Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending July 11th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
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Christopher SlaughterCEO |
Not much of a soccer football fan, me, but then again, it is the World Cup, and one sort of has to get into the spirit of the thing. Germany’s staggering defeat of Brazil was certainly historic, and partly due to ESPN’s social media team, it became the single most-Tweeted sporting event ever. And if you didn’t see the very funny beer ad (from Germany, of course), you should. But also worth watching again is John Oliver’s rant about FIFA on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight”.
Oh, and speaking of ESPN, CEO John Skipper did an interview with Bloomberg about the event’s success in the US, which of course, has not traditionally been much of a soccer football nation. |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
In India, everybody has been making suggestions for stuff that should be in the new government’s budget. There are two that I’ve particularly liked. This one looks at making the cable TV industry a real partner in rolling out broadband infrastructure. (After all there are 100 million cable homes in India, and only 56 million with a fixed-line telephone – largely because the latter was the responsibility of state-owned telecom monopolies, and the former relied wholly on private entrepreneurship.) And this second one suggests that satellite can play a big role, too – especially if private capital could be mobilized by opening the skies |
Michael SteelRegulatory Assistant |
In case anybody missed it, there was a significant piracy bust in India late last month: And CASBAA congratulated the Indian police on their work. |
Godfrey ChanMarketing & Member Relations Executive |
The internet TV scene in China has suddenly become the focus of official attention, with a series of rules issued by the SAPPRFT regulators. The rules included provisions designed to protect the OTT economy from pirated content, and they were followed by a lawsuit against the big equipment manufacturer Xiaomi, whose streaming media set-top boxes are often sold equipped for full-on piracy. The suit, by Shenzhen content producer LeTV, ended in a court order that Xiaomi had to take action to stop the streaming of LeTV’s films on its boxes. |
Desmond ChungAssociate Director, PR & Communications |
Half empty or half full? On the one hand, according to the latest Multiscreen Index, the growth of pay television continues as providers embrace multiscreen services to offer subscribers more viewing options. On the other hand, at least in the United States, data from a recent telecom survey shows consumers feel overcharged and overwhelmed by their TV providers. So, is this a case of the squeaky wheel getting the news coverage? |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
One final word on the Aereo decision in the USA. Everybody has been analyzing the legal fine points, but how much do legal fine points matter, in a region where laws are frequently flouted with impunity? An analyst at Olswang said it well: “Whichever way one looks at Aereo, it did at least go to great cost and expense to try to position itself as being within the boundaries of copyright laws. In some Asian countries, by contrast, there are more plainly illegitimate services that don’t even go to those lengths, relying instead on weaknesses in the intellectual property enforcement regime to survive… in those countries, we will continue to see illegitimate cloud TV services enjoying successes and, by doing so, discouraging legitimate services from launching.” |
Anjan MitraExecutive Director, India |
“Delays (in processes) stand deleted,” India’s new MIB Minister Prakash Javadekar refreshingly told media industry CEOs in New Delhi recently. A sceptical industry was surprised when MIB last week ironed out a pending wrinkle relating to cumbersome security clearances from Ministry of Home Affairs for non-Indian directors of TV channels. Signs of openness also reflected when Minister Javadekar told Parliament two days back terrestrial broadcasting may be thrown open to private sector players too. |
Sara MaderaDirector, Member Relations & Marketing |
Read about new topics of interest to the industry from the perspective of our CASBAA 2020 members. This month’s featured post: Los Angeles Screenings 2014. Please leave a comment and let us know what you think! |
Christopher SlaughterCEO |
Just always interesting, in a behind-the-scenes sort of way: the VFX created by Makevision for Game of Thrones Season 4. |
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