10 April, 2015

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Apr 10th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

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John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	Representatives of the owners of the Oscar-winning 2013 film “Dallas Buyers Club” have launched a global campaign to enforce their copyrights against people downloading pirate copies. The first step was asking ISPs to hand over subscriber info about the IP addresses being used for the piracy. In Australia, the ever-unhelpful iiNet resisted (no surprise), and a judge this week ruled against the ISP and in favor of the copyright owners. In Singapore, a court ordered release of the data earlier this year – a decision that wasn’t publicized. But now the matter has hit the press; M1 and StarHub say they are complying and Singtel says they haven’t received an order from the court. This is an interesting and unusual case study; the major Hollywood studios have refrained from pursuing end-users in recent years, on the theory that suing your customers is not a wise choice. And the motives of those pursuing these actions have been heavily criticized, with the expression “copyright troll” frequently employed. So who benefits from actions like this? Trolls under bridges or legitimate actors, creators, and technicians trying to make a living… maybe both!
Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore	One of CASBAA’s 2020 members recently sent me this article Advertisers are supposedly paying insanely high rates to get their ads on Snapchat. Yes, Snapchat now has a video section, Snapchat Discover, that publishes videos and written stories for brands. The standout line in the article is “industry sources say advertisers are paying $100 CPMs — twice as much as most video ad products can command online”. These numbers are huge comparing them to Youtube rates, estimated to be between $1-$15 CPM. Maybe I’m not in the Snapchat demo, as I couldn’t seem to get any ads to play for me in MTV, CNN, NatGeo, Cosmo or Vice. Or maybe I’m too slow and the ads disappeared before I could get to them.
Kevin Jennings Programme Director	We are delighted to announce that CASBAA, along with The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) and UNICEF are once again inviting broadcasters and producers to submit entries to the Asia-Pacific Child Rights Award for Television 2015. Programmes both for and about children are eligible, and can cover any child rights issue. Entries must have been broadcast between June 2014 and May 2015 and must be received by 15 June 2015.
Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India	Even as TRAI wants to tame OTTs with licences and regulations, making India a focus of the Net Neutrality debate raging globally, various telcos are out to take advantage. While TRAI’s consultation paper on OTTs is still pending, a new package announced by one of India’s biggest telco, Bharti Airtel, has raised the hackles of people and analysts. A writer in a leading newspaper aptly asked: Will you have to pay for WhatsApp, YouTube? A Member of Parliament goes further to state any move by TRAI to regulate OTT services will hit PM Modi’s dream project, Digital India. Even as the battle heats up, Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a FB post on April 7, 2015 clarified: “‪#‎Internet… belongs to entire humanity and not to a few… A committee has been set up in Dept. of Telecom to look into ‪#‎NetNeutrality.”
Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant	We know watching in real-time allows you to avoid spoilers, as live TV has become a real-time social event that goes way beyond the confines of our living rooms. Research shows more than half of global respondents (53%) say they like to keep up with shows so they can join the conversation on social media, and nearly half (49%) say they watch live video programming more if it has a social media tie in. Forty-seven percent of global respondents say they engage with social media while watching video programming.
Sara Madera Director, Member Relations & Marketing	According to media reports the French media conglomerate Vivendi is looking at a possible acquisition of pay-TV group Sky, as one of several options to expand the reach of its own TV group Canal Plus. Any deal between Vivendi and Sky would bring together two powerful business personalities in Rupert Murdoch, whose Twenty-First Century Fox owns 39% of Sky, and Vivendi’s chairman and biggest shareholder, Vincent Bolloré. Sources said Vivendi is not thought to have yet made any approach to the boards and management of Sky or FOX.
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	Almost two years ago, CASBAA joined the Thai satellite TV industry in urging regulators at the NBTC to follow the example of the FCC in the USA, and allow all digital TV boxes to benefit from DTT conversion voucher subsidies. Instead, the NBTC chose to bestow this favor solely on DTT-only boxes – “hybrid” boxes which could receive both DTT and satellite (or cable) broadcasts were excluded. Now they’ve changed their mind, and consumers will be allowed to use their vouchers to buy hybrid satellite/DTT boxes, too. The NBTC admitted that take-up of the digital-only boxes has lagged – only half of the 8.3 million vouchers distributed thus far have actually been used. (No surprise — if I lived in upcountry Thailand, and was sitting pretty with nice clear satellite reception, you wouldn’t see me rushing to buy a different technology with questionable national coverage.)
Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore	Dish Chairman, Charlie Ergen, gave some interesting comments on their new OTT service in Sling TV: Fine Young Cannibal? Takeaways of note: “It will cannibalize our business, there’s no question about that. It’s an innovator’s dilemma. Do you not take…the best of new technology to protect your old technology?” and “there’s going to be a ton of competitors coming, and there’s going to be different segments”. Still on Dish, “DISH’s over-the-top (OTT) service will offer both live linear and VOD content from HBO—differentiating it from Apple TV”. Of course how these content deals are stuctured is private, but Ad Age suggests that TV networks put subscriber caps on skinny bundles and streaming video services.
Kevin Jennings Programme Director	The number of pay-TV subscribers in the US fell for the first time in 2013, according to the latest FCC report on the TV market. The total fell to 100.9 million households at the end of 2013 from 101.0 million a year earlier. According to the FCC report, the drop was due entirely to cable operators, which saw their base decrease by 2 million in the year to 54.4 million while customers accessing TV over telecom networks rose to 11.3 million from 9.9 million at the end of 2012.
Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant	Nothing in advertising has generated more buzz in recent months than programmatic buying. Buying ad inventory more efficiently by applying rules to technology-enabled, automated purchases has marketers salivating. And they’re putting their money where their mouths are, with some of the world’s largest advertisers reportedly planning to shift as much as 75% of their digital spend to programmatic buying over the next year. Lets hope it can cope with the issues raised by another report: “When the Energy Level in the Commercial Conflicts with the Media Context“, did it just get a lot more complicated ?
Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore	A bit confused about OTT? These stories should clear things up. Pay-TV Providers Need To Embrace OTT Technology. Great, I want to embrace it now. Hang on, what’s this… Moody’s urges investors to stick with cable despite OTT rush. OK, if Moody’s says no rush, what’s the big deal, I’ll stick with the core linear business. But, wait a minute…Pay-TV to inch upwards while OTT rockets over next five years. ARRG!!!! I’m glad that I could help set things straight for you.