30 September, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Sep 30th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Regardless of who you think won the first US Presidential debate this week, TV was certainly a big winner, with a record 84 million Americans tuning in to the political slug-fest. Online viewership rocked it, too, with some 2 million live streamers watching on YouTube.
Of course, even though it’s a domestic affair, there’s always strong global interest in the US elections, and even more so in this particular one, for fairly obvious reasons. Apparently, even the Taliban were watching the debate. One down, two to go….

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Meanwhile, none of those online viewers officially came from China, where authorities banned news services from providing live streams of Trump vs. Clinton. Of course, if you watched the debate, you’ll know that China was mentioned frequently; and despite the ban, there are reports that “hundreds of thousands” of Chinese did watch. And officially, the People’s Daily described the election a “lose-lose” battle.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

CASBAA participated in Interpol-sponsored IP Law Enforcement Conference in London last week, where the UK Minister for IP, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, spoke about the problem of illicit streaming set-top boxes and the harm they do to people up and down the value chain in the TV industry. “It’s crucial that we all work together to combat this growing threat, both to stop the criminals involved in IP crime, and to safeguard IP holders and innovators,” she said. Also at the conference (have a look), people were talking about a major raid on a large black-box network in Lancashire a couple of weeks earlier. It seems that when the Police Intellectual Property Crimes Unit (PIPCU) pulled the plug on that one head-end, multiple box networks all over Europe suddenly went dark. The interconnections of that industry, and other criminal enterprises – in Asia and elsewhere – should come in for much greater scrutiny.

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

The news that Facebook has overestimated average viewing time for video ads on its platform—for two years—has once again highlighted the lack of transparency and third-party verification of metrics provided by the so-called “walled gardens” that companies including Facebook and Google are often described as operating. Both companies keep a tight grip on data, and only allow limited third-party tracking firms to plug into their systems. Keith Weed, chief marketing officer of Unilever, said in an interview last year, tech companies that don’t let third parties
measure their platforms is equivalent to “letting them mark their own homework.” Publicis’ response came in a note which said, “This once again illuminates the absolute need to have 3rd party tagging and verification on Facebook’s platform. Two years of reporting inflated performance numbers is unacceptable.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Discovery’s CEO, David Zaslav, told investors that Discovery-controlled Eurosport is rolling out a direct-to-consumer streaming service. “We own it all and when we go to the player and charge $8 per subscriber we’re in a whole different game,” he said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in Manhattan. “For us, Eurosport direct-to-consumer fills the full circle of where the world is going.”

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Reports of TV’s demise always make for alarming headlines, but don’t believe everything you read — the reality of the shifting viewing patterns is more complicated than just the headlines. A recent report from
the Video Advertising Bureau highlights the relationship between TV and streaming, concluding that “TV Brands Are Well-Positioned To Keep Themselves At The Center Of The Ever-Evolving, Video Streaming Ecosystem.” Certainly TV execs like NBCU CEO Steve Burke agree with that. In his keynote at the Royal
Television Society, Burke was pretty confident about the industry, while at the same time, acknowledging the challenges: “I’m certainly not claiming our current models are not threatened. I just don’t see them collapsing as quickly as one might believe.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Change is certainly in the air at the US cable industry’s HQ in Washington. Last week, the venerable NCTA announced a rebranding, saying it would become “NCTA – The Internet and Television Association.” And this week, the Association’s board voted to terminate its 65-year tradition of holding a major annual trade show for the cable/internet industry. As many commentators noted,
the mass-market show had declined in importance in recent years, as cable-industry consolidation meant that most decisions were in the hands of a few large MSOs. NCTA said that it didn’t see a future for “large trade show floors dotted with exhibit booths,” but industry journals reported it was considering re-inventing a different sort of event in Washington next year.
Meanwhile, CASBAA has been busily re-inventing our annual Convention (which was never a huge-trade-show-floor type of event), and this year it will showcase the diversity of Asia’s many pay-TV operators. In case you haven’t been paying attention, it’ll be in Macau, November 7-9.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Staying with the NCTA, when John and I went to INTX in Boston earlier this year, I was struck by the contrasts between the NCTA and CASBAA. As an organisation, it serves a single (admittedly huge) and almost fully saturated market, in which the pay TV industry has been consolidating for more than a decade; as opposed to CASBAA’s 18 diverse markets and overall continued industry growth. The NCTA has a broad membership, similar to CASBAA, but the bulk of its work is focused on operators (Comcast, Charter, and Cox dominate its five-member Executive Committee). But most importantly, the industry the NCTA represents could lose up to a billion dollars next year because of cord-cutting; and while disruption is starting to emerge in Asia, the whole cord-cutting trend is quite different.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

South Korea’s smallest mobile carrier LG Uplus has said it is looking to buy a cable TV operator to achieve “economies of scale”. The comments have attracted attention in part because LG Uplus’ bigger competitor SK Telecom failed to purchase CJ HelloVision, after opposition from the country’s anti-trust watchdog earlier in the year. U plus Vice Chairman Kwon Young-soo confirmed that once the relevant regulations are
streamlined they will work on acquiring a cable TV operator – likely to be one of the top four brands; CJ HelloVision, D’Live, Hyundai HCN or T-Broad.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

In the US, AT&T is the latest to introduce a streaming product. Later this year it will launch DirectTV Now where subscribers will be able to stream more than 100 channels, without a long-term contract or any hardware like a set-top box, through their phones, tablets and connected TV devices. This type of delivery is fantastic for individual addressability of program offerings and targeted advertising. Though it’s not so good for folks who want satellite delivery as AT&T has set a timeline to phase out satellites and set-top boxes.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

As we noted last week, the newly-named regulators on Taiwan’s NCC are re-visiting previous proposals to revise the telecoms and media legislation there. An article published by the Amcham in Taipei has some interesting takes on what’s going on.

Andrew Lin

Regulatory Assistant

After setbacks in its attempt to buy Paramount, is China’s Wanda is going to buy Sony? Nope, according to CEO Michael Lynton, he doesn’t think so. Wanda is, however, buying a controlling stake in Dick Clark Productions. And it’s worth asking, will CBS buy Viacom? Les Moonves has said no active discussions, but that hasn’t stopped all the speculation, with “informed sources” keeping the story alive. Oh, and will Disney actually buy Twitter? No official denial, but it’s hard to say, and anyway, all those rumours in the marketplace could just be a clever marketing ploy.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

One of the problems with Indonesia’s approach to censorship is that vague guidelines coupled with admonitions to industry that “you have to self-censor, so be careful” combine to produce over-cautious broadcasters. That’s what happened last week when several broadcasters carried footage of a poolside interview with the winner of a national women’s swimming competition, and pixilated out her body. This “excès de zèle” produced a storm of online criticism of the country’s content regulators at KPI, who pointed out that they had not ordered the
blurring, and then helpfully suggested having such interview subjects at swimming competitions wrap up in towels before the cameras are turned on. Unreality TV, anyone?

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23 September, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Sep 23rd. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Various CASBAA members took part in a roundtable discussion recently with Singapore’s Ministry of Law as part of its public consultation on proposed changes to the copyright regime, and we had quite a few more questions than MinLaw had answers. The consultation document runs to 53 pages (and is available here, if you’re so inclined), and covers a lot of areas that don’t immediately pertain to our business. However, part of the review deals with ways of circumventing “technological protection methods”, which means that like it or not, the matter of using VPNs to get around geo-blocks is going to come up. Not that anybody in Singapore is doing that, right? Of course, the VPN debate will certainly continue up to the consultation period’s October 24 deadline, and likely beyond — but CASBAA will also be bringing the subject of black boxes into the mix, rest assured.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t help when former TV executives say things like “I’m going to put it out there. I love piracy.” (Maybe there’s a reason behind the use of the adjective “former” there?) Fortunately, that particular Digital Matters panel also had Lin Shufen as a voice of reason, and even though she’s reportedly leaving Starhub, she pointed out that piracy “…is the biggest thing that keeps us awake at night.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Meanwhile, the newly-appointed NCC Commissioners have said they will re-write existing convergence legislative proposals. The incoming chairperson said she found the previous NCC’s five bills difficult to understand. As he left office, the outgoing NCC chair, Howard Shyr, opined that proposed bills to deal with “media monopoly” should be dropped, as they dealt only with traditional media, and the real problems in today’s world with “media monopolization” have “already shifted to global players, such as YouTube, Facebook and Google.”

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Also at Digital Matters, I had a chance to sit down with Discovery Networks Asia Pacific head Arthur Bastings for a discussion centered around the company’s digital strategy: “Big data, monetisation, and content creation. All our partnerships and acquisitions in these spaces include some or all of those elements.” And that emphasis on partnerships, Bastings says, is a neccessary strategic shift at Discovery: “If we look at the branded experiences that we now want to offer consumers today, whether that’s augmented reality, or VR, or some of the other things we may want to talk about; they’re much more complex experiences, and require a lot more partners for us to deliver that in a seamless and good way.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

It seems like there has been no time in the last decade when the Taiwan government wasn’t “reviewing” (i.e. blocking) the sale of one or another cable MSO. Now it’s the turn of China Network Systems, again. The CNS sale by a South Korea-based private equity group to telco FarEastTone has been under review by various government bodies for a year. Now, the Ministry of Economic Affairs refused to approve it, and passed the buck back to the National Communications Commission (which already approved the sale last January). The root of the problem is that government agencies own 2.89 percent of FarEastTone, and the law says the government can’t own shares in media companies – except, of course, for its controlling ownership in legacy telco Chung Hwa Telecom, with its quite successful IPTV service!! Go figure. But the explanation probably has more to do with politics than rational regulatory policy – the DPP party took over the government in May, and has just appointed new commissioners to the NCC, and DPP legislators have been critical of the sale.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

A whole lot of interesting streaming news. RBC Capital Markets finds that Netflix Earns Less Per Hour Viewed Than Most TV Networks, an EBITDA of 5 cents per hour. Lush Cosmetics thinks it can launch its own TV channel. The Netflix Backlash: Why Hollywood Fears a Content Monopoly, is a good read on the programming side of the company. My favorite line, “The first rule of Netflix: You do not talk about Netflix”. And next week, if you are out of the house for the US election debate, you can now catch it on Facebook as ABC News will live stream it.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

The most surprising thing about this year’s Emmy Awards show, depending on who you ask, was that it actually didn’t suck. (Call me old-fashioned, but while I expect banality from Rolling Stone headlines, I always thought the Guardian had a slightly classier style. Oh well.) HBO’s mega-blockbuster “Game of Thrones” became the most-awarded show in TV history, not just white people won awards (although pretty much everyone was cisgender), and in general, everybody was loving the TV industry, which is always nice. The complete list of nominees and winners is here, go nuts.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

…and staying with the Emmies, an interesting observation from THR that (with one or two obvious exceptions) this year’s list of deserved winners left audiences in some overseas markets struggling to recognise who the actors were and what programmes were winning. A result, they claim, of more of the winning content being shown on streaming or digital distribution sites. The Emmys will undoubtedly raise the global profile of these shows but don’t be surprised if the main impact is a spike in more illegal torrents.

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

Almost a year after taking the wraps off its multiplatform total audience measurement tool, Nielsen USA said it has set a release schedule and will complete the rollout of its total content ratings, or TCR, by March 1. Currently, access to the data—which includes apples-to-apples measurement of all viewing across linear TV, DVR, VOD, connected TV devices (Roku, Apple TV and Xbox), mobile, PC and tablets—to the participating TV and digital media brands that have been involved in the evaluation process. Until August those networks and brands only had access to their own data only. On Jan. 1, the full total content ratings data will also become available to agencies, while the media will continue to only receive the select data.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Twitter just broadcast their first NFL game and pulled in 243,000 Average Per-Minute Viewers. Sure, this doesn’t sound huge but Twitter’s stream was almost exactly the same as what was being shown live on CBS. Yahoo Finance goes through a more worthwhile comparison of the numbers. There is more to come with sports from streaming companies as Amazon is apparently ramping up to distribute tennis and rugby. One could think these are not prime sports properties but “by investing in the French Open or rugby, Amazon effectively is going all Moneyball on the rest of the industry.”

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Fresh on the heels of Netflix partnering with Liberty Global for European carriage last week, Netflix has launched a fully localised Polish user interface, with over 80% of its content being dubbed or subtitled and will include local Polish content. Netflix has also said it intends to launch a localized Turkish service later in the year. No word on when we might see more localized services in Asia just yet and distribution in China remains stymied. Meanwhile threats to Netflix dominance continue to emerge in the growing global SVOD market, despite analysts predicting revenue is set to double while Netflix’s last quarterly results suggested underwhelming growth prospects for international subscriber numbers.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

In the US, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler isn’t home free yet, with his proposals to do away with set-top boxes and hand control of user relationships to internet companies (e.g. Google) instead of cable companies (e.g. Comcast.) This week, he backtracked away from proposals to establish an independent board to enforce some sort of “must-provide” mandate on content distribution. (Whew…..sounds like India is taking over Washington.) That proposal was denounced by the creative industry as “an unacceptable and unworkable de facto compulsory licensing scheme.”

Andrew Lin

Regulatory Assistant

With an increase in active social media users in Southeast Asian countries, online social revolution takes place more frequently, giving Southeast Asian governments a difficult time to cope with these events. “This social revolution is not new, but it is a gathering storm.” Now that many social media platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp, and WeChat, just to name a few, are becoming more accessible to the Southeast Asian population, people are using it to communicate and share collective ideas, interests, frustrations, and much more.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

And finally, a little something guaranteed to fill your weekend with all sorts of arguments: Rolling Stone magazine has just put out its “definitive” list of the 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. Probably a disproportionate number of shows from the New Golden Age of TV (now) made the list, but there are plenty from the original Golden Age, and several others from TV’s… errr… Bronze Age? I won’t spoil it for you, but I think we should all just agree to disagree right now. (I mean, seriously… Downton Abbey ranks below Happy Days?)

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15 September, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending September 15th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Brought to you by:

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

The organizers of the very large trade show IBC in Amsterdam threw a Chinese set-top box manufacturer out of the show last week, after the Zhuhai-based Gotech Technology Group was convicted in US Federal court of selling “hybrid” internet key sharing (IKS) boxes that allowed consumers to access pay-TV programming illegally. Such cases are not new; in the US DirectTV and Nagravision have long been active in pursuing such cases. What was new here was the very public shaming of the pirate manufacturer. However, the real shame is that it took a formal conviction, and spending millions in legal fees, to get even this level of basic action against the tech pirates – who of course pretended to be doing legitimate business while churning out the pirate boxes. And all it takes is a cursory web search to find dozens of slimeball Chinese manufacturers putting out piracy devices and services, conveniently delivered to your door.

Anjan Mitra

Executive Director, India

It’s only been out of the box for a little over a week, and already Reliance Jio is stirring the telco and media pots in India. Telcos are demanding higher “interconnection” fees to accept calls from Jio subscribers, the company is being slammed for adding subscribers more slowly than initially planned, and skeptics are sounding a warning that Jio’s cut-throat disruption could be a bad thing overall, but so far, consumers don’t seem to be complaining. Not only that, but Jio TV has been adding content, and is currently offering 368 channels, putting it on a level pegging with many of its cable MSO competitors. Watch this space….

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Everybody is jumping on the OTT bandwagon lately, and surely that’s not a bad thing… but despite high-profile launches like HBO Go, and ESPN’s public discussion of its OTT plans, it remains to be seen how
successfully broadcasters can go direct-to-consumer, as Turner CEO John Martin seems to be interested in doing. “We’re reinventing our company from the inside out. And we’re remodeling it when the plane is up in the air. We have to go from being a wholesale, linear cable TV company to being a consumer-focused, consumer-centric company,” Martin told recode.net. Other Turner execs are also talking transformation, with TNT & TBS President Kevin Reilly telling the L.A. Times, “…we want to start taking some crazy swings and rewriting some of the rules again.”

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

A couple very interesting pieces in the world of streaming this week. Lessons from the Strategy Crisis at Netflix says that Netflix is experiencing an “existential strategy crisis” and that scale could actually hinder their success. “The streaming business is more likely to develop into something that looks a lot like the highly fragmented magazine sector, in which no one dominates and very few now make good money.” Meanwhile Amazon is pursuing the rights for numerous sports entities. And if you ever thought that Amazon Prime was about video, you are dead wrong. They are giving away video to sell more of everything else. Talk about throwing a monkey-wrench into the video business competitive landscape.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

In other streaming news, Telstra is reportedly in discussion to bring Disney Life to Australia as its exclusive distribution partner. The House of Mouse currently offers its SVOD service in the UK and Ireland (where it’s received great reviews, btw), but a widely publicised partnership with Alibaba to launch in China were stymied by regulators earlier this year. Meanwhile, at IBC in Amsterdam, NBCU’s streaming boss Hendrik McDermott talked up plans to roll out their reality TV SVOD service Hayu in more international territories. “Reach and distribution are the next things you will see from us, we want to be in more places and on more platforms,” he said. Hayu is also currently available in the UK & Ireland, but has already entered Australia.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

And if all that wasn’t enough digital content, Time Inc. is throwing its hat into the video-streaming ring. The veteran magazine publishing house is kicking off its online video efforts with the People/Entertainment Weekly Network, the name of which pretty much tells you what you’re in store for — tear-jerking stories, celebrities, and lots of talk about tee-vee shows. It’s available for free on the People.com website, but is also app-tastic, and featured on connected devices and smart TVs. But even as the company embraces its new digital future, CEO Joe Ripp, the man tasked with bringing Time Inc. into the 21st century, is moving on.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

In the USA, FCC Chairman Wheeler announced he was changing his proposal on set-top boxes. Under the new ideas, cable operators would have to offer apps to consumers so they can get their programming without paying a monthly box rental fee. This represented a substantial
concession to the industry, as it would leave the ability to structure commercial offers and improve the viewer experience in the hands of the cable companies. Some tech industry observers said Wheeler had “caved” to the cable industry. But the industry didn’t seem happy at the result; Comcast said it would immediately file suit against the new rules. Of course, what’s behind all of this is the usual battle among Goliaths, with a large internet company whose name starts with G stirring the pot, all the time protesting “oh it’s all for the benefit of consumers.” (And if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you.) One observer quoted by CNN pointed out that Google is “very adept at inserting its corporate interest into the public policy process in a way that other companies…..envy.”

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

Zenith Optimedia’s Advertising Expenditure Forecasts says that global adex will grow by 4.4 per cent to reach $539 billion, much better than 4.1 per cent growth it forecast earlier. It will expand by 4.5 per cent in 2017, and 4.6 per cent in 2018, better than the 4.3 per cent and 4.4 per cent it had earlier estimated. By 2018 global advertising expenditure will total $589 billion, $4 billion more than forecast in June. It has revised its estimate for APAC from 6.2 per cent to 6.3 per cent and for Western Europe from 3.5 per cent to 3.6 per cent. Its APAC optimism is based on heavy political spending in the Philippines in the run-up to the May 2016 elections.

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

Meanwhile Advertising spend in Asia-Pacific is expected to grow by 3.9% in 2016, according to Carat, a reduction of the growth rate of 4.4 per cent the media agency predicted six months ago. The region’s fastest growing major market this year will be India, growing by 12%, while China is expected to grow at 5.7% and Japan by 1.8%.Asia’s slowest growth markets are Hong Kong (-11.8%), Taiwan (-7.6%) and Thailand (-5.2%), due to lacklustre economic growth and weak demand.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

It’s probably going to take a l o o o o o n g time for all of the dust to settle from the recent explosion of that Space X Falcon 9 rocket, but even so, the company is planning to restart its flights in November. In the meantime, the investigation into the cause of the blast is well in hand, and you can bet that the insurance companies are hip-deep in the debris at Cape Canaveral. After all, their business is all about “…how to insure something that blows up once every twenty times you use it.” For his part, Space X founder Elon Musk is making a personal appeal for any amateur video footage of the disaster, calling it the “…most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.”

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Just when you were getting used to the idea of adopting virtual reality headsets (for use in the privacy of your own home, naturally), there’s a back-pack powered PC and VR set allowing users to walk around unhindered in their virtual worlds without the leashed constraints of cables. The Tokyo Game Show kicked off this week, and the company MSI is showcasing its VR backpack called the VR One which offers 90 minutes of uninterrupted – and fully mobile – virtual play. Given the fact that people haven’t even been able to play Pokemon Go on their smartphones without having accidents the idea of being in an immersive VR world should set alarm bells ringing – I mean what could possibly go wrong?

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

A lengthy profile of FX President John Landgraf in Vanity Fair, coupled with a similar Landgraf profile in GQ (complete with slightly hagiographic headline), and lazy journalists all over the place are writing again about his Peak TV comments last year, just in time for the impending debut of a whole raft of new shows. But seriously, the whole “too much TV” thing is turning out to be the journalistic equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel — the articles practically write themselves. The only truly original take on the trope I’ve seen recently is the one about how too much TV…. can reduce a man’s sperm count.

Member News

Additional News

9 September, 2016

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

Brought to you by:

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

The pay-TV industry came together in Bangkok on Tuesday this week for CASBAA’s ”Thailand in View” conference. Speakers commented that there was still plenty of room for pay-TV in Thailand’s crowded media ecosystem, especially as most Thais are still watching TV via satellite. But speaker after speaker noted that the real killer competition is from online pirates. Internet champions like to say their ecosystem fosters innovation, but the small, local, innovative legitimate online TV providers in Thailand said they are fighting for their lives because the government is “too busy” to deal with online piracy. I see the same theme was struck at the Content Asia conference in Singapore last week, with Singtel’s head of content saying declines in pay-TV consumption aren’t due to competition from OTT, they’re due to people watching illegal streams.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

In Australia, Foxtel has announced a rejigging of its OTT service offering to include no-contract and equipment-free packages, confirming it will take the fight directly to streaming services such as Netflix and Stan. The changes definitely shake things up at Foxtel Play, but stop short of embracing an à la carte pricing model. The new strategy comes six months into new CEO Peter Tonagh’s tenure, and as he said in a recent interview, “From here it is all about execution. I expect we will be measured now on the things we bring to market.”

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Liberty Media has confirmed it is buying the racing business Formula 1 for US$4.4bn in one of the biggest deals in sports history. The move ends months of speculation and could mark a turning point for the sport which while still immensely popular, has lost some of its appeal to younger audiences and still has to make real headway in the American TV market. Incumbent Bernie Ecclestone will remain as chief executive but Chase Carey, who continues to serve on the board of 21st Century Fox, will become the new chairman. Liberty Media has stakes in several sports and entertainment businesses, including the Atlanta Braves. Owned by the billionaire John Malone, Liberty will initially purchase a minority stake in F1 and a full takeover is planned once regulators approve the deal.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

A few interesting things going on in the world of VR and video. Oculus wins Emmy for VR animated short Henry. “One of the more interesting things about virtual reality is that it is going to be the first consumer medium whose distribution platform is native to the internet.” CNN is getting in on it with a very interesting Youtube VR piece “The Fight for Falluja”. Crackle Plans to Produce Virtual Reality Originals. Four things marketers should know about VR: the novelty is fading but so is motion sickness. And lastly, Baywatch (2017) director, Seth Gordon let us know if Hollywood is ready for VR. What…huh…yes, you read that right, Baywatch the movie with The Hoff and Pam in the cast!!

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

And if you are concerned about all the hype about VR, you can relax… the technology is rising nicely along the Slope of Enlightenment. The technology boffins at Gartner have released their updated 2016 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, which shows that VR has moved out of the Trough of Disillusionment it was in last year, and is steadily moving toward to the Plateau of Productivity. Other updates: self-driving cars are starting to fall from the Peak of Inflated Expectations, and computer-brain interfaces are just getting past the Technology Trigger phase — which means over the next decade, give or take, LITERAL headphone jacks will be in the news for a change.

Anjan Mitra

Executive Director, India

The biggest competitive threat to pay-TV and video on-demand providers in Asia is not new entrants to the market like Netflix, but it is piracy. For CASBAA it’s like déjà vu. But what’s heartening that governments in Asia are waking up to this online threat. For example, India recently announced that online streaming would be covered under the new Copyright Act and any breach would be dealt as per law. However, cautioning Indian law enforcers from going overboard, Bombay High Court recently ruled it was inaccurate to suggest that merely viewing an illicit copy of a film is a punishable offence under the Copyright Act.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

CASBAA is happy to welcome Metrasat, a division of Indonesia’s Telkom, as our newest member. Telkom last week announced its new MediaHub, in partnership with fellow CASBAA member company Rapidcast (and the “about” para at the end of the release has a good capsule description of Metrasat and its parents, for those who are curious about org charts.) Meanwhile, I spied a commentary from a leading terrestrial broadcaster in Jakarta, bemoaning that excessive regulatory micromanagement is damaging the industry. (And – contrary to what he says, it’s a big problem for pay-TV as well.)

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Lots happening at YouTube lately, including a bunch of seriously pissed-off creators who have had their videos “de-monetised” (i.e., ads pulled because of their videos’ subject matter), leading to the creation of the hashtag #YouTubePartyIsOver. All this is happening as the streaming behemoth sets its sights on the big (-ger) screen, launching a new app to work better with smart TVs and streaming devices like Apple TV and Roku; and unveiling the first of twenty new full-length television shows, documentaries, and films on its paid subscription service YouTube Red.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Speaking of YouTube Red, the paid service is getting some love from another of the “new media” darlings, with BuzzFeed signing up with the paid service to distribute some of its original series. The announcement comes not long after that BuzzFeed reorg we talked about a few weeks ago, when the company split itself into two divisions, news and entertainment, both focused on video. This week, the NY Times took a deeper dive into the “…transformative moment for a company staking a big bet on the future of video and entertainment.”

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Hot on the heels of new defamation laws, the governing party of the Maldives has issued a strongly worded directive against Al Jazeera, and has threatened to use the controversial laws against anyone involved in producing, broadcasting, rebroadcasting or even anyone who assists in publicising what government officials say are false allegations of corruption in an Al-Jazeera documentary called “Stealing Paradise”. Al-Jazeera had already pulled out a number of journalists from the country due to safety concerns and has also cancelled a screening of the documentary both in Malé and at the Royal Society of Arts in London, but insisted they would still broadcast the programme.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

The launch-pad explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket drew huge press commentary. Of course, any such development leads to immediate financial squabbles. Then there’s the possibility that competitors might benefit. Lots of other companies (including SES, KT, Echostar and even Facebook) stand to lose momentum. The internet fact-free machine went wild, with reports that an alien UFO had shot down the rocket (because they don’t like Facebook????) Shoddy journalism even infected the New York Times, which couldn’t resist speculating darkly that the incident “raises questions” about SpaceX’s future. (Elsewhere in the Times, there was a very good denunciation of such innuendo journalism.)

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

You’ll forgive me if I’ve been a little giddy lately, but Thursday, September 8 marked the 50th anniversary of Star Trek’s debut episode back in 1966. To be fair, celebrations started during the Labor Day long weekend last week, but real Trekkies waited until the actual day to break out their Spock ears. The anniversary has been marked by the release of a complete Blu-ray box set of all the original series, the spin-offs, and the movies, a set of four commemorative stamps by the US Postal Service, and sparked countless geeked-out barroom arguments about the “best” episode in the series. NASA got in on the act, praising the series for being “more faithful to science than any other science fiction series ever shown on television.” (Then again, NASA’s been suckers for Trekkies for years — remember how fans got them to re-name the Space Shuttle Enterprise, back when it was launched in 1976?) Fair to say the show has boldly gone where no TV show has gone before… qaStaHvIS yIn ‘ej chep!

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Yep, it’s true. CASBAA is directly responsible for launching the “career” of Hong Kong’s third-best band. And now URANUS: The Movie is coming soon. Sorry.

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Additional News

2 September, 2016

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

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Here’s something I bet you didn’t expect… despite all the talk of cord-cutting, Nielsen says the number of US television households has actually increased by 1.7% against this time last year. That might not sound like a huge increase, but it’s actually 2 million households, and it means the number of homes “…receiving traditional TV signals via broadcast, cable, DBS or telco, or having a broadband Internet connection…” is now at 96% penetration in the US. It’s that last bit — broadband — that accounts for the change; since 2013, Nielsen has been including in its numbers homes where TVs are connected to broadband, so now it also captures viewers watching services like Netflix, HBO Now, Hulu, or Sling TV. Which is only slightly confusing, especially since SNL Kagan just came out with an estimate that some 812,000 US pay TV subscribers cut the cord in Q2 — the biggest quarterly loss so far.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Ominous signs in Thailand: Read all the way down in the Bangkok Post’s description of a recent disciplinary hearing by the official regulator (NBTC) for a TV channel (Voice TV). It wasn’t the first time Voice TV had been called to account, but it was “the first time an army officer sat at the head of the table.” Reminds me of the ominous closing scene in “Cabaret,” where Joel Grey departs and the camera pans to show that the tables were full of people wearing….umm….uniforms. (Cabaret is being revived in the USA – appropriate given the nature of this year’s electoral politics there……)

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Meanwhile, in other censorship news, China’s bureaucrats have said they don’t want any “admiration of western lifestyles” on TV. Yawn. How do you say “laughing stock” in Mandarin? Too much singing and dancing is clearly a threat to the Communist Party. Add the latest prohibitions to the long long list of other stuff that can’t be shown, including cleavage, celebrity children, homosexuality, drinking and vengeance, time travel, South Koreans, and space aliens.
Panda shows…..that’s what China needs. Lots of panda shows.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Funny you should mention it, John, because Panda TV is actually a thing… but it’s not about pandas, it’s China’s answer to twitch.tv, and features clips of people playing online games (like Dota2 but that’s another story… see below). And while we’re on the subject, when you hear Chinese Communist Party officials saying things like “…the arts should be centered on the people, guided by core socialist values, based on traditional Chinese culture and fueled by innovation…” they’re actually parroting Mao Zedong’s dictums from the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art held in 1942. But those meetings were held in a cave — Long March-era Mao certainly didn’t have to deal with the exorbitant actors’ fees of today’s China.

Anjan Mitra

Executive Director, India

The gorilla in the telecoms room has flexed its muscles. Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani has announced that the long awaited Reliance Jio service will launch on September 5th. During the 45 minutes it took Ambani to deliver his speech at the company’s AGM, share prices of other Indian telcos tumbled, wiping off millions of dollars. Reliance JIO’s roadmap – free voice calling, data cost at almost 1/10th of the prevalent ones, no roaming charges for JIO users and other freebies — clearly signals the battle is about to begin. Media and analysts are collating the takeaways from Ambani-speak… and still counting.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

According to a Pew Research Center, 40 percent of American adults get their news from Facebook and more than 600 million people see a news story on Facebook every week. And this drove over $6 billion dollars worth of revenue last quarter. But Mark Zuckerberg insists that Facebook “Is Not a Media Company”. Recode disagrees. Facebook are very good at making money using other people’s content. But a real media company would probably be a lot better at curating it. It seems that after replacing 15 editors with an algorithm Facebook’s Trending News Is A Total Mess. Maybe there is some merit to Zuck’s comment.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Kim Dotcom, who is fighting extradition from New Zealand to the U.S., where he’s accused of reproducing and distributing copyrighted content on a massive scale, has successfully petitioned the Judge hearing his appeal in New Zealand to allow video streaming of the court proceedings. Dotcom is the millionaire founder of file-sharing site Megaupload, which was shut down by the U.S. government who allege that Megaupload netted more than US$175m in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners more than US$500m by offering pirated content. After years of legal wrangling, a court ruled in December that Dotcom could be sent to the U.S., to face charges including conspiracy to commit racketeering and money laundering. Kim has hired his own cameraman to film the appeal and believes sharing the court video online on YouTube will help his case. The video is being delayed by twenty minutes and the judge has ruled that the online video cannot be replayed once the case concludes!!

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Ahahahahhahahahahahaha! I think the judge is going to get a sudden education in how the transnational internet piracy cabal works, and how much respect they have for courts in ANY country. I’m with the BBC, which points out that “The video of Kim Dotcom’s hearing will be all over the internet, in perpetuity, whether the judge wants it to be or not.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Related to that last, an indictment was issued against the promoters of Kickass Torrents, saying they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the creative industries of many millions of dollars, and then laundered the proceeds. Again, like Megaupload, the group was providing incentives for people to upload pirated content, and then making millions on advertising. (You can read the full indictment here.) The group’s leader Artem Vaulin was arrested in July in Poland, where he is now being held pending extradition.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Anyone who deals with the windowing of their own content or of purchased content will want to take a look at Matthew Ball’s latest Originals piece in REDEF. When no direct-to-consumer offerings were possible and there was a physical constraint on distribution, the old model made sense. In Letting It Go: The End Of Windowing (And What Comes Next), Ball explores how rights owners will maximize the value of their content in a post-window era. This new era may have content creators looking more at the needs of their viewers and fans than the needs of middlemen buyers. (This is also the last piece by Ball we’re likely to see, since he’s been hired by Amazon Studios as Head of strategy.)

Anjan Mitra

Executive Director, India

Touted as the biggest M&A deal in the Indian broadcast industry, Zee-owned TEN Sports’ buyout by Sony Pictures Network India for US$ 385 million should redraw the India’s broadcast map making it a two-horse (Star & Sony-ESPN) market for sports, while signalling consolidation in a fragmented market. Zee could use the money to concentrate on initiatives it wants to. Still, it must have been tough for Subhash Chandra and Zee to let go of sports business. But a commentator aptly termed it business acumen (of Chandra and family) triumphing over emotions.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

South Korean behemoth telcom KT has launched a commerce-focused mobile video platform service “dovido”, KT started the ball rolling by concentrating on providing beauty-related commercial content to the Chinese market and expects to raise more than US$ 65 million in sales over the next four years with more than 200 million viewers globally. The dovido service will combine video content, online-to-offline (O2O) services as well as social networking services (SNS) and regard their main competitor as YouTube (which helps when you are initially launching into a market where YouTube is banned). KT plan on rolling out the service globally and are already in discussions with telecom companies in the content sector such as China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo. Dovido is, however, currently only available through Google Play and Apple-ites will have to wait a bit longer.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Meanwhile, that ban on South Korean content seems to be broadening. The latest high-profile casualties include director Kim Ki-duk, who has been denied a work visa for a film he was planning to shoot in China, and actress Yoo In-na, who has been dropped as the lead in Chinese soap opera that had almost finished filming its 28 episodes. Unlikely to help matters much: China’s loss to Korea in an AFC World Cup qualifying match this week.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

New rules come into force this week in the UK, meaning for the first time all BBC iPlayer users must now own a TV licence, regardless of whether or not they watch programmes live. Previously households only needed a licence to watch broadcast TV – including through Sky and Freeview The new laws mean iPlayer users need to hold a £145.50 a year licence to watch live BBC channels, stream or download programmes on demand. The ruling is likely to particularly affect younger people, who generally consume more content on smartphones or tablets and may not necessarily be covered by their parents licence fee. It is still unclear how the new rules will be enforced, as yet no plans to ask viewers to enter licence fee details on iPlayer have been announced.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

China might have been disappointed with its medal count at the Rio Olympics, but the nation now has a different reason to rejoice — Wings Gaming has won the Aegis of Champions at The International 2016…! (Translation: a Chinese eSports team won the top prize in gaming company Valve’s “Defense of the Ancients 2” international gaming tournament held in Seattle last week.) Along with the curiously-shaped Aegis shield, Wings are taking US$9.1 million in prize money, out of a total pool of US$20 million. The tournament is a massive production, with every match broadcast live on Sky Sports to serve a global player and fan base that is bordering on rabid. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but just a few days before the Chinese team emerged victorius, Valve introduced a new character to the game, The Monkey King, drawn from the Chinese classic “Journey to the West.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

File this under “But OF COURSE They Would Say That”: Google got Nielsen to do a case study that found “…TV reach seems to drive YouTube engagement, and in turn, YouTube exposure drives TV reach.” Well, duh…..that sounds like the company line delivered by Youtube in conferences at least 3 years ago: I remember the presentations about how Disney’s Frozen had hugely benefitted from all the videos of little girls singing “Let It Go.” (whether they could sing or not.) And Google spokespeople continue to use the same example. I guess the line hasn’t changed in 3 years……. Another line-to-take is put forth in the recent “How Google Fights Piracy” report. Content ID will take the war on piracy to “unprecedented heights.” But…oh, there are naysayers. Like the British music industry, which says “Google hasn’t managed to implement a Content ID system that people can’t easily get around; of course the fact that Google refuses to remove YouTube videos that show you exactly how to circumvent Content ID doesn’t help.”

Member News

Additional News

26 August, 2016

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

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Now that Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has resigned, the company is moving forward with a new CEO (who is actually a 30+ year company veteran), with five new directors on its board, and what feels like not column inches, but column MILES of speculation about its future. Certainly, there are lessons to be learned from the highly dramatic boardroom battle that led to this; but what really matters is that the company can now move beyond the often-tawdry headlines and get down to business.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

A year ago, the New Zealand government really ballyhooed its launch of a study on how to update the country’s TV regulations for the digital era. There were green papers, and discussion papers and lots and lots of issues raised, including about “Content Regulation in A Converged World.” Now the results of the exercise are apparent, and the Government has announced (drumroll, please)……a few minor changes in the Broadcasting Act. (OTT content, including VOD but not YouTube, will be covered by content guidelines, and some tiny steps were taken to allow a bit more Sunday advertising on TV, to push broadcasters a tiny tiny tiny bit toward a more even footing with OTT competitors. But given all the attention, and the raised expectations, the industry thought the final outcome was pretty thin gruel: “timid, too late and disappointing.”

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Shane Smith of Vice Media is never one to mince words. This week he gave the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival where had a lot to say about Big Media. “Baby boomers have had a stranglehold on media and advertising for a generation. That stranglehold is finally being broken by a highly educated, ethnically diverse, global-thinking, hard-to-reach generation, and media is having a hard time adapting to this rapid change.” “We all know what we have to do. Three screens, one screen with OTT and innovative monetization. That’s the Holy Grail. Everyone knows that, but are we going towards that? The hour-long lecture can found here. And if you still need some more wisdom from the “self declared spokesman for the no-bulls#!t generation” you may enjoy the post-lecture interview.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

The signs have been all over the US the past couple weeks, and now it’s confirmed: Rio Olympics viewing on TV was down by 18%, but streaming exploded. Part of the explanation for that is the “m” word (millenials), although advertisers seem to be satisfied with the results, which still kept NBC on top of the network ratings during the 17 days of broadcasting, and delivered the most profitable Olympics in history. Nonetheless, there is still plenty of post-mortem hand-wringing being done, and even network executives acknowledge “…we have a lot to learn about consumer behaviour.” They’ve got two years to study, before the Winter Olympics descend on Pyeong Chang, South Korea; but at this rate, by 2018, everything might have changed again.

Anjan Mitra

Executive Director, India

Mukesh Ambani’s hunt for 100 million Reliance Jio subscribers is making telecom firms edgy. An edgy headline certainly that could be dubbed biased towards Reliance, but there’s no denying India’s telecoms sector is readying for some bloodbath. The war of words between incumbent telcos and Reliance JIO has not only reached regulator TRAI, but is also knocking on PM’s door for likely intervention. This soap opera has just begun and promises more twists and turns than fictional ones airing on Indian telly.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Although we follow industry news from overseas quite closely, we also like to make the point that not all trends are created equal; now a new study from pollsters YouGov confirms that, showing that almost half of Asia Pacific viewers aren’t aware of Netflix’s launch in their market. The study also shows that while locally-grown Asian streaming services are making inroads, the most-watched streamer is still YouTube. Best news? There’s still a dance in the old dame yet — 83% of respondents still watch TV via broadcast TV channels.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

It’s always nice to be noticed. The UK Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, passed through HK this week on her way to some heavy-lifting policy stuff, in China. While here she gave a speech on IP enforcement, and one of the aspects of close UK-HK cooperation was work together to deal with the problem of “black box” streaming media STBs. And she paid tribute to CASBAA by name because of our work on black boxes!

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

It was the pull-quote from a Variety article about CNN boss Jeff Zucker a couple weeks ago that set the cat amongst the pigeons: “I don’t think Vice and BuzzFeed are legitimate news organizations. They are native advertising shops. We crush both of them.” You can’t talk smack like that and not have it be noticed. Whether it “…ignited a fight for the future of news” is another matter, although it did ignite a sarcastic Twitter stream from BuzzFeed in response. Now the web service (“…better known for listicles and cat videos…”) is reorganising into two divisions, BuzzFeed News and BuzzFeed Entertainment, a none-too-subtle statement that it is serious about news — serious enough to ring-fence it away from the listicles-and-cat-videos stuff.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

First there was wifi on planes and now we’ll have live sport matches to contend with, all disturbing my G&T time: Travellers in Australia will soon be able to experience the “Spirit of Australia” at 30,000 feet once Qantas begins streaming live cricket matches . The airline is in the final stages of negotiations with Cricket Australia to allow passengers to live stream matches on domestic and international flights, with a trial set to run on domestic routes, before full roll-out in 2017. The decision is getting mixed bag of responses from die-hard cricket lovers, with some heralding the move while others are not as enthused, with one more cynical commentator saying “Long haul flights are boring enough without having to inflict more pain on passengers watching us lose again”. Whatever next.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Have we mentioned lately that voting is underway for the 2016 Emmy Awards? We’ve definitely mentioned that there are a crazy number of categories and nominees, so many that it’s sort of crazy to think any one person can have watched them all. But as usual, there’s a lot of handicapping going on in the run-up to the September 18 awards show; of particular interest is the new “Best Limited Series” category. And if you haven’t seen it, the latest from the “Honest Trailers” guys (who were also nominated for an Emmy…?) is full of Emmys LOLs.

Member News

Additional News

19 August, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending August 19th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

CASBAA CPO John Medeiros and I have been in Seoul this week, so we can be forgiven for our new addiction to Korean drama — specifically, the drama around China’s clampdown on Korean TV shows that has serious financial implications for the local production industry, particularly since China accounts for about 40% of the overseas exports of Korean shows. Of course, it’s actually all about the military, right? That is, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system, or THAAD, intended to protect against North Korea’s eminently logical leadership and their tendency toward nuclear brinksmanship; but which China thinks could be a loaded gun pointed directly at it. But the ban isn’t stopping the fans, although certain advertisements with questionable political messages aren’t really helping much. Like any good drama, there are cliffhangers a-plenty, enough to keep you tuning in week after week: watch this space.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

It looks like 4K/UHD broadcasting is finally arriving, as a commercial offering. A few weeks ago, we reported that sales of 4K TV sets in Japan have really taken off. In Korea this week, we learned that – although there are only an estimated 50,000 4K/UHD sets in Korean homes, several pay-TV operators are aggressively rolling out competitive UHD channel offerings. IPTV operators SK Broadband and KT Olleh have 3 UHD channels each, while direct broadband competitor LG U+ has one. The UHD king, though, is KT Skylife, with five operating UHD channels. Meanwhile, in Europe,Sky began its broadcasts of English Premiership games in UHD, and the upcoming IBC show is full of UHD announcements. And in Hong Kong, PCCW is moving to offer 4K to its subscribers as well. Research companies say UHD equipment in homes is multiplying rapidly.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Here’s the department of “I read it on the Internet, so it must be true:” Last week, Singapore’s Parliament passed the legislation to reorganize the Media Development Authority (MDA) and the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA). Reports detailed the new functions to be exercised by the merged IMDA, and the IT promotion/security part of IDA, which will now be called GovTech. Okay, that’s all pretty straightforward. Except I was led to all this by having this internet report pop up in my press feed, alleging that GovTech is “a new censorship agency.” Huh??? Part of a “modern information war against independent news sites.” Huh??? Lion City paranoia seems alive and well.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Media companies are engaging with social media in different ways. Digiday has a great piece this week on How Sky News distributes video on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. With the Premier League just kicking off, Sky Sports used Facebook and YouTube to stream their popular “Soccer Saturday”. Though, a number of media companies are resisting striking deals with Facebook Inc. for its video features. “TV executives say they’ve been put off by the tech company’s constantly-shifting goalposts and its failure to articulate a clear path for content owners on how they’ll make money from participating in its video offerings.”

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Twitter is apparently in talks with Apple to bring the Twitter app to Apple TV. According to a report in the New York Times the deal would allow Apple TV users to use the Twitter app to stream NFL football games and other live content under Twitter’s growing number of video deals. In April Twitter agreed to pay the NFL around USD 10 million to stream 10 games and to sell only a portion of the ad inventory exclusively. (Facebook had reportedly set tougher terms in the bidding, under which the social network wanted to sell all the ads that would air during the games.) Twitter will stream its first NFL game on Sept. 15. But the question is will its $10 million deal pay off?

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Media Business Asia has this interesting take on the situation of Thailand’s SVOD industry. MPA’s Vivek Couto will explain his take on developments in Thailand at CASBAA’s Thailand in View Conference, on September 6, in Bangkok. Don’t miss it.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

And in piracy news this week:
· US Courts told Kim Dotcom to buzz off, he can’t have his money back (until he sits through a trial, anyway.) But he continues to fight extradition, thus delaying the final outcome, whatever it will be.
·  Responding to a suit filed by Tata Sky, the Delhi High Court said YouTube is obligated to pay attention to the videos it hosts, and may not host illegal content related to piracy. (In this case, vids offering instruction on how to hack into Tata Sky’s pay-TV bouquet.) No more of this approach for YouTube.

· Three cheers for the PIPCU IP police, in the UK, who raided a black-box streaming TV operation that was broadcasting to “tens of thousands of people across the globe.”

· Most of the content industry these days doesn’t believe in suing end-users. But a Singapore law firm has got powers of attorney from some independent film makers, and they’re going after the downloaders. Batten the hatches; I foresee stormy weather ahead.

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

UK’s subscription-free satellite TV service Freesat is enabling the first live audience measurement service showing viewing free-to-air (FTA) behaviour in real time. The anonymised data is captured from over 100,000 connected Freesat set-top boxes and then processed by TVbeat’s platform. Data available includes info on Audience Flow, for viewers moving across channels and programming; Audience Retention, for returning viewers to the same series; Time-Shifted Data based on PVR usage, and VOD Impact with data from catch-up and other on-demand services.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

The Rio Olympics still have a couple days to go, and as we mentioned last week, this edition of the Games has been an interesting bellwether for digital disruption. No question about it, ratings for linear television have fallen in the US, although the full picture won’t emerge until after the last torch has been blown out in Brazil. But despite the lower ratings, NBC is still confident that it will win plenty of gold of its own, and that this will be the most profitable Olympics for the peacock network yet.

Andrew Lin

Regulatory Assistant

Last week, authorities of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) sent an e-letter to Pokemon Go developer Niantic, requesting that they establish Pokemon-free zones around dangerous areas, religious places, state property, and private property. Officials believe that playing Pokemon Go in sensitive locations could be a threat to national security. It did not come as a surprise that people flooded social media with their frustration and disbelief.

Member News

Additional News

12 August, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending August 12th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Disney is getting serious about streaming, buying a 33% stake in Major League Baseball’s BAM Tech, and announcing plans to set up an OTT version of ESPN “…probably by the end of the year.” We’ve talked a lot about BAM Tech, which the MLB recently spun off as a separate company. Rumours of Disney’s interest had been circulating for a while, too, almost certainly because they are the platform that launched HBO Now in three months, among their other massive live-streaming successes. Oh, and repeated mentions in CASBAA’s News Views probably didn’t hurt, either.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

For those thinking that Disney is planning on offering ESPN as a standalone service, don’t get your hopes up. Further to the announcement, ESPN clarified things by saying that “Our linear ESPN networks content will NOT be part of the service. We see it as a complementary service to WatchESPN”. FierceCable clarified further: “the new platform will, however, be available direct-to-consumer, without a pay-TV subscription.” What it looks like is that ESPN will continue with their existing B2B linear services (including the OTT authenticated WatchESPN), and use the new BAMTech services to build a D2C business.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Elsewhere in the US, Hulu has announced that it’s discontinuing its free streaming service, pushing users into signing up for its more premium options instead. Hulu said it its free option “became very limited and no longer aligned with the Hulu experience or content strategy.” In fairness Hulu has been quietly phasing out free content for some time, as it started offering more original programming to paying subscribers. The end of Hulu’s free service also coincides with a new partnership as Yahoo has announced a new streaming service, “Yahoo View,” which, somewhat confusingly “features” Hulu, meaning that essentially, Hulu’s free content has moved from Hulu.com to Yahoo View.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Dish TV in the USA has been the most active industry player anywhere in the world in going after “black box” streaming media box piracy. Dish and its partners from TVB, CCTV and Korean broadcasters filed suit a year ago in California against the TVPad piracy syndicate, and won a couple of very hefty judgements. In April Dish, TVB and CCTV again filed suit, this time in New York against the promoters of the h.tv box. And last week Dish and Arabic content providers went after the promoters of the “loolbox,” which specializes in piracy of Middle Eastern content. The action was welcomed by a coalition of ethnic content broadcasters in the USA (which includes a number of CASBAA member affiliates).

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Sometimes the print media is not exactly a defender of IP rights. Magazines (and websites), delight in telling people how to find the latest pirate devices and services. (In Canada, even the CBC joins in. I guess if your iron rice bowl comes from the government, you don’t have to worry about monetizing your creations.) But this week in Singapore the Straits Times actually had an insightful opinion piece. The writer observes that sports rights costs are now too high for Singapore media distributors to monetize, drawing on a customer base that is shrinking because so many people are watching pirate black boxes that are openly flaunted in Singapore. The article quotes Aravind Venugopal as saying the government “…should be able to act against these manufacturers and providers (of black boxes).” Yeah. It should. Why doesn’t it?

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

The Olympics still have another week to go, and if the 20% drop in US ratings are anything to go by, the Games “…are not immune to the tectonic changes in consumer media behavior.” Still, there remains an argument in favour of good old-fashioned TV: “…regular people don’t actually want a river of raw video.” But either way, Comcast’s cross-platform experiments with its X1 cable box could lead to further innovations in monetisation, providing a chance to capture more of the ad-spend from the many advertisers who are already using multiple channels for their Olympic campaigns.

Elsewhere, there’s a lot of other experimentation going on, especially in digital coverage of the Rio Games, at least some of which is being driven by the need to avoid infringing on copyrighted images. However, even with thousands of hours of competition being streamed, it’s worth bearing in mind that the audiences watching eSports are still bigger.

Andrew Lin

Regulatory Assistant

Just a day before the Rio Olympics’ opening ceremony, MediaCorp was able to negotiate and clinch a deal with Dentsu Inc. for live coverage of the Olympic games in Singapore. Events will be broadcasted through MediaCorp’s sports channel, Okto, and its OTT platform, Toggle. The two companies were unable to reach a deal earlier, as both groups could not settle with an agreeable price. The Singapore government has also made it clear that no additional funding will be provided for live broadcast rights.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

With the Rio Olympics in full swing there’s reports of an online spreadsheet being kept by netizens in South Korea recording all the sexist remarks made by Korean commentators during the competition; and there’s a lot! Perhaps predictably, most of the comments come from male presenters describing female athletes. The Korean blogger who started the spreadsheet has announced plans to make an official complaint to broadcasters once the offending remarks have been collated. Korean commentators aren’t the only ones being called out for sexist or inappropriate comments from presenters, and sadly sexist language is not a new phenomenon at the Olympic Games.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

In these troubled times of digital shift in ad spend, it’s comforting to know that the FMCG behemoth Procter & Gamble is scaling back its targeted Facebook ads: “…we targeted too much, and we went too narrow.” Read a bit more closely to discover that P&G isn’t actually cutting its spend on Facebook, just re-focusing it; but at the same time, it’s also increasing its TV ad budgets as part of a broader strategic shift. Meanwhile, Facebook is shifting its own advertising strategy, developing ways to get its ads past ad-blocking software. At the same time, however, it’s also overhauling its ad preferences tool, to let users opt out of certain types of ads: “We want people to help us do a better job with ads, rather than to fundamentally alter the way the service is rendered.”

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

It’s time agencies and advertisers asked themselves serious questions about the media world they are creating through their investment decisions, writes Tess Alps, The chair of Thinkbox. The internet was supposed to be ‘for everyone’ but the idealism of an open web has mutated into an increasingly closed and unpoliced world of apps, and a world dominated by a very few quasi-monopolies.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

For those News Views readers who don’t often get to sit around a table and chat about the TV business with leaders of the industry, The Hollywood Reporter has put together a TV Titans Roundtable video where you can be a fly on the wall. Ted Sarandos talks about Netflix’s “one-on-one relationship with our subscribers.” NBCUniversal’s Bonnie Hammer tells us that “The crap is going to fail.” A+E’s Nancy Dubuc, commenting on ratings to Sarandos says, “I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours!” Lots of great stuff in this fifty minute video.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Back when CASBAA had a Council of Governors, Time Warner’s Hugh Stephens was one of the leading lights. Now retired home in Canada, Hugh writes an occasional blog on copyright matters. This week’s entry talks about how technology is a two-edged sword…..solving some piracy problems and creating others, using the Indian cable industry as an example. In that connection, another article highlighted this week that India now has 160 million broadband connections. Wow, a really big number. But 142 million of those are wireless connections, and how dysfunctional they are (for watching TV) is a much-discussed topic. (BTW, if you’re a data junkie, the TRAI press releases giving Indian telecom data are a mine of interesting snippets.)

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Don’t even get me started about certain US Presidential candidates — really, don’t. But every four years, US television networks have been used to getting a fairly hefty chunk of change from both parties in the form of campaign ads; this year, not so much. In fact, so far, Donald Trump’s campaign has spent exactly US$0.00 on TV spots. Part of the reason, of course, is that every time he opens his mouth, there are cameras nearby; even five months ago, he was estimated to have “earned” US$2 billion worth of free air time. Add to that the value of lost productivity in offices all over the world as people ponder what a Trump Presidency would actually mean, and we’re talking trillions… seriously, YUGE numbers.

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5 August, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending August 5th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

Media fragmentation is a global phenomenon, but there’s no question that it’s more of an issue in some markets than in others. And in the US — where delayed viewing is apparently the new normal — the industry is leading the pack in trying to figure out how to adapt. And with new competitors like Apple still trying to roll out a TV service, existing online platform Hulu trying new things, and even the 800-pound streaming gorilla YouTube fiddling around with a TV service, there’s a certain urgency in the air. Hell, even Netflix, the once anointed “category-killer” that seemingly created the whole “cord-cutting” phenomenon, appears to be feeling the heat; analysts are wondering whether its slowing US subscriber growth is actually down to “stream-cutting.”

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

Speaking of Hulu, big news as Time Warner buys a 10% stake in the online platform. The intention is to include Time Warner channels in that planned live-streaming service Chris mentioned above, potentially making Hulu “…the skinny bundle to beat.” Hulu’s other owners are Disney, NBCU, and Fox, each of which holds a 30% stake. Oh, and that Apple streaming service? Apparently, it’s just going to be a TV guide.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

A great series of decisions in Canada, where cable companies are filing suits, and winning injunctions, against sellers of “black box” pirate streaming TV devices. The injunctions affect “fully loaded” boxes, so some of the retailers made statements that they would stop selling loaded boxes, and just stick to unloaded ones. Of course, the retailers of the boxes complain they are being unjustly targeted: “Oh I’m just a small businessman,” they protested. Right — a small arm of a large global syndicate, which supplies you with your illegal product to sell.

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

This week Bloomberg has a fantastic interview with Time Warner’s CEO, Jeff Bewkes. What’s the biggest threat to the pay-TV ecosystem right now? How has the success of Netflix changed the strategy at HBO? What do you think the cable-TV bundle will look like in the next decade? It’s all covered off in the Bloomberg piece.

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

Global adspend will amount to $552bn in 2017, and when combined with other marketing services, total marketing expenditures worldwide will push past the $1 trillion threshold for first time, according to GroupM. The figures are contained in the media agency’s latest worldwide media and marketing forecast report, This Year, Next Year, which trimmed an earlier forecast of global ad expenditure growth for 2016 from 4.5% to 4.0%.This downwards revision was largely due to slowing growth in China and Brazil this year. GroupM lopped off 2.5 percentage points from its previous projection for China, suggesting that a “new normal” was still being established.

Anjan Mitra

Executive Director, India

Good sense triumphed over GST finally as India’s Upper House of Parliament backed a major tax reform that seeks to transform the country into a common market via goods and services tax, replacing a hodgepodge of state excise taxes. Though a lot still needs to be done before implementation, apart from isolated tweets from media execs, by and large, the media industry still evaluating the likely affects on business, but Economic Times reported certain segments of media and entertainment industry would benefit from GST rollout.

Andrew Lin

Regulatory Assistant

With the 2016 Rio Olympics just around the corner, people around the world are getting ready to watch one of the greatest sporting events. Unfortunately, Singapore residents will not be able to watch the games live as no broadcaster has secured live rights, though MediaCorp clinched a deal with the Olympic broadcast rights holder, Dentsu, for delayed telecasts. Despite the late broadcast of the Olympic events, MediaCorp promises that Channel NewsAsia will break footage minutes after the event of the performance of any Singaporean athletes that win medals to ensure that they get the national attention deserved. On the commercial level, it seems there is a message here for sports rights sellers: Singapore doesn’t want to be seen as ripe for the plucking.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

First Vice with Viceland, now… everyone else? Increasingly, digital publishers (a.k.a. “websites”) are moving into television, and are finding to their shock and amazement that “…it’s a lot of freaking work!” The trend has been accelerating in recent months, and even web publishers without any partnerships announced are talking up their TV plans; because “…If we want to build a generationally significant media company, we have to bring our content to life in a lot of different ways.”

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Media companies in Asia have had numerous challenges over the years. How to meaningfully get into China has been a big one that’s been around forever. And how to transition to a digital B to C business is one of late. Discovery may have hit two birds with one stone by taking a minority stake in Ivy Wong’s multichannel network, VS Media. “As Discovery looks to build deeper traction in the Chinese-speaking markets, VS Media’s robust following is incredibly valuable to us,” said Arthur Bastings, president and managing director of Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific. “Through their advanced analytics, we can get fully plugged in to the Chinese millennial zeitgeist,” he added.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

In the US, Starz network CEO Chris Albrecht is crying foul over the Emmy Awards, complaining they seem to simply not notice shows on his network. Albrecht voiced his complaints to writers at the Television Critics Association earlier this week saying that Starz attracted avid audiences from what he regarded as “underserved” viewers like women and African-Americans with high-quality series. But much to his exasperation, Emmy doesn’t notice. It seems that all is not a transparent as it might be at the TV Academy as Albrecht admits that he was once part of the team that invented how to campaign for Emmy awards and in his words: “Trust me, it’s not a level playing field. I spent years inside the TV Academy, working it. It took a lot of money, and there’s a certain momentum that goes along with that.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

No need to wait any longer – the “other shoe” has dropped, in Bangkok, where CTH has officially announced it will cease broadcasting on Sept. 1. The ups and downs of the company’s four-year history were chronicled by The Nation, which observed that the initial plan to modernize the provincial cable TV industry foundered on resistance from small cable operators. Competition from the government-favored digital terrestrial broadcasters was also a factor, says The Nation. Now the government is looking for ways to let the DTT operators off the hook for payments of the license fees they bid at auction. Sensing some largesse in the air, the provincial cable operators have chimed in – also looking for fee relief.(BTW, all these players (except the now-departed CTH) will be on the platform in CASBAA’s “Thailand in View” conference in September.)

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

As far as I know, Gartner has not updated their Hype Cycle for 2016 yet, so I’m not sure whether VR has moved further along their “slope of enlightenment” (up from the “trough of disappointment”, at any rate). But in the UK, Sky is getting seriously stuck in to VR, setting up Sky VR Studio in February to become “…pioneers in this space.” And while the gaming industry is also grappling with how to monetise VR offerings, there is still skepticism about whether the lack of content will make the technology look “…more like a demo than a full-fledged product.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Whiff of scandal in Vietnam: The Government Inspectorate has been told to “launch an urgent and complete inspection” of the circumstances surrounding mobile operator Mobifone’s acquisition of pay-TV operator AVG a few months ago. Could this be part of a political struggle? The Saigon Times reports that Mobifone’s announced plan to roll out television services to one new million customers this year “has been moving at a snail’s pace” since the acquisition.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Given the fame and important cultural role of Bollywood, the Indian content industry has more influence than its peers in other Asian countries. And so Indian courts have been relatively sympathetic to rights owners. Now the Delhi High Court has continued that trend, issuing a banning order against as many as 73 websites specializing in piracy of cricket content. Significantly the court found that banning specific URLs (the internet industry’s favorite remedy) was not an adequate measure to stop piracy. “Rogue websites….engage in rank piracy…and thus the stringent measure to block the website as a whole is justified.” Unfortunately, a Mumbai court came to the opposite conclusion in the same week, saying it would only authorize blocking of specific URLs. The legal battles will continue……

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

There’s a long-standing TV tradition of playing full-frame footage of a fireplace at Christmas time, and of course, because it’s the Internet, there are about a million variants out there online. But now, Netflix is introducing Slow TV, which takes the whole monotonous-programming thing to another level completely. The content comes from Norwegian broadcaster NRK 2, which has carved out a fjord-sized niche in the world of intentionally boring TV shows. I know what I’ll be watching this weekend: National Knitting Night, here I come!

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29 July, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending July 29th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Brought to you by:

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

With the Democratic and Republican party conventions running back-to-back, it’s been hard to avoid US presidential politics the past couple weeks. The two events really did provide numerous studies in contrasts, including their targets: “Clinton’s Convention Is Made for TV. Trumpf’s Was Made for Twitter.” However, Trump’s effort to extend his new media campaign by holding an “Ask Me Anything” session on reddit.com didn’t quite go to plan; answering just twelve of the sixteen thousand questions submitted left redditors palpably underwhelmed.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

We’ve heard for a long time that 4K TV (also known as UHD) is coming. In Japan this week, we learned that the key element of consumer ownership of 4K-capable TVs is gradually coming online, with a total of 15 million households expected to own 4K TVs within two years. Meanwhile, in the US satellite company SES has announced availability of four UHD channels for cable-TV operators. (Limited 4K services are already available through various IPTV and OTT operators.) Variety called the cable industry move only a good baby step forward, but SNL Kagan and Irdeto reported results of a study that cable operators believe consumers will pay for this content, and so interest is likely to grow. I got a chuckle that the initial list of channels in the SES package includes both NASA TV and Fashion TV. I guess both far views from space and close views of sequins and feathers look good in UHD!

Mark Lay

Vice President, Singapore

Twitter’s popularity has always been a bit on an enigma to me, along the lines of pierced tongues, sagging trousers and faith in government. In this one, I’m not alone (So, does anybody want Twitter?). The latest moves by them to enter the live sports arena are a bit perplexing as well (Twitter scores live-stream deals with MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL). Since they have lost the social media fight against Facebook, are they now
looking to take on ESPN. In 140 characters or less….”good luck.”

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

It’s taken some time for the new, elected government in Myanmar to get on its feet, but now things are moving with respect to broadcast licensing. The new broadcasting law passed in August 2015 provides for licensing new broadcast organizations (for free or pay-TV), and now the Ministry of Information says there will be more operators licensed in the coming months. The law was criticized by NGOs as not providing enough guarantees of media independence, and the Minister of Information, U Pe Myint, has said he supports further reform. (I’m really looking forward to meeting the Minister; he’s kindly accepted to speak at CASBAA’s conference on “Emerging Southeast Asian Markets,” coming up in December in Singapore.)

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

So Comic Con has come and gone for another year – and while attendance numbers for the San Diego event were reportedly down year on year, TV continued to dominate – while social media buzz increased with upcoming TV and films dominating the online discussion. Meanwhile, for a subjective look at the winners and losers across the TV and film spectrum, check out the review from THR’s Winners and Losers from the TV & Film panels.

Anjan Mitra

Executive Director, India

Online pirates beware! The Copyright Force is on its way if the Indian entertainment industry has its way and the government puts its might behind an industry proposal. Some of the major broadcasting companies, studios, Motion Pictures Association of America’s Indian chapter and TIPCU, an Indian version of the UK’s PIPCU have proposed an alliance to fight rampant online piracy of content. Industry feels present laws need to be tweaked to give it sharper legal teeth as the digital economy grows.

Christopher Slaughter

CEO

When there are too many dollars chasing too few goods, prices go up — that’s Economics 101. That’s also part of the way US networks managed to get more money out of agencies in this year’s upfronts. And while networks might be thrilled about double-digit CPM increases, agencies are understandably less thrilled about this year’s “ugly market”. And don’t pop the champagne over any perceived rebound from the digital ad-spend migration quite yet; although there are plenty of people calling b-s on online video, for very good reasons right now, the happy days are not likely to stick around forever… or even past next year..

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

Last week, we reported that Kim Dotcom was planning to re-start his (pirate?) Megaupload web business. This week, we see that he’s being hauled into court again – this time for a violation of the asset freeze imposed by an NZ court. Meanwhile, there’s another pirate in the news; the founder of Kickass Torrents was arrested in Poland on a warrant from the US authorities. (We’ll see if his extradition moves any faster than Dotcom’s.)

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

The Asia-Pacific pay-TV industry is expected to grow at a 5.8% average annual rate from 2016 to 2021, according to Media Partners Asia (MPA). The MPA projects pay-TV industry sales across 18 major markets in Asia Pacific to climb from $54 billion in 2016 to $72 billion by 2021, rising thereafter to $81 billion by 2025.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

The EU Commission finalized the consent settlement in its antitrust proceeding against Paramount, one of six Hollywood studios threatened with sanctions for using territorial licensing which prevents pan-EU viewers from accessing Britain’s Sky TV. Paramount had offered the settlement back in April, saying it would agree for five years not to enforce the territorial clauses in its current contracts, and not to sign any new such contracts. (The Hollywood Reporter theorized that Paramount could be motivated by wanting to remove the threat of EU fines that might have impeded sale of a significant minority stake, apparently to China’s Dalian Wanda Group.) The EU antitrust case is seen by many as a back-door attack on the whole concept of copyright territorial licensing, at least within Europe. European filmmakers reacted with outrage, saying the basis for financing European filmmaking would be destroyed by an end to territorial licensing. The cases against the other five studios remain pending; there’s no sign yet that any of the others could break ranks. And in the background, there’s the small matter that the UK may soon be no longer in the EU.

Kevin Jennings

Vice President, Programme

In the UK, Sky Sports has announced plans to upload Premier League goals and highlights onto social media, thanks to a new partnership with Twitter. Sky will show a selection of the key goals and moments from every Premier League game broadcast during the season. The clips will be posted on the @SkyFootball account, which already has almost 3 million followers. All of the clips will be available to Twitter users in the UK and Ireland who will be able to see video clips of key moments and goals from all games broadcast by Sky in real time via the SkyFootball Twitter account. It goes without saying that there will still be more to see if you are a Sky Sports customer: The Sky Sports Football Centre app will also carry full highlights of every Premier League and Football League match for Sky Sports TV subscribers.

John Medeiros

Chief Policy Officer

CASBAA has complained for years that the level of taxation of the DTH industry in India has been outrageously high. Now comes word that the government is going to reduce the licensing fee from 10 percent to 8 percent (and extend license duration to 20 years). Even if this reduction is not enough to level the playing field, it’s still a laudable step in the right direction!

Jane Buckthought

Advertising Consultant

Engaged viewers Couch Potatoes or? 57% of TV viewers in the US claim to regularly binge view content, according to new GfK MRI research. Millennials are among the most prolific bingers and more likely to say that TV has become more of a special event for them and that binge viewing makes them feel more connected to the shows they watch. Recent research from GfK in the UK finds 18 to 24 years old spend more time watching video content on laptops than any other device.. Nielsen’s first-quarter 2016 comparable metrics report, shows TV is still the preferred choice for overall viewing, with Live+DVR/time-shifted TV viewing accounts for 47% of the total average audience among adults 18+. And it seems viewers who multi-screen, those people that browse the internet, shop online, text and check social media while watching TV are more observant of advertising than average, according to research from YouGov Profiles in the UK.

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