mike Hopkins, CEO of Hulu. Hulu is owned by The Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox, Comcast and Time Warner.
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Kevin Jennings |
The American NFL says its games are now being LEGALLY streamed live in China, and will also be streaming the Super Bowl. The league has partnered with Sina Weibo, one of the largest social media platforms in China with almost 300 million monthly active users. The NFL now has more than 1.5 million online viewers across China each week. The deal marks the first time a sports league will live stream games on the Chinese service. Unlike the earlier NFL Twitter deal, the Sina Weibo partnership also includes coverage of the Super Bowl and a ton of non-game video content such as the top 10 performances in a bid to really cement support and growth in the Chinese market.
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Mark Lay |
Things are heating up in the smart TV space. Sure, the major brands of Samsung and Sony have been slowly perfecting their interfaces, but it’s the other players who are starting to make some big noise. The original “Netflix Box”, Roku, has its app platform in 13% of all smart TVs sold in the U.S., with 100 Roku TV models available in North America. And now, Amazon, on the heels of its worldwide Prime Video launch, will be integrating its Fire TV platform into TV sets. And get this, “the TVs will include a remote with a microphone that can be used to access the Alexa voice assistant, including content search and control of smart home devices.” This could bring home shopping to a whole new level.
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Andrew Lin |
Last year, The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission detected 33 broadcasting violations from just 1000 hours of recorded TV and Radio. These violations were not from vulgar language, graphic violence, or provocative images, but rather from commercials selling products that have not received approval from the Health Ministry or putting out beneficiaries for the product that have not yet been proven. According to the MCMC network security and enforcement Chief Officer, Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin, “broadcasters have been highly compliant. But it is their clients who are airing advertisements without approval.”
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Kevin Jennings |
Even before Christmas 2016 had begun the next slew of festive ads was already gearing up for Chinese New Year. Coca-Cola is the first one we’ve seen and features the animated figurines, A Fu and A Jiao, who first appeared in Coke campaigns in 2001. They are seen jumping from the bottle and saving the day after a boy enjoying the celebrations with his family is concerned about the solitude of the snowman. Bless
Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Dec 23th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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