20 September, 2013

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Sept 20th. Curated by CASBAA’s staff, News Views carries on in the tradition of Market Watch to keep you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO	It’s not exactly news to anyone that there is piracy online… but now there is hard data showing the problem is growing. NBCU recently commissioned NetNames to look at Internet traffic in Asia, Europe, and North America, and gauge the amount of bandwidth used to illegally transfer copyrighted materials. Their results: 24% of all Internet traffic is piracy, and the volume of that traffic has increased 160% since 2011. The NetNames study covers a lot of ground, with more highlights covered in their YouTube presentation.
Jill Grinda Executive Vice President	You may recall the story last week about a research paper from an Australian academic claiming the ineffectiveness of the ‘three strikes’ or graduated response laws designed to reduce Internet-based copyright infringement. This story provoked some discussion amongst CASBAA Members and readers may be interested to peruse comments about the soundness of the research here.
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	Ohhhhhh…this man is smart! The CEO of TVNZ has a very jaundiced view of the attractiveness of regulation to competitors in the TV industry. “My experience is that whilst at times it may be attractive for some parties to seek regulation,” he told Fairfax NZ, “there are invariably unintended consequences. My strong preference would be to have open competition in the marketplace.”
Desmond Chung Associate Director, PR & Communications	Is it dead? Is it alive? Is it back? Was it abducted by aliens? Befitting the plot of the juiciest potboiler, the death of linear television startups has been greatly exaggerated it appears. But still, in the best All About Eve analogy, while Margo Channing (linear TV) is still enjoying the limelight, she better watch out for that scheming Eve Harrington (OTT/broadband) waiting in the wings!
Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant	Sales of phablets in Asia doubled during the second quarter of 2013 and they now stand at the same level as tablets and laptops combined, new research has shown. Latest figures from the International Data Corporation (IDC) revealed that device vendors shipped 25.2m phablets in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) during Q2 2013, compared with 12.6m tablets, and 12.7m portable PCs. This represented a 100% increase on the first quarter and a 620% leap on the second quarter of 2012.
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	Down Under, pay-TV Association ASTRA observes that “There was little discussion of broadcasting policy during the election campaign, so we wait to see the Coalition’s intentions for broadcasting policy reform.” We’re waiting too. Anyway, it is NEVER good news to have broadcasting policy hashed over by politicians during election campaigns — it makes for lousy hash, indeed. Just look at Taiwan’s cable rates, which are regularly the subject of electoral campaigning, with irrational and destructive results!
Christopher Slaughter CEO	We’ve been talking a lot about “millenials” lately, the generation of young people born after about 1980, and their disruptive effect on the TV industry. A little more than a month ago, Participant Media launched pivot, its network targeted specifically at millenials. There’s a slightly snarky tone in some of the reporting on the network, while other critics are just plain bitchy, but pivot CEO Evan Shapiro made good points in a recent appearance on Bloomberg TV. Meanwhile, Fox has just launched its own channel FXX to target millenials, but it’s a bit too early to say how it’s been received. Possibly because most critics aren’t really part of the demographic…?
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	According to the Strategy Analytics consulting firm, “the most successful online TV subscription services will come from pay-TV service providers leveraging existing content rights and broadcaster relationships…” That’s certainly consistent with what we’ve seen in Asia so far. Last year, the CASBAA/Olswang “Digital Legal and Anywhere (DLA)” study of OTT in Singapore found platform-provider services (sometimes co-branded with content providers) proliferating there, with no sign (yet) of dynamic new third-party aggregators really taking market share. That is, if you don’t count the pirates…..