27 january, 2017

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Jan 27th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO At the risk of normalising what’s going on in the US, I decided to stop focusing on the White House for a while, and take a look at the latest on the AT&T Time Warner deal, remember that?  It turns out, I needn’t have worried, because AT&T boss Randall Stephenson is normalising just fine, thank you: “I’ve got to say, I was impressed,” he said about his meeting with the new President.  That conciliatory tone might be simply because despite all of Trump’s campaign posturing, the Administration might not actually be able to block the deal.  And that’s despite questions being raised by various Democratic Senators about the acquisition, and shareholder lawsuits to stop a 15 February vote among Time Warner shareholders on the deal.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Speaking of big mergers, a MEGA-merger has been rumored between Charter Communications and Verizon. This comes roughly a year after Charter swallowed up Time Warner Cable and also while Verizon is deciding how to ingest Yahoo! “Verizon serves 114 million cellphone subscribers, 4.6 million TV customers and 7 million Internet subscribers; Charter has 17 million TV customers and 21 million Internet subscribers.”  Pundits believe that the Trump administration is a lot more amenable to such mergers and that we could see more shortly. This desired “quad play” is something that us in Asia have been familiar with for years.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

The NN (Net Neutrality) Wars are raging again in the USA.   The nomination of Ajit Pai as the new FCC chairman has been greeted with an internet-media Greek chorus singing of doom, doom, doom.  “It’s a disaster for you and me!”  “A death sentence.”    There’s anger and alarm!  Pai is a “right-winger”, who will destroy.  Kill.  Hate.  The hype is pretty nauseating; as Forbes columnist Larry Downes put it, “the misinformation bandwagon has opened an ugly new front.”  Downes earlier wrote that the media chorus was abetting a set of vested interests:  “The “analysts” that tech reporters are relying on are the same advocates who have pushed for the rules for a decade, often misrepresenting technical and legal realities in efforts to whip Internet users into a frenzy.”  Where have we seen this before?  Hmmmm.  The word begins with C and ends with opyright.

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

India’s Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC India) is attempting to shield itself against critics of its penalty-imposing actions against alleged manipulation of viewership trends by subscribing-TV channels. Move is afoot within BARC to completely review and legally overhaul contracts it signs with subscribers and also enforcing the opt-out clause mentioned in agreements. Aim: streamline the whole measurement process and safeguard against increased litigation.

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Let’s have a closer look at that report from Irdeto last week, shall we?  The one that said one out of three US consumers watch pirated content, and almost 40% don’t care about the revenue damage it causes the media industry.  We sort of skated over it last week when the report came out, but it’s sort of a chilling conclusion; even if illegal streaming might not be on the rise, when a consumer wants to see a piece of content badly enough, they are willing to bend the rules a little to get it.  And while we know the fight against piracy is by no means a new thing, here’s an interesting look back at anti-piracy ad campaigns of the 90s.  Ahhhhh, youth.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Last week I reported on a “fair use” copyright case involving Paramount and CBS, who own the rights to the Star Trek series/movies.   Now we hear the case has been settled; the fan-flick producers have agreed to shorten their planned videos, and make them available for free.  That’s apparently close enough to the desired guidelines of the plaintiffs (who don’t want professional-quality knockoffs) that they agreed to settle the case (and thereby saved a gazillion dollars in legal fees).  But without a court pronouncement there’s no guidance on the boundaries for others who might want to produce fan-flicks.  That’s the problem with the “fair use” system:  nobody has any clarity unless they want to lawyer up and get a court to rule.

Anjan Mitra Executive Director, India

Judicial review has its pros and cons. While broadcasting community few weeks back petitioned the court to review regulator TRAI’s validity to rule on tariff-related issues, another Indian court has asked two State governments as also New Delhi why they were compelling TV subs to switch over to digital services by making people buy STBs. Can’t analog and digital co-exist? This poser came from a high court a day before when MIB reiterated there would be no extension to digitisation’s phase III deadline of January 31, 2017. One step forward, two backwards?

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Regulatory asymmetry between traditional broadcasting and OTT TV sounds like a dry topic, but it’s come in for some serious discussion in Thailand, with detailed scrutiny of Facebook Live.  Companies that paid a zillion dollars for digital broadcasting licenses are worried that Facebook Live could turn into a serious competitor.  (In mid-2016, Facebook reported it had 37 million users in Thailand.  Some have turned the platform into a marketplace for trading counterfeit goods…..)

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

A few interesting articles in the world of streaming this week.  Netflix and Amazon, with ballooning programming budgets, are set to poach more content from SVOD rivals, media companies. Apparently, “given the high cost of scripted originals, Netflix will need to incorporate more unscripted content in these efforts. As a result, Netflix (and the other SVOD players) will start to bid away name brand non-fiction shows from cable networks.”  And, Hearst’s Esquire TV network is ditching its traditional linear TV business and will “restyle itself as a digital only channel.”

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Snapchat may or may not become mobile television for younger generations. But the app’s parent, Snap Inc., which appears to be on the cusp of an IPO, wants TV advertisers to think about it that way and spend their money accordingly. Today, it signed a partnership with Nielsen’s mobile Digital Ad Ratings (mDAR) unit, giving brands the ability to buy guaranteed Snapchat audiences by age group and gender. For the most part, it’s the same kind of system—from ordering to measuring the results—that marketers are accustomed to with Nielsen’s TV offerings.