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Kevin Jennings
Vice President
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| One last reminder regarding the CASBAA Taiwan in View one day conference being held at the Mandarin Oriental next Thursday June 22nd in Taipei. A great line-up of speakers will discuss some of the hot button topics that matter to the industry and the event offers an opportunity to network and rub shoulders with leading players. View the programme here and register now to avoid paying “walk-in” rates on the day. |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| Piracy consumers are unhappy. They are having growing difficulties stealing from us. My heart bleeds for them. The cause for all the Sturm und Drang is the apparent closure of the “TVAddons” support network for Kodi piracy. (Kodi software is generic; the addons are needed to access pirate web transmissions.) TorrentFreak says TVAddons had – get this – 40 million UNIQUE users in March alone. That’s a lot of unhappy pirates. There was much commentary in the UK (where Kodi piracy is more popular than here in Asia). One other Kodi Addon developer announced a couple of weeks ago he was closing his operation, as “their software has become “overrun” with illegal adverts and hidden adult content.” I’m shocked, shocked. |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| A major new alliance of global content owners has been formed to fight piracy. We’re enthusiastic – the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment includes a large number of our members as well as major new digital media companies, like Netflix and Amazon. Variety found addition of digital media players to be making “strange bedfellows” – I think there’s nothing strange about it at all; it’s a natural expression of their shared fundamental interests. |
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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| In this new age of short-form video, social networks as publishers, VOD and targeted programatic ads, there is a ton of exciting innovation and exploration happening. A number of stories this week explore some of these innovations. Musical.ly, the lip-syncing social video app popular among teen girls has inked deals with Viacom, NBCUniversal and Hearst Magazines Digital Media for short original series aimed at Musical.ly’s Gen Z audience. See How Turner trained 500 employees to sell brand social videos globally. And to conclude there is a well thought out piece looking at Why Social Networks are Pushing Live Video So Hard? My fave line, “the strong arm shove into pushing us all to go live and to spam us any time from any of our friends makes for an experience that doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.” |
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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| For Your Consideration: it’s that time again, with Emmy balloting underway this week. Which means that no matter what trade publication or website you visit, it’s going to be papered in promos for various of the 9000 plus contenders — of whom, this year, there are more than 400 in the “Performers” category alone! (But hey, at least they’re in alphabetical order.) The first round of voting will carry on for two weeks, so expect a lot more promotional stunts before we find out whether HBO will lead the nominations for the 17th year in a row, among other burning questions. The final list of nominees will be released on July 13, and then the REAL fun begins. |
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Cathryn Chase
Regulatory Assistant
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| Earlier this week, Line announced its plan to launch its mobile service, Line Mobile, in Thailand. The new service would offer a range of mobile packages, and would allow customers to dispense with the data usage fees for the IM, call and video services that Line already offers. Mainly, it aims to provide users with a convenient, low-cost mobile service option. But the launch is not going as smoothly as planned… Line has been summoned to a meeting by the NBTC to determine whether it will require a mobile service provider license — which it currently lacks — before it can introduce its new mobile service. The decision will depend on whether the NBTC classifies Line Mobile as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), or as a complementary package from its network provider, Total Access Communication (DTAC). If the NBTC declares Line Mobile to be a MVNO, it will have to obtain the necessary license before it can commence its operations. An official decision is expected to be announced next Tuesday, but comments from NBTC secretary-general, Takorn Tatansith, suggest the company’s launch plans are likely to be delayed. |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| Facebook is being regularly cited as a “problem” in Bangkok these days. The authorities seem determined to get some sort of control over illegal content spread on Facebook and other social media platforms. Facebook says it decides if it considers posted content unlawful, when it receives a request from a government (as long as the request is in English, with all the boxes checked). Ah, but the Thai government thinks IT is entitled to decide what is unlawful in Thailand, and it communicates in the Thai language. (Guess that’s news to the boys in Silicon Valley. Maybe they’re better at Spanish.) So there is clearly a bit of a rub there. And the chief Thai regulator says he knows how to get their attention – go after their money. “I will not touch the service; I will touch the way you make money,” he said in an interview. “I think they will cooperate because they make a lot of money from Thailand.” |
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President
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The latest figures released by Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) for mobile
3G & 4G subscribers shows that Pakistan now has over 40 million users.The PTA data indicates that almost 30% of mobile phone users are now internet users and anecdotal evidence suggests majority of the people are using internet to share video clips on WhatsApp and visit YouTube. The second highest usage of mobile internet is watching drama serials, mostly by women. The regulatory authority for Telecom sectors had earlier said it is planning to test 5G internet in Pakistan by 2020 with an initial phase of the project already underway in advance of the spectrum awards and licencing. |
