Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Facebook is swallowing everything. That looks like a click-bait headline, but it is the rather daunting premise of Columbia Journalism School professor Emily Bell, who says “…social media hasn’t just swallowed journalism, it has swallowed everything… political campaigns, banking systems, personal histories, the leisure industry, retail, even government and security.” In case you wondered, Bell doesn’t think that’s exactly a GOOD thing; she also calls Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon the “four horsemen of the Apocalypse (five if you add in Microsoft)”.
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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So after all the filibustering and misdirection and populist posturing, the Hong Kong Government has yanked the Copyright Bill from consideration by the Legislative Council. They ended the deadlock about this time last week (just as we sent out our last edition of News Views). CASBAA alumnus Hugh Stephens (now in Canada) looked back to HK in his copyright blog, and warned against “a push to adopt loosely defined and contentious “fair use” provisions that would require extensive litigation to interpret and codify,” which was a big part of the HK debate. On our part, many of you will have seen what we really think about the whole thing; basically, we won’t be holding our breath for the HK legislation to come back again in the charged political environment here, but meantime, we’ll be watching (and in some cases working towards) legal reform in other Asian jurisdictions. Watch this space.
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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Does your job include planning for your company’s future? If so, you need to READ THIS ARTICLE, After TV: Video’s Future will be bigger, More Diverse & Precarious Than It’s Past. Better top up your coffee first, it’s in-depth.
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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So, for those who like to see the bits (of programming) that Asian censors try to block, here’s the link to the “gay love” series that the Chinese censors have ordered off the net , with English subtitles. (I hope Youtube is sharing the ad revenue with the creators…..) Frankly, it’s pretty tame – the juicy bits that Singapore’s censors cut from “Game of Thrones” are a lot better. But the mainland’s censors are pretty catholic (small “c”) in their cutting. Aussie broadcaster SBS carried a blog noting that “the scope of the censorship extends to…witchcraft, reincarnation, smoking, drinking…underage love… and “scenes which expose the methods adopted by detectives and show in detail how they crack cases.” Says SBS’s commentator: “By these standards, it is unclear if the Chinese equivalent of Sesame Street, Zhima Jie: Da Niao Kan Shijie, would even pass the test.” And Indonesian netizens are worried the KPI censors could go after Donald Duck; after all “Donal Bebek” doesn’t wear any pants…..
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Ad technology company TubeMogul is playing David to Google’s digital advertising Goliath, launching a campaign to highlight what it calls the search behemoth’s “conflicts of interest,” “misaligned business incentives,” and “walled garden” approach to online ads. Basically, the campaign is calling out how Google uses its clout to force brands to buy ads using Google’s technology and rules, whether they like it or not. As you might imagine, there’s no love lost between the two companies, since Google cut off third parties from buying YouTube ads directly via its DoubleClick Ad Exchange last summer.
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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“Most consumers should buy back their time, they should go get a DVR, they should ad-block, they should add avoid”, says Fox advertising executive, Joe Marchese. The link is to a video from Code/Media 2016 that everyone in the TV space should appreciate. “Either advertising, as a market, fixes itself or there will be no ads.” “We are heading towards this fork in the road where quality content can’t survive on advertising…there is just no argument that argues otherwise.” The question begs, how do YOUR viewers value THEIR time?
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Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
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As Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) muscles into media with a $20 billion bet on TV, telecom, India waits with bated breath at the array and quality of service because lot of bundling of services is going to happen. On the other hand, younger brother Anil Ambani is slowly attempting to get out of media sector. Speculations abound there may be a new round of corporate war between the brothers, but insiders in both companies say otherwise. Makes sense as few can take on the money and political power exuded by RIL.
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
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Netflix appears to be taking a more aggressive stand against VPN’s which in turn has led to support for an online petition demanding that Netflix change the blocking policy. Meanwhile a new survey reveals that the VPN blocker may lead to more piracy. Netflix is dependent on studios and networks for much of its streamed content and the VPN crackdown is a way to show Hollywood studios that they respect the regional licensing agreements. Meanwhile VPN services say they have massive user bases, in a few cases specifically for accessing Netflix with some VPN services already claiming that they have found a tech fix to get around Netflix’s block.
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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The CASBAA 2020 eSports session at the recent OTT Summit was extremely eye-opening for the majority in the audience. For those who missed it, or want to learn more, The Complicated Past (And Future) Of esports on TV does the subject justice. “Investing in esports may be a way to stave off television’s slow death, attracting viewers who may have previously dismissed the medium.” “For television, the math is simple. Networks are losing viewers to the Internet, especially among younger demographics. The esports demographic skews young and male, with only 28 percent over the age of 35, a key to advertisers looking to build lasting brand identity.”
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Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
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Finally the government admits it: that ongoing cable digitisation is benefitting all. The Economic Survey, a government report released late February, states that both the State and federal governments have gained with digital rollout in the form of higher tax collection owing to increasing transparency in the system. MIB also informed Parliament recently that digitisation had been completed in 18 states and Union Territories and nearing completion in seven other. Now, for the final push in Phase IV.
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Jane Buckthought
Advertising Consultant
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The number of paying IPTV subscribers in the Asia Pacific region overtook paying satellite TV ones in 2015, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. While in the USA, Connected TV reaches more than half of broadband homes however will viewing patterns change? According to a new report Non-linear viewing of content is set to continue to grow over the next three years, but it is not as likely to cannibalise linear TV viewing as in recent years, according to new research.
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