13 December, 2013

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Dec 13th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO	What we used to call an “article” is — in these Twitterifying times — now referred to as a “long read”… as in “tl”. But if you have the attention span, The New Republic recently accused Netflix of waging a war on mass culture. Despite the slightly breathless headline, it’s a fairly thoughtful piece, and author Tim Wu (a professor at Columbia Law School, focusing on media) manages to work in references to Nabokov, Steinbeck… and “I Love Lucy.”
Jill Grinda Executive Vice President	Few have been able to put a price tag on the cost to the industry of a la carte programming, but Needham & Co. media analyst Laura Martin took a stab at it in her study. The report based on the US market finds that a la carte TV pricing would cost the industry billions of dollars.
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	UK Police have been working hand-in-hand with creative industry reps to address the problem of pirate websites using piracy to drain the life force out of content creation. D’ya think we could get some Asian police forces interested in being so pro-active?
Christopher Slaughter CEO	Get ready: delivering more content digitally is going to cost a LOT more. ESPN’s Kelly Cooke, the co-chair of CASBAA’s OTT Committee, pointed out this article on recent predictions from PwC that digital content will account for 87% of new spending at media companies over the next five years.
Sara Madera Director, Member Relations & Marketing	Discovery Communications is looking to rewrite the script with Scripps with reports emerging of a bid in the US for non-fiction television specialist Scripps Networks Interactive.
Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant	From great expectations to managing our expectations, GroupM has downgraded its 2014 ad-spend forecast from 5.1 per cent growth initially projected back in August to 4.6 per cent due to persistent economic sluggishness in a number of markets. China remains the largest single source of ad spending growth, accounting for 37 percent of new dollars in 2013 and a projected 31 percent in 2014.
Desmond Chung Associate Director, PR & Communications	My dream of a speedy daily commute is evaporating in front of my eyes. With a 133% surge in mobile and tablet video views in the past year, I can only assume the number of slow walking, and totally-oblivious-to-the-fact-that-there-are-other-people-in-the-world pedestrians is only going to increase!