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

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

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

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

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

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

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

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

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

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

Christopher Slaughter CEO

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

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

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

Christopher Slaughter CEO

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

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

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

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

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

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

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

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

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

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

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

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

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

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

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

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

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

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

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

Christopher Slaughter CEO

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

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Other tidbits this week:   

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

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

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

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

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

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme