Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending May 22th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!
Brought to you by:
 |
Regular rates end today for the CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum which will be held in Singapore at the Grand Hyatt on Monday 1st June. Limited space is available so book your place now to take advantage of these rates. View the programme here |
Christopher SlaughterCEO |
Music service Spotify has given more details about its plans to stream video. Last week’s announcement wasn’t exactly universally applauded, but with partnerships already in place with Comedy Central, Vice News, NBC, ABC, ESPN, and MTV, there’s no doubt that it’s entering an already-competitive market with a clear value proposition. Undoubtedly, its video aspirations were part of the pitch during its recent fund-raising efforts; earlier this month, CNBC reported that Spotify raised US$350 million from a variety of sources including Goldman Sachs.
Meanwhile, the LA Screenings are wrapping up this week, and streaming video rights have been the talk of the town, with international buyers focused on SVOD at each of the studio sessions. Likewise, while many of the overseas buyers have been all about drama, not comedy, a lot of the top shows from the upfronts have been getting the love in LA, too. |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
Major brand advertisers are still making a big contribution to funding online piracy, according to the US-based group called the Digital Citizens Alliance. A year ago, the DCA issued a report entitled “Good Money Gone Bad”, which estimated ad support for piracy sites at US$227 million. Now there’s a follow up “Good Money is Still Going Bad”, which found that after a year of “massive turnover in the (piracy) industry that included the shuttering or de-grading of some of the largest sites,” piracy sites in the USA earned nearly the same ad revenues in 2014 as in the previous year. “Ad revenue is the oxygen that allows content theft to breathe,” concludes the DCA. One blogger asked “Why do ads for reputable companies continue to wind up on sites promoting illegal activity? Because the online ad system remains easy for savvy site operators to game.” Another commentary noted the risks to consumers themselves, from the malware embedded in the ads (and the sites themselves). |
Christopher SlaughterCEO |
Sharing is caring: apparently, something along the lines of one out of ten US viewers of online video services are using someone else’s password. As you might imagine, the number is even higher among millennials, indicating that the younger you are, the more likely you are to share your password. |
Mark LayVice President, Singapore |
The lines between hardware manufacturer and media owner/distributor have blurred numerous times over the recent past. Sony, Apple and Amazon all come to mind. One of CASBAA’s newest members has made the news this week with a few very interesting stories along these lines. “Letv isn’t a smartphone company. It’s an Internet video company. The phones are a way of delivering video”, the Netflix of China is invading the United States with smartphones. And then, “LeTV Sports, an affiliate of online video portal and smart TV maker LeTV, has raised US$128 million in series A funding”: Alibaba founder Jack Ma leads $128M investment in live-streaming sports site. It seems that the market likes their hardware too as, Don’t blink or you’ll miss it: LeTV One Pro sells out in one second. That’s quicker than a Stones concert!! |
Kevin JenningsProgramme Director |
The tech world is full of “disruptors,” and never was this more true in the realm of TV and video. The disruptors are so disruptive we now have newer disrupters like Vessel and Dish’s Sling TV aiming to disrupt the existing disrupters. Now everything new is old and in many cases disruptors are just emulating proven strategic business plans put in place by the incumbent broadcasters. |
Anjan MitraExecutive Director, India |
Will Indian MSOs go the Comcast way? Interesting question. When Comcast admitted it has more broadband subscribers than cable customers, it pointed to the future trend of Internet’s power of delivery. Though the Indian government in an ambitious project relating to PM Modi’s Digital India vision has proposed to rope in cable operators for the delivery of broadband services, it seems cable TV still remains a major attraction than broadband services. Various MSOs do offer high-speed broadband services in some pockets, but the base dwarfs in front of cable TV subs. May be the Indian market has its own quirky trends unlike the US or other developed markets in the West and APAC. |
Jane BuckthoughtAdvertising Consultant |
There’s plenty of talk about Twitter, but there are plenty of competitors out there. Social media report from GlobalWebIndex (GWI) suggests that YouTube is still the ‘coolest’ social platform for teens aged 16 to 19. |
Christopher SlaughterCEO |
David Letterman had his last show on Wednesday, ending a 30-plus-year run on late-night TV, and almost-but-probably-not-quite bringing to a close a seemingly endless parade of homages in recent weeks, many of which we’ve already linked to. There’s more than a twinge of nostalgia, largely because for many Americans of a certain age, the arc of Letterman’s career parallels our own progress from adolescence to encroaching senescence. From his start as a local weatherman in Indianapolis, followed by a brief but quietly disastrous daytime talk show (I remember watching a bit about cleaning bathtub stains with Tipp-Ex), late night is where Dave eventually became Dave. Writers and producers and guests and ratings have come and gone, competitors have waxed and waned and waxed again, but Letterman has left his mark. |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
It’s been a bad year for The Pirate Bay, which bemoaned back in February that the pirate site was having to jump from one hosting provider to another, because hosts were unwilling to host a bunch of convicted felons doing illegal business. Now they’re having to do the same thing for their domain names, as a Swedish court ordered that country’s domain name administrator to stop claiming “we’re just a pipe” and cease providing .se domain names for The Pirate Bay. Ah, but the ingenuity of the pirates knows no bounds (hey, isn’t that what “innovation” on the web is all about?) and they’ve lined up alternate domains, in places like Grenada, Armenia, South Georgia, the British Virgin Islands – and two countries in our little patch of the earth, Laos and Mongolia. Stay tuned for the next chapter….. |
Mark LayVice President, Singapore |
An ancient Sanskrit treatise on statecraft first suggested that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is playing out in the modern world of TV advertising where broadcast, cable networks join together in single group to promote TV advertising. And why wouldn’t they want to hold onto those ad dollars “because TV remains the most lucrative advertising medium out there”. Four ways YouTube and Netflix will transform television suggests that in the new world of TV, “viewers will see fewer ads and the ads won’t look the same”. Now, how for broadcast and cable to keep their friends close and their enemies closer? |
Kevin JenningsProgramme Director |
Might cord cutters represent those with more discerning taste when it comes to programming? If Amazon’s latest move is any indication, this may very well be the case. The company has dropped several reality TV programs from its latest licensing deal with Viacom for its Instant Video platform, including Mob Wives and Teen Mom, reports Bloomberg. |
Anjan MitraExecutive Director, India |
As Net Neutrality and OTT debate rages on in India with the Telecoms Ministry still grappling to take a political stand on the issues (separately, regulator TRAI’s recommendations also awaited), Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg is trying to firewall against getting singed by public outcry, mostly shrill, in India. FB’s Internet.org, which offers subsidised access to certain Internet services including Facebook, if the consumer is on partner telco’s network, has been targeted for breaching all Net Neutrality ethics. Hectic corporate lobbying is being reportedly done by Zuckerberg so as the Indian outcry doesn’t stunt similar experiments in other countries. While on the subject, interestingly, DTH player Videocon D2h has flayed broadcasters for peddling OTT services for short term gains. Didn’t we say dance of democracy makes India a market of contrasting opinions and consensus is difficult to arrive? |
John MedeirosChief Policy Officer |
Thailand’s NBTC has come in for lots of criticism for its administration of the rules on digital terrestrial television. This week, the Nation Media Group (NMG) announced it was suing the NBTC for turning a blind eyeto a licensed digital broadcaster’s hostile acquisition of a large block of NMG shares. That decision was taken by a split vote at NBTC, and one recent commentary noted that divisions among the Commissioners have led to the Secretary-General and permanent staff taking a bigger role in driving policies forward. Meanwhile the NBTC’s administration of its subsidies for digital STBs was ripped by the makers and distributors of the boxes, who decry slow payments to them while the NBTC is wrapped up in political accusations of mismanaging funds and oversight by audit bodies. |