23 August, 2013

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Aug 23rd. 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	More reports about Apple’s aspirations in the TV sector: is it trying to become an online-only pay TV operator, or would it prefer to be a smart TV manufacturer? Meanwhile, although music videos have all but disappeared from TV and are flourishing online, one area where traditional broadcasting maintains a seemingly unassailable advantage is live events. Sports, breaking news, competition shows… all are compelling reasons for audiences to continue their pay TV subscriptions. But if a company with significant market clout or money (like Apple or Netflix) could get the deals right, could live events online lead to significant cord-cutting?
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	Seriously? Yes, seriously… We think of our industry as providing entertainment, but a lot of our customers see it as an integral and indispensable part of their lives. This news report highlights a US consumer who called the “911” police emergency line when her TV signal went out. Two years ago in the Philippines, a satellite outage brought death threats to hapless cable TV operators (who couldn’t do anything themselves to restore services). And in Australia, every time people can’t get their footy there are rumblings of regime change…
Jill Grinda Executive Vice President	Shaking up the the VOD market Down Under it looks like the year of the IPTV services in Australia. With Foxtel Play launching recently, the Australian market becomes even more crowded with the launch of another OTT VOD service – Ezyflix. The service will compete with Quickflix, Telstra and Foxtel among others.
Christopher Slaughter CEO	Coming from the production side of the business, I’ve always been a sucker for a well-organised studio set-up. Which is why Gizmodo’s visit to the “wildly functional studio” of indie doc-maker Casey Neistat was great fun for me. But while Neistat’s OCD-meets-DIY motif is certainly a thing, Bloomberg recently toured Google’s 41,000-square-foot YouTube Space in L.A., which cost around US$25 million to build. Somewhere in between those two extremes is Maker Studios’ production space, which is also designed for online video production — only now those videos won’t be on YouTube, they’ll be on Blip.tv.
Sara Madera Director, Member Relations & Marketing	Too rich? Too thin? Never! But too much good TV???? According to a NY Times article, there is a glut of great television out there that isn’t being viewed, so market economics should be applied. Offenders like Shonda Rhimes should be paid to not produce addictive new shows, just as farmers in the 1930s were when there was a surplus of goods. Really? Fresh produce rots but great TV lasts forever!
Desmond Chung Associate Director, PR & Communications	How dishy! According to a new report, the number of pay satellite TV (DBS or DTH) homes will reach 251 million by 2018, up from 178 million at end-2012 and 103 million at end-2008, spearheaded by growth in India. This truly brings new meaning to “fly the friendly skies”, at least for TVs that is!
Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant	Group M published its latest ad expenditure report This Year, Next Year and have revised its forecasts to a 3.4% increase in global ad spend. The top growth areas in 2013 are expected to be Latin America (+8.6%), Asia Pacific (+7.2%) and Central & Eastern Europe (+7.2%), with China and Russia as highlighted as hot spots.
Godfrey Chan Member Relations & Marketing Executive	What is first on the list when kids first move out of the nest? Party all night long: check; Eat take-away every night: check; stay up late: check. And– according to a recent research report, Millennials prefer OTT over legacy pay-TV. Subscribe to online video service and dump the incumbent set-top box: check.
Mandy Wu Regulatory Assistant	TVB? ….Or not to be? That is the question as FTA channel Television Broadcasts (TVB) reported a 9 per cent decline in net profit for the six months to June. However, Hong Kong remains TVB’s most important market, with turnover for television broadcasting growing 9 per cent.