Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Dec 16th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore It was supposed to be only India, but Amazon Prime Video just “did a Netflix” and launched in almost every country around the world. Amazon’s video streaming service, previously limited to the United States, UK, Germany, Austria, and Japan, is now available in over 200 countries. (The full list is included in Amazon’s official news release.) At $2.99 per month (introductory offer for 6 months) this is almost a giveaway, which would make sense as it may just be a “foothold to expand its core retail business in foreign markets”. A quick look at the app reveals a fairly thin catalogue — for the time being, anyway. As they say in the TV business, stay tuned. Christopher Slaughter CEO Okay, so that’s not going to happen… the Viacom-CBS merger talks are off.  And after all the drama and suspense of recent months, Bob Bakish has been formally named CEO of Viacom, with the board dropping the “acting” from his title, and endorsing “…the forward-looking thinking and strategic plan being pursued under (his) leadership.”  It’s very much being seen as a call made by the Redstones, although it’s certainly true that CBS CEO Les Moonves would have had a view.  And of course, now that the Viacom deal is off, speculation about CBS and another “V” word has been revived; let’s see whether Verizon steps out of the wings.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

It’s been obvious to everybody that the complexion of the FCC (and its approach to “net neutrality” issues) is going to change when the Trump Administration takes the reins.   But partisan wrangling has beset the nomination process for months already, and now there is a benchmark pair of developments:  Republicans refused to approve reappointment of Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.  And Tom Wheeler, who will step down as Chairman, apparently plans to stay on as a member of the Commission.  So now there are 2 donkeys and 2 elephants, and any tie-breaking vote will have to await Trump’s nominee for Chairman  – months in the future. 

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

After announcing its development a couple of months ago, Apple’s new TV app with unified video search finally went “live” in the US this week.  In theory the app brings all the TV shows and movies from across all your apps and services in one place – with the notable excepton of Netflix who were not included, apparently by choice.  There’s a few kinks that need to be fixed and the jury is still out to its effectiveness but one reviewer says “Apple’s new TV app is a smoking hot pile of garbage”.   A little unfair maybe – perhaps our expectations are too high of what can be done across multi-platform streaming systems, despite all the hype.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

With the British pound down 16% since the Brexit vote, UK assets are on sale. Perfect timing for the Murdoch family’s 21st Century Fox to make another run at buying the rest of Sky PLC the U.K.-based pay-TV giant, serving 22 million households in Britain, Ireland, Austria, Germany, and Italy. 21st Century Fox will pay £11.7 billion for the 61 percent of the company it doesn’t own, a 40 percent premium over its pre-bid price. Fox is expected to use a “scheme
of arrangement” method for the purchase which would help to “squeeze out opponents.” “AT&T’s successful $85 billion bid for Time Warner in October was one of the triggers pushing Murdoch to grow by bidding for Sky, said one of the sources adding that the two companies started talks shortly after the U.S.
election.”

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

Audience measurement organisation BARC India’s unprecedented moves, like temporarily suspending ratings review of three news channels for alleged malpractices, sent ripples in the broadcast industry. Though two of the news channels got interim reprieve from a Mumbai court and BARC, in deference to the court, deciding to release data of the third one too, pending final legal outcome, the move could mean that stakeholders now are serious about data. While BARC has vowed to fight the case, it augurs well for transparency and credibility of the ratings organisation.

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

In what may be seen as a game changer, Facebook has confirmed it is in discussion with video producers to commission shows specifically for Facebook’s mobile-first video environment. The effort is being led by Ricky Van Veen, the CollegeHumor co-founder who moved to Facebook over the summer to become head of global creative strategy. The project intends to create high-quality content for Facebook’s new video tab, which appears right
next to the newsfeed tab on the mobile app. A range of content is being considered, from scripted to unscripted and sports.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Following on from Kevin’s piece, it’s best to keep an eye on Facebook as, according to Rich Raddon of recode, “2017 will be the year the networks (and media companies) realize they are being disrupted by the very distributors of their content — the platforms.” I linked to this a couple weeks back with BTIG’s must-see presentation, “Has Content Been Dethroned by Distribution?” Recent players in this space are Sky and Cisco who have teamed up to develop an app-based international OTT project called OnPrime TV. According to Mark Cuban, “Facebook is without question in a dominant position, if not the dominant position, for content delivery.”

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Anybody else remember the idea of “The Long Tail”, which described an Internet filled with infinite niches?  Back in the day, Chris Anderson cited Netflix as an example of that, but it turns out that lately, when it comes to movies in particular, the Netflix tail isn’t quite so long any more.  Which comes as very little surprise, given the service’s huge investment in original content and acquiring rights to TV series; the movie part of its library is 40% smaller than it was just four years ago.  And while it is entirely possible that Netflix doesn’t actually care, users have definitely noticed that the movie libraries kind of suck.  None of which has stopped Netflix from becoming the top-grossing iOS app in the US for the first time, by the way.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Rumors flow like water around our industry in Southeast Asia – and frequently they’re about who is not paying their bills.   One such case burst into the limelight this week, as Fox sued Bangkok Bank for US$71 million for defaulting on guarantees written to underpin multi-year, multi-channel carriage contracts with Thai pay-TV companies wrapped up in the collapse of Cable Thai Holdings (CTH) earlier this year.   Bangkok Bank responded they were ready to pay the guarantee, but their client (CTH) insisted Fox was at fault.  (You can make up your own mind, but after spending years in Thailand I know who I believe……)  It seems CTH’s bankruptcy hearing will be later this month.  In any case, the bank said, they were holding enough collateral that if they have to pay up it won’t hurt their bottom line.   (Hope that’s true…a “surge” in their other bad debts got a lot of press earlier in the year.)  Anyway, this has the potential to be the biggest finTV spectator sport since the 10-year-long Lippo/Astro arbitration battle, which – despite big headlines every now and then – still drags on.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

How can this not get its own piece…three CASBAA members partnering!!  BBC, ITV and AMC (taking a non-voting minority stake) are teaming up to offer BritBox, an ad-free streaming service for the US market. “BritBox will offer a streaming experience like no other, with thousands of hours of programs across a wide variety of genres”, said Ann Sarnoff, president, BBC Worldwide North America. BritBox will launch in the first quarter of 2017 in the U.S.; details about price will be revealed then.

Andrew Lin Regulatory Assistant

YouTube recently blocked the North Korean state television channel — not
because of the content it produces, but because it was earning money from
Google advertising in violation of U.S. sanctions against Pyongyang.  Analysts researching North Korea are understandably disappointed with the decision, as it has closed a window into one of the world’s most “impenetrable” states.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Irdeto’s new report on the piracy landscape makes the very telling point that piracy businesses are now well past the start-up phase; they are sophisticated multinational enterprises quite successful at enticing customers away from the pay-TV industry.   If you don’t like reading reports, just have a look at the infographic. 

Andrew Lin Regulatory Assistant

A
landmark decision was handed down in the UK, as a court sent a seller
of ISD “black boxes” to jail for four years.   Interestingly, the conviction came on a “conspiracy to defraud” charge (and not copyright charges.)  This points up the urgent need for governments everywhere to find ways to reform copyright law to meet the growth of the “massive black market” in piracy devices.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Last week, we predicted there would be more Best Of lists this week, and sure enough, take your pick: The 25 Best Returning Shows, shows with the Best
Nielsen Ratings, the Ten Best Shows, the best of New TV Shows, the twenty Best Comedy Sketches (most of which are geo-blocked), and the biggest Billion-Dollar Entertainment Deals.  And did someone say predictions? Because those are starting to roll out too: looks like 2017 will be the Year
of Programmatic TV,  or the Year Media Companies Wake Up, or possibly the Year of No Rest For The Weary In Media.

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

The Delhi High Court has finally removed all legal hurdles to the implementation of Phase III of digitisation in India and paved the way for completion of last and Phase IV too. TRAI chairman RS Sharma has promised to further smoothen the road ahead by reiterating the regulator would come out with its final recommendations on broadcast tariff, QoS and interconnect issues by month end. It’s to be seen whether MIB can push stakeholders to stick to the original schedule of December 31, 2016

Christopher Slaughter CEO

And so it begins… awards season is upon us, with the Golden Globe nominations first out of the gate.  And depending on who you ask, the real shocker is that the TV nominees are actually great this year.  As usual, there were plenty of snubs and surprises in the list; among the biggest, though, is how few series from Netflix and Amazon made the cut.  But on trend was HBO as the most-nominated network, with fourteen shows in contention.  The awards show will be hosted by Jimmy Fallon on January 8th.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Governments around the world continue to grapple with finding the right mix of policies on internet TV.   In the UK, they’re trying to ban online ads that promote junk food to kids.   (As the ad industry’s self-regulatory body is behind the initiative, it may even work, sort of.)   Local content quotas are the focus in other countries: In Oz, the content producers’ lobby came out to urge taxation of foreign SVOD services to support Aussie content creation.  The Liberal government in Canada is also mulling new taxes on online content to support local content.  (Last year, the CRTC regulatory commission looked at the issued and decided – mirabile dictu – not to institute new taxes and instead it actually reduced (well, a little bit) the quotas and other constraints on existing TV suppliers, to allow them to confront the online competition.)

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Oh, that cheeky YouTube rascal PewDiePie, what a scampy little trickster!  Turns out when he said if he reached 50 million subscribers he’d delete his YouTube channel, it was all just a joke!  After hitting his mark, he actually deleted a fake channel he had set up, adorably naughty Swede that he is!  You decide…. was his prank an act of marketing genius, or a valuable lesson about not trusting the media?

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Dec 9th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO It’s become a “trending topic” lately, the rise of “fake news,” particularly in the most recent US Presidential campaign; not only has Hillary Clinton blasted the trend, but Donald Trump fired one of his staff for re-posting a fake news story.   And how are the websites that produce this garbage funded?  You guessed it, often by big brands who have run sloppy programmatic ad campaigns. Sound familiar?  In response, one group called “Sleeping Giants” has set up a Twitter feed where people can post screenshots of legitmate brands’ ads appearing on racist websites, to name and shame them.  Likewise, Fake News Watch maintains pretty comprehensive lists of dubious news sources; and when in doubt, there’s always snopes.com.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

People who make their living from creative works protected by copyright (and that includes our whole industry) are worried about proposals to adopt a broad and undefined “fair use” exception in Australia.   Now, a coalition of the print and audio industries have launched a new initiative, urging people to reflect on how a book or song had changed their lives. The book industry is terribly worried, of course, that fair use could result in Aussie court decisions like the one in the USA, that gave Google the right to industry-wide digitization of complete books, without the consent of, or remuneration for, the writers/copyright owners.  Google wouldn’t be the only beneficiary of fair use, of course……the head of the Copyright Agency (collective rights organization) called fair use “a lawyer’s picnic.”   Got that right.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

This week the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference took place in New York. The heavy hitters of the industry were there sharing their wisdom and future plans. James Murdoch, CEO, 21st Century Fox says that Fox “feels pretty good about our mix of assets…we don’t feel the urge to go acquire some other large piece.” Fox also isn’t putting together their own OTT option for consumers but is focusing more on Hulu and third-party options. Whereas David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery says, “we’re well-positioned to take our product direct to consumer in 2017…we’re going to try to disrupt ourselves.”  Lastly, in 2017 Netflix’s original programming lineup will grow to up to 1,000 hours, more than doubling from 2016, and “that’s a conservative measure right now,” said Sarandos.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

It’s getting to be that time of year again; holiday decorations are going up, kids are writing letter to magical elves, and everywhere you look, “Best Of” lists are cropping up like, well, mistletoe. There’s a lot of overlap on various of these lists, but because this is the age of “Peak TV”, there are also a lot of great shows to choose from.  The really sophisticated critics choose the single best episodes, the really commercially-minded simply list the best-sellers.  And since there’s still another three weeks to go in 2016, you can expect many more Best Of lists before we get to the New Year.

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

In the run-up to Christmas I had every intention of sharing some of the best Xmas TVCs every week until I read that these special ads have little or no effect on consumers and shopping habits. A survey of over 11,000 consumers for the website MoneySavingExpert.com concluded that just 1 per cent of respondents said the adverts had a “big impact” on where they did their Christmas shopping, while 2 per cent said it had “an impact”.  Even if true, Christmas TV adverts undoubtedly help brands and afterall it’s all about the marketing funnel and touch points that lead to eventual sales. Me? I’m in the 1%.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

The biggest star in the YouTube firmament is PewDiePie, who earned US$15 million last year from his videos.  But lately, the Swede (real name Felix Avrid Ulf Kjellberg) has been biting the hand that feeds him, accusing YouTube of “sabotaging” his channel — wait for it — because he’s white. There’s actually a bigger story here, about whether YouTube has changed its algorithms resulting in drop-offs in viewers, which the company denies; but Kjellberg’s injudicious comment (sarcastic or not) has sort of eclipsed all that, and prompted questions about whether it’s just “evolved clickbait.” Regardless, I share the views of one commentator: “…I have yet to get more than 76 seconds into a PewDiePie rant without thrashing listlessly like a hostage handcuffed to a radiator.”

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

…And while we’re on the subject, the latest Forbes ranking of YouTube stars says the top 12 video performers saw an increase in revenue by 23% year on year to a collective £55m in the past 12 months. Not bad for what mostly started out as solo presenters who probably began their careers in the spare bedroom – and serves as an incentive for other wannabe rich n famous online celebs .  The substantial rise in income is a testament to the growing influence of YouTube celebrities, who have moved beyond the YouTube platform to monetise their digital success, by authoring bestselling books, integrated sponsorship deals, securing film deals and, in one case, becoming a face for L’Oréal.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

As we’ve noted before, the Trump Administration is not going to be friendly ground for “net neutrality” advocates.   That doesn’t keep interested parties (like Ted Sarandos of Netflix) from continuing the debate, however.  And of course the stock analysts are busy figuring out who might win and who might lose from a policy shift; here’s one who thinks a mega-merger between Verizon and Comcast is a possibility. Meanwhile, in India there are reports that some OTT content providers are getting privileged access to consumers through “peering” agreements.   Regulation to try to enforce neutrality is clearly going to be a long-running rice bowl for bureaucrats and lawyers.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

During the Business Insider IGNITION conference this week, business leaders explored what the future of tech and media will look like. In Henry Blodget’s “The Next Big Thing” presentation we hear things such as “The Bell Tolls for Legacy TV.”  “For the last 20 years, digital has disrupted print. For the next 20, it will disrupt TV.”  Not all is lost though as “TV won’t die…it will just get niche-ified.” There are a number of good slides in here that are definitely worth going through.

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Advertising spend is predicted to hit US$547 billion in 2017, representing 4.4 percent growth, of which half will come from the US and China. GroupM’s latest forecast ‘This Year, Next Year’ media and marketing report says the knock-on effects of paradigm-shifting events such as Donald Trump’s presidential victory and Brexit have led to a “new normal, more modest level of growth” in the global advertising industry. Zenith also predicts that global ad expenditure will grow 4.4 percent in both 2016 and 2017, reaching $566 billion by the end of next year.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

A Taiwan political party suddenly made an issue (this week) of cable rate regulation restructuring that was launched by the previous NCC last June! I have no idea what political machinations are behind this, but it’s never good news when political parties start talking about rate regulation.

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Dec 2nd. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Nov 25th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Nov 18th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO Something funny happened during the CASBAA Convention 2016 last week: Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.  We cut live to CNN for his acceptance speech, and then sat around trying to figure out what it meant.  Only the day before, GroupM’s Irwin Gotlieb had pondered the media industry’s complicity in Trump’s rise, saying “…we’ve behaved in a manner that suggests that we’ve deserved what we’ve got.”  Certainly there’s been a lot of hand-wringing in Hollywood, which over the years has both promoted and pummeled Trump. Particularly among journalists, the post-election soul-searching has been acutely troubled: “Narcissistic self-immolation is the ideal form of suicide for an industry distrusted by the public but thirsty for post-election content.”  And given his often combative relationship to news outlets during the campaign, there’s been plenty of speculation about how a Trump Presidency might hurt press freedom in the US, among many, many, many other things.

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Say what you want about the outcome, but the 2016 presidential election cycle was unlike any the news media has ever experienced. As you might expect, cable news reaped significant benefits from the volatility of the race in the form of huge ratings.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Machinima CEO Chad Gutstein has been a busy guy lately.  Just 10 days after speaking at the CASBAA Convention in Macau, he has sold his company to Warner Bros.  As Chad explained during his session, Machina targets millennial males, and delivers some impressive demographic and usage numbers.  Warner previously invested in Machinima, and now that it’s in full control, will roll the service into its Warner Brothers Digital Networks arm.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

And speaking of Convention follow-ups, SBS Viceland launched in Australia this week, delivering improved ratings over SBS 2 (which it replaces) on its first day on air.  During his session in Macau, Vice Media Co-President James Schwab highlighted Australia and New Zealand as key early markets for Viceland in the region, and announced the company was launching its first full-service Asian office in Indonesia.  Next up, Viceland launches in France on Canal+, marking the company’s first non-English language service.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Google, in a commendable addition to its “safe browsing” policies, is now going to suspend for 30 days “repeat offender” websites which are found (intentionally or otherwise) hosting malware several times.  (Google doesn’t specify what “several” means.)   People will be warned by Google to avoid such sites as dangerous, and unlike today, sites won’t be able to just take down the offending malware and be reinstated.  Most such malware hostings are reported to be the result of automated advertising systems; as we have often noted with respect to content piracy websites, criminal syndicates purposely insert malware into their ads distributed by “bottom feeder” ad agencies and frequently found on piracy websites.  Google said the problem was caused by only a small number of sites, but one analyst said “we can infer that it is a big enough issue in that it affects Google Safe Browsing’s reputation.”  Another analyst says the biggest effect will be to turn site operators away from “auction-led, topic-driven advertising slots, where anyone can win a place in your domain, and even potentially target your domain as an outlet via keyword crafting….30 days is an eternity in search-engine exile.”  The Pirate Bay scoffed at Google’s move, suggesting that, well, they have to work with dodgy ad agencies, because legitimate ones won’t place ads on pirate sites.    (Now that’s a sure sign of success for the ad industry “follow the money” codes of practice being promoted by the likes of GroupM.)  Now, if only Google would get more serious about de-listing “repeat offender” piracy sites!

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

The merger of Indian DTH operators, Zee Group’s Dish TV and Videocon d2h, when finally completed after regulatory approvals, will create a pay TV behemoth that few in India would be able to rival in terms of size. The combined subs base of 27 million+ and the array of services the combined entity can offer could turn the bottomline blacker than black. Opportunities beckon though pitfalls lurk at every corner; notably the latter as over-zealous
regulators can upset the applecart. Still, are these signs of the consolidation that Indian media had been talking about for over a decade?

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Ericsson just came out with their fantastic Mobility Report. An outline of it can be found here with the full PDF of the report, available for free download, here.  As a good amount of video viewing in Asia happens on mobile, this report is of particular interest. “Mobile video traffic is increasingly dominant: Mobile video traffic is forecast to grow by around 50 percent annually through 2022 to account for nearly 75 percent of all mobile data traffic.”  “India grew the most in terms of net additions during the quarter (+15 mil), followed by China (+14 mil), Indonesia (+6 mil), Myanmar (+4 mil) and the Philippines (+4 mil).”  Also just out is the TIVO Video Trends Report. US and Canada only, but shows great detail on how the landscape is changing.

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Multidevice usage in Asia-Pacific continues to grow. But as more consumers in the region use a changing mix of smartphones, PCs and tablets, many advertisers are struggling to keep up with creating effective cross-screen campaigns to reach them. Designing advertising campaigns to reach these multidevice users remains a key challenge for marketers, who are trying to understand whether these users exhibit different behaviors when viewing digital ads on different devices. The answer, it appears, is “sometimes,” and it depends on the country.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Fast, reliable, broadband continues to shake up the traditional media industry in amazing ways. AT&T’s “bombshell” of its new Direct TV Now service offering a core bundle of more than 100 channels at a “head turning” $35 per month makes one wonder if there is any profit left in this business. “The potential day of reckoning for the existing pay-TV ecosystem may finally have arrived.” Then we have Amazon giving away about $3 billion per year of TV shows, movies and music, to ensure continued renewal of its 2-day shipping Prime Membership. How does that work for existing players who expect to get paid from their viewers? There is also now a company that lets one watch HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu and other services OFFLINE for $1 per episode. And to wrap up, you knew it was coming, a service that bundles 8 SVOD channels for $9.99 a month. Interesting times indeed.

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Cable operators in Pakistan have decided to register their protest at the country’s imminent DTH auction which is scheduled for the end of November. In a somewhat dramatic move, the protestors have begun a hunger strike with some operators threatening to switch off their cable services unless their demands are met. The cable operators are worried that the arrival of DTH services will affect the livelihood of thousands of people in the Pakistani Cable TV industry. Meanwhile the Pakistani government has announced that 12 companies are being considered for three licences in the DTH auction which is set for November 23rd. It is generally accepted that DTH services will offer higher quality channels and coverage, something that much of the average cable TV connection in Pakistan does not offer.

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

The social media have given a thumbs up to PM Modi’s ambitious initiative to flush out black money by announcing demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 notes on November 8 even as delegates and speakers at CASBAA Convention in Macao discussed digital, online security and other global trends. Still, honest intentions apart, paucity of cash have hit the Indian media industry. While likes of Dish TV extended credit facility to customers, others are still struggling to tide over the turn of events. But not everybody is complaining and multiplexes are one of them. Can this turn away big investors? Stay tuned.

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Nov 4th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO Lots of announcements at the US China Film & TV Industry Expo in LA this week, including the formal announcement that Dalian Wanda is buying Dick Clark Productions for the bargain basement price of US$1 billion. In addition to the launch of a US$100 million film fund, there were plenty of insights shared regarding Chinese audiences, advice about how to make and market films in China, and how to actually get things shown on China’s screens: “Co-investment, Chinese elements, and at least one Chinese main character.”  We’ll be digging into some of these issues next week at the CASBAA Convention with Bennett Pozil of East West Bank — if you haven’t registered yet, you’ve still got time!

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Not to be outdone, China Internet giant Alibaba has restructured its media business entirely, and announced a US$1.5 billion fund for new projects. All its media assets are now clubbed together under the Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group, which includes Youku Tudou, UCWeb, Alibaba Pictures, and its online gaming, literature, music, and digital business units.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

More news in the continuing evolution of pay TV in the US.  Hulu has just announced that Fox and Disney channels will be part of its new skinny bundle when it launches next year. Fox will contribute Fox, Fox Sports channels and Fox News. Disney, meanwhile, will make its portfolio of Disney/ABC networks, including ABC, Disney Channel and Freeform, as well as ESPN available on the service. Apparently, “NBCU, which acts as a silent owner in the streaming service, is also in talks to bring its programming to the live TV offering.”  It seems that “streaming TV is starting to more closely resemble the very thing it was meant to replace.”

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

Well, if Twitter India trends on November 1 were to be believed, the top trending topic/hashtag related to, what many would say, India’s most talked about TV news anchor Arnab Goswami. Both loved and hated (in equal proportion, one would believe), Goswami’s resignation as President-News and Chief Editor of Times TV Network set the social and online media on fire. Even small details, including his future assignments, became news in mainstream print media too. A comment piece in a trade website aptly dubbed the development as “from reporting news to becoming news”. The cult of celeb journalists continue.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Things may be reopening in Bangkok, but they’re definitely not normal, after the death of the king.  Radio and TV broadcasters are being told they can return to normal programming, but they should avoid boisterous and rude jokes.  The Temple of the Emerald Buddha has reopened, and it seems even the tourists are behaving.  It’s clear that the nation remains in mourning…as even a casual reader can see.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

It’s by no means a done deal, but those CBS / Viacom “recombination” talks are still in what CBS CEO Les Moonves says are “early stages.”  In fact, in what might or might not have been a World Series reference (congrats Cubs!), he told an analyst call “…we aren’t even in the second inning yet.”  Meanwhile, on the Viacom side of the street, international head Bob Bakish has been named interim CEO.  And straight out of the gate, he addressed the subject of the merger: “We’re not going to stand still while it’s being evaluated.”

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Along with Discovery’s Q3 earnings, they also announced a joint venture with Major League Baseball’s BAMTech. This JV will form BAMTech Europe, a streaming-video technology provider catering to broadcasters and OTT players across the continent. Could this be the start of the “Netflix of Sports”. Eurosport, which Discovery gained full control of last year, will become their first client with roll-out “in 2017 across all of Eurosport Digital’s products, which today include Eurosport.com and Eurosport Player.”  Further investment into streaming would be consistent with David Zaslov’s view that, “one of the things that has stopped the growth of cable is the price of all that sports.” 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

New
research out from Media Partners Asia confirms that OTT services are starting to take a bite out of pay TV subscriptions in six key regional markets.  The Asia Video Consumer Panel surveys 1000 consumers each in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, to explore how they engage with video content.  Among the key issues highlighted: day-and-date content, user interfaces, access to bundled packages and problems with dubbing and subtitling.  MPA Executive Director Vivek Couto will be onstage at the CASBAA Convention next week; again, if you’re not already signed up, why wait?

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Netflix COO Ted Sarandos has said that the company might consider offering offline playback—at least in developing markets where cable and wi-fi constraints make it more practical. No word on which countries as yet but there are a few markets in Asia that definitely qualify – and a few Asian OTT players already out there who offering download playback, so it certainly isnt a new concept but things might get very interesting very soon in our own back yard.  Meanwhile in what seems a counter-intuitive move Apple has announced that it’s new content aggregation app for the Apple TV   doesn’t support Amazon Prime or Netflix.  As mentioned in News Views last week, the new App will let end users search through all kinds of content across third-party applications and more than 1,600 sources. Netflix says it has no plans to work with Apple on being included which sort of makes sense from their perspective – putting Netflix in with the masses would dilute the chance of being able to find more Netflix original content, but is frustrating if you are a consumer looking for a one stop content aggregator where one size fits all.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Oct 28th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO So US telco giant AT&T is buying Time Warner.  Which is a good thing.  Unless it’s a bad thing.  And the FCC might not even let the deal happen, anyway.  Unless the FCC can’t stop it, that is.   But if Donald Trump wins, he’ll kill it.  Hillary Clinton would just have it reviewed.  (Bernie Sanders predictably went ape.) If the deal goes through, nothing will change, but everything will change. The whole thing might hinge on access to data.  But then again, it could be undone by non-transferable satellite licences.  Regardless, reactions to the deal have been all over the map.  (Don’t let’s even mention AOL, okay?)

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

The political tensions over Kashmir have taken their toll on India-Pakistan media exchanges.   A series of tit-for-tat retaliations started when India’s film producers announced a ban on use of Pakistani actors.   Pakistan retaliated, first by banning all Bollywood films (which had been allowed in since 2008.)   Hindu nationalists stoked the flames, threatening to bomb cinemas and issuing threats to Pakistani actors in India.  There were pleas for reason, which sadly fell on largely deaf ears.  So last week the Pakistani TV regulators announced a total ban on Indian content.  The ban came into effect last Friday.  Cable operators were raided, and forced to remove Indian channels.  (Note:  in copyright terms, this redistribution was always illegal.)   Only authorized channels were to be broadcast.  (This article has a list of authorized international channels in Pakistan.)   Website blocks against Indian news sites have been rumored.  In addition, there’s now a campaign against Indian DTH dishes in Pakistan (also illegal, but previously tolerated).   The regulators have rejuvenated perennial attempts to get a Pakistani DTH system going, with 16 companies bidding for award of three licenses – now scheduled for next month.   (A good summary of the woes of Pakistan’s TV industry can be found here. )  Smaller countries located next to cultural behemoths often struggle to develop local alternatives (just ask the Canadians, eh Mark?)    But there is a shared culture being lost, and closure, against a background of violence, is not a good thing.

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

South Korea’s CJ HelloVision has come out fighting and pledged it intends to survive independently in the fiercely competitive pay TV and cable market. The cable operator has suffered under severe business uncertainties after its merger plan with SK Telecom ended in failure in July. CJHV’s CEO listed a raft of developments to improve competitiveness including expanding devices where consumers can access content, step up delivery of Ultra High-Definition content and offer an improved internet service. CJ HelloVision will also introduce cloud technologies to shift its cable broadcasting network system from hardware to software and launch what it tentatively called “tving Box” to continue its N-Screen service business. N-Screen refers to a service that provides broadcasting content through TVs as well as more diverse devices including smartphones and tablet computers. Notably the company said it does not want to directly compete with Netflix and pooq, which provide domestic terrestrial broadcasting based on the N-Screen platform, but seek coexistence with them.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

The number of players getting into live streaming of the linear bundle in the US, isn’t slowing down.  Youtube is now putting together a package to launch in early 2017.  “These current and would-be live OTT providers can be put into two buckets. One is pay TV companies trying to capture customers who probably weren’t all that likely to subscribe to a traditional cable package in the first place: Dish Network with Sling TV, AT&T with DirecTV Now, Comcast with Stream. The other is purely digital players looking to become more like traditional pay TV companies: Hulu, Google/YouTube with Unplugged, Sony’s PlayStation Vue.”  Parks Associates just released research which shows how the top 10 streamers stacked up at the end of Q3.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Interesting back-and-forth between Google and the Thai government on content blocking:  Last week, after a meeting between Google’s regional government relations chief and a Deputy Prime Minister, the government let it be known that Google/YouTube would be screening posts looking for violations of Thailand’s “lèse majesté” laws.  Google then issued a statement saying they were following the same “clear and consistent policies for removal requests” that they get from governments around the world, and “have not changed those policies in Thailand.”   So this week the government said 480 URLs on YouTube were already blocked or in the process of blocking, with additional ones coming at the rate of 30-40 per day.    Whether Google is a) yielding to pressure or b) acting according to their usual procedures is clearly the question; nobody doubts that sensitive videos are being taken down.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

“There has never been a more intellectually interesting time to be in the video content business,” is how Turner CEO John Martin began his recent fireside chat at the Paley Center for Media.  It runs almost an hour, so it’s a pretty big time commitment, but it also reinforces many of the points raised in other stories we’ve shared about Turner recently.  Well worth it to hear him talk about his plans for “…a complete transformation of the entire company.”   (Thanks for the tip, Greg Armshaw!)

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

[Warning:  adult content ahead.  Turn down your speakers so as not to offend your co-workers.]

“STOP PIRATING MY *****ING MOVIE!”   With those immortal words, the rapper KSI started a Youtube rant on piracy that is well-worth listening to, just to get his full emotional range about a problem that is near to our hearts.  (And as long as you don’t mind liberal use of various expletives.)  Amusingly, it is actually entitled (with uncharacteristic understatement) “We Need To Talk.”  Pay attention to the part about one minute in, where he enumerates the number of places his movie can be bought, legally, and then says “So trust me…..there isn’t a shortage of places to go, to get this *** thing.   So then why the *** are you watching it, without paying for it…..you stealing ***** piece of ****.”  In case you haven’t heard of KSI, he’s a UK-based YouTubing, videogaming, rapper-comedian with 14.8 million channel subscribers. As a result he’s one of the most popular stars on the Internet.  Don’t miss the part, at about 2:15, where he takes off on the arrogant people who download pirate copies and then tweet to him about it.  

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Apple has unveiled a new app for its Apple TV devices called…. wait for it… TV.   Sigh.  Anyway, two of the biggest features are a unified search platform for the various streaming services available on the device, and a unified log-in that brings together pay TV services and apps, as long as they support single sign-on (SSO) as a feature.  And continuing with this week’s trend of bringing together stories that definitely might not have anything to do with each other, the New York Times has launched an online film and TV recommendation engine that it is provocatively calling Watching, and which uses filters to suggest content.  Of course, it’s entirely US-focused, and assumes that users are subscribing to every pay TV and streaming service in existence… but that’s a feature, not a bug.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Other tidbits this week:   

– An MPAA-sponsored confab in Brussels resulted in new pledges of international cooperation in the fight against piracy.  

– The UK appointed its first Director General for Digital and Media, to promote making the UK “the safest place to do business and go online.”  Meanwhile, the UK Parliament is considering its Digital Economy Act, and the music industry pressed for putting new provisions in the law to deal with the problem of search engines directing consumers to pirated content.  The music association BPI said the fact they had issued a quarter billion take-down requests to Google showed “there is a major problem with the digital economy” and the current legal framework isn’t adequate.  

– A German court convicted a “card sharing” hacker of DTH signals and sentenced him to a year in jail; a UK court did one better and sentenced a pair of movie uploaders to four-year terms in jail!   

– Meanwhile Artem Vaulin, the founder of Kickass Torrents, defended himself in US court by contending that torrent linking sites don’t host content themselves, and are therefore not copyright violators.  Vaulin himself is still in jail in Poland, awaiting extradition.  Meanwhile, the Polish police seem to have been indulging in rather heavy-handed enforcement on behalf of certain copyright owners.  

– And finally, in the USA Donald Trump has been hit with a copyright infringement claim, having used a copyrighted photograph of a bowl of skittles (a US candy treat) without permission in an anti-refugee ad.   “The unauthorized use of the Photograph is reprehensibly offensive to Plaintiff as he is a refugee of the Republic of Cyprus who was forced to flee his home at the age of six years old,” wrote the statement of claim.   The plaintiff is in good company, as Trump is reprehensibly offensive to a large portion of US population:  “Women have had it with guys like you.”

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Oct 21st. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO Netflix managed to suck a lot of the oxygen out of the room again this week, with its better-than-expected Q3 earnings report and the resulting massive surge in its stock price.  (You can watch the whole Reed-and-Ted Show here.) The company reported adding 3.2 million subscribers outside the US, where some 40% of its revenues come from now; however, as at least one critic pointed out, “Netflix needs its US business to perform perfectly to bankroll its global ambitions.  And it’s far from perfect.”  Meantime, it’s been noticed that Netflix is spending a LOT of money on programming (as is Amazon), although the company is also promising that doesn’t mean it will raise subscription prices… yet.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Thailand is going through a difficult phase; no doubt about it. Firstly, the country has lost its collective royal father, and remains in deep mourning. (I was in Bangkok on the day HM the King passed away, and I’ll tell you that things got real quiet, real fast.) Sadly, information flow has suffered, as the government lashes out against nay-sayers. Pressure was ratcheted up on international news channels, (accused of being “manipulative and provocative”) and also on internet service providers. Now the government is after social media sites to remove lots of negative stuff; it remains to be seen if Facebook, YouTube, Line, etc. will comply. There has also been a bit of excessive sensitivity, like government denunciations of press reports because they gave numbers of mourners that were disrespectfully low. And there have also been some sudden personnel movements, which the government swears are “not related to the current situation in the country.”

Andrew Lin Regulatory Assistant

Those regulations suspending entertainment broadcasting for 30 days are expected to have a negative effect on advertising, which is forecast to decrease by 5% in the fourth quarter. Businesses across the country are also expected to pull their ads as they observe the period of mourning — a marked difference from usual, since the end of the year is normally a season of festivities (and ad campaigns) in Thailand. 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Meanwhile, legislation to reform Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) is nearing final approval. The revamped Commission will have 7 members instead of 11, and the Broadcasting Committee (the 5-member panel that really made the decisions about our industry) is being eliminated, in favor of a more flexible decision process. The new NBTC will also have to share its license and auction receipts with the Digital Economy ministry. (We wish that instead of sharing the spoils, they’d cut the fees charged to pay-TV operators, which are too high.) It will be interesting to see who the new Commissioners are, and if they adopt new policies – the old ones are being blamed for a rush to mediocrity in programming.  Anyway, the Commission is to be independent, and spokesmen assure us that the stiff requirements for new NBTC members will ensure high-quality decision-making. (The legislation defines any military man of the rank of lieutenant general or higher as meeting the standard, of course. Those guys always make high quality decisions.)

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Over the last couple of years here in Asia we have seen a number of bold announcements from LeEco.  On Wednesday, the company made its official US debut to a crowd of roughly 1,700 employees, Silicon Valley insiders and media where they announced ‘more products than you’ve ever seen’. “LeEco wants to dominate: big screen televisions, smartphones  online video streaming services, an online marketplace to buy its services, self-driving cars, virtual reality headsets, and Internet-connected bicycles.” LeEco said the streaming service would include content from MGM, Lionsgate, VICE, A+E and Showtime, among others.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

I made the mistake of commenting last week in front of a Japanese TV exec that not much Japanese content was being pirated in the rest of Asia.   I had sumo and dramas in mind, but he politely (of course) told me that Japanese animé content was wildly popular and it is in fact being widely pirated.   Of course he was right.  Gomen nasai.

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

Laos based DTH operator InfoSat-Laos, has signed a multi-year transponder agreement with Thaicom 8 for the launch of its new DTH platform. The Ku-band satellite deal will enable the platform operator to make more than 15 channels available, in both SD & HD format.  The deal also underscores Thaicom’s ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) strategy.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

It seems that a couple of the piracy sites ordered blocked by a UK court last summer actually originated in the Philippines. They were run by a fellow named Rainier Tamayo and he gave the sites eponymous names (like rainiertamayo.com ). So he wasn’t hard to identify. So the Philippine police arrested Tamayo and they’re throwing him in the clink (not The Clink, that’s in London) for 6 months to 12 years. Maybe next time he’ll choose another name (is www.intheclink.com already used?)

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Things are about to get even MORE interesting, now that Google has reportedly signed a deal to carry CBS on the web TV service it’s planning; discussions are reportedly well underway with Disney, Fox, and Viacom, too.  The live streaming service will provide a skinny bundle of channels for between US$25-40 a month, and is expected to launch early next year.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Don’t you hate when you’re trying to load a website, and the bloody ads delay and delay and delay and hang up the page loading?   And you’re not going to look at the silly ad videos anyway, right?   Well, in India the TRAI is getting ready to ride to the rescue against autoloading video ads.   Of course, Indians are most upset because hundreds of millions of them are accessing the internet through mobiles, and “data is expensive,” to quote a TRAI official.   There’s no guarantee regulatory action will actually be taken, but in general the TRAI is not shy about snapping the whip.

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Oct 14th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Oct 7th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO Australian operator Foxtel is buying out Seven West’s share in streaming service Presto, and will be shutting the service down to roll it into its own Foxtel Play service.  The Streaming Wars have been particularly hard-fought Down Under: Quickflix went into administration in April, and smaller player Ezyflix gave up the ghost in August. (Turns out Quickflix has just been bought by US-based Karma Media… watch this space.)  Of course, Oz was one of the first markets Netflix entered in the region, although plenty of previously-VPN-using Australian subscribers are less than happy with the local service (“screwed” is the word they use).  Foxtel Play will be revamped in January, and we’ll see what happens then; in the meantime, the good news is it “…turns out Australians did want a wide selection of TV shows and movies, at a low monthly fee.  Who knew?“

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Last week it was all about Twitter being on the block. Google, Apple, Salesforce, even Disney were apparently looking at making a bid for it.  This week there are rumours that Disney is making a play for Netflix   This comes after it’s August purchase of a 33% stake in Major League Baseball’s BAM Tech unit for $1 billion. There is mixed reaction.  Even though “it’s a big fish to swallow” Fortune says, Here’s Why a Disney Acquisition of Netflix Would Make Sense. On the other hand, Forbes believes that “Disney should punt because such a deal fails the four tests of a successful acquisition.” But for now, it’s all just rumours, and Disney CEO Bob Iger won’t comment on rumours.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

The Korea Cable TV Association (KCTA) has called for the South Korean government to toughen sanctions on mobile carriers’ product bundling. The KCTA say the bundling is affecting fair competition and is adversely affecting the outlook for the cable TV industry.  Mobile carriers ― such as SK Telecom ― are increasing market share by bundling services such as mobile and internet protocol television (IPTV), which poses a threat to cable TV operators who cannot sell the same services.  In response the KCTA outlined a new initiative called One Cable, the blueprint for which will push for developing a unified platform for around 90 cable TV operators across South Korea and help develop next-generation quality services to counter the threat.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Variety has published a pretty comprehensive list of estimated salaries for top US TV talent, and even if the numbers are off, they’re still impressive.  And they speak to a trend in Hollywood, where there is a clear consensus that over the past year, salaries have doubled for superstars. Cross-reference this with The Hollywood Reporter’s recent salary guide for everyone from studio CEOs to boom operators, and quickly skim the recent Forbes lists of top-earning TV actors and highest-paid actresses (which studiously ignore any discussion of gender-limiting terminology), and you come away with a simple conclusion: clearly, everybody is in this line of work because they want to make the world a better place.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Over cocktails last night, after an industry event, a CASBAA member was complaining that he couldn’t find an SVOD service for old movies.  Well maybe he spoke too soon as Turner is planning to Launch FilmStruck Classic Movie-Streaming Service on Oct. 19. Turner execs have said this is an opportunity to test out the direct-to-consumer SVOD segment.  The service is developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in collaboration with the Criterion Collection. ““By combining the expertise at TCM and the Criterion Collection – two of the leading authorities in film preservation and history – we have created something really special that is a must-have for passionate film lovers,” said Jennifer Dorian, general manager of TCM and FilmStruck.

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

In a Tit-for-Tat move the Pakistani regulator PEMRA has requested that Pakistan should restrict Indian TV channels and content. The move is seen as retaliatory as Indian authorities had previously banned Pakistani content including dramas, channels and even cricket matches.  PEMRA have suggested that only the same amount of Indian content and TV channels should be allowed in Pakistan as the Indian authorities allow Pakistani content and says it will only allow Indian content when India lifts the ban.  While the ban on both sides is lamentable and part of the bigger geo-political picture, can’t help feeling they’ve just made the piracy market a lot more lucrative…

Christopher Slaughter CEO