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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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| CASBAA members Media Partners Asia are releasing their latest forecast for online video in Asia, predicting the market size will triple by 2022 to reach a total of US$46 billion in value, of which, as much as 75% of that coming from China. The report also highlights the strengths of local OTT services over foreign rivals like Netflix; while also pointing to YouTube and Facebook as the biggest advertising drivers in the space. |
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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| A number of other interesting stories in OTT land this week. HBO will make all eight episodes of Insecure season one available for free on its YouTube channel the same day that season two is slated to premiere on HBO. A new research report shows that SVOD gaining perceptual parity with legacy pay-TV and that linear to SVOD viewing really is a generational play. And to finish off an insight from David Bloom: In The Digital Future, What Do Studios Look Like (If Anything At All)? For more OTT related stories visit CASBAA OTT Group Newsfeed. |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| Ah, we all hate reruns. But this week the digerati were captivated by an Internet-wide rerun: a reprise of the 2014 debate over Net Neutrality. There was a “Day of Action” on Wednesday which – if you believe its promoters – was Yuge! Everybody who was anybody on the net weighed in. No surprise of course that Goobook was all in favor. Even that dreaded demon, a telco, tried to get in on the action, as AT&T announced it was for NN, too….but not for the Wheeler FCC’s “regulate everything under Title II” approach. If you want to understand both sides of the argument, you can see Google’s official spin here (note the “free and open Internet” mantra), and that of the South Dakota Senator who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, who says over-regulation risks killing investment in his rural state. Variety points out the similarities of the Day of Action with the campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which died in 2012 after the “free and open internet” crowd alleged stronger antipiracy enforcement would “break the internet.” |
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President
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| The anti-Qatar alliance has launched a fresh attack on the Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera Arabic, accusing it of having “blood on its hands”, inciting hate, violence and discrimination as well as anti-Semitism. The UAE minister responsible for media regulation said that al Jazeera the has given a platform to “some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world” and needed to be subject to new and externally-monitored editorial controls. The remarks about the need for new editorial controls confirm previous UAE statements that the total closure of the TV station is no longer being sought, but instead would be subject to what would amount to a severe anti-Qatari alliance censorship. Al Jazeera for it’s part has said that via video any call for closing down or obstructing access to their channels is an attempt to silence freedom of expression. |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| Clashes continue between Big Internet and various governments. The Vietnamese government said Facebook and Youtube had taken down 3,000 videos with “bad content.” No news this week from Bangkok, after the Thai government hit the brakes on its regulator’s drive to get Youtube and Facebook under control. In Germany, the parliament advanced a law that would provide major fines for social media companies that fail to delete hate speech promptly. Meanwhile, Twitter decided not to pick a fight with The Donald, and said his tweets don’t violate their standards. |
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Cathryn Chase
Regulatory Assistant
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| A lawmaker in the Philippines has put forward a new bill that would extend the National Telecommunications Commission’s (NTC) authority to regulate telecommunication service providers. The bill is seen as a means to increase internet and broadband service standards across the Philippines, which currently provides the slowest internet speeds of any country in the Asia Pacific Region. Under existing law, the NTC has little power to enforce more than the bare minimum for service standards, and is liable to civil lawsuits from uncompliant service providers. The proposed bill seeks to amend the current policy act by allowing regulators to use financial penalties as an enforcement mechanism. Daily fines could then be imposed on service providers who fail to improve connection speeds by NTC-set deadlines. The amendment would also grant the NTC immunity from the aforementioned civil lawsuits. We’ll be exploring these issues, and many others, in CASBAA’s Philippines in View conference in Manila, on August 30. |
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President
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| Korea’s KT and its affiliate KT SkyLife have launched an upgraded satellite TV service for cars, combining satellite broadcasting and long-term evolution (LTE) mobile network technologies. The two companies have jointly developed technologies to realize the smooth shift between LTE mobile and satellite networks as well as a smaller satellite antenna. The new service is expected to gain extra momentum on the back of autonomous cars and the companies have pledged to target not only Korea but also global markets, especially those countries with nationwide LTE infrastructure. |
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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| Nominations for the 69th Primtime Emmy Awards are out; as expected, the list is huge. It’s also apparently proof that people who work in TV have very little time to actually watch TV, and as a result, the list seems to be favoring buzz over critical acclaim. Which has led to a series of surprising nominations, including, as always, some notable snubs. The final awards will be given out on 17 September, so feel free to spend the summer brooding over the list. |
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President
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| After becoming YouTube’s first video to reach one billion views, PSY’s “Gangnam Style” is no longer the platform’s most popular video. That honour ow goes to Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” a song that debuted with the release of Furious 7 as an ode to actor Paul Walker, who died in 2013. “Gangnam Style” held the top spot for nearly five years and the song’s video has been viewed over 2.8 billion times. “See You Again” is currently leading in the race to 3 billion views. No word on whether it’s 3 billion individual people or the same person watching it again and again and again…or not. |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| I know, I know…..we’re all supposed to love videos. But, to tell the truth I HATE HATE HATE autoroll videos on websites and it seems my impression is correct: there are more and more of them. So I agree with this author: they are a revolting experience. |
