 |
Christopher Slaughter
CEO
|
|
| Media fragmentation is a global phenomenon, but there’s no question that it’s more of an issue in some markets than in others. And in the US — where delayed viewing is apparently the new normal — the industry is leading the pack in trying to figure out how to adapt. And with new competitors like Apple still trying to roll out a TV service, existing online platform Hulu trying new things, and even the 800-pound streaming gorilla YouTube fiddling around with a TV service, there’s a certain urgency in the air. Hell, even Netflix, the once anointed “category-killer” that seemingly created the whole “cord-cutting” phenomenon, appears to be feeling the heat; analysts are wondering whether its slowing US subscriber growth is actually down to “stream-cutting.” |
 |
Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
|
|
|
|
 |
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| A great series of decisions in Canada, where cable companies are filing suits, and winning injunctions, against sellers of “black box” pirate streaming TV devices. The injunctions affect “fully loaded” boxes, so some of the retailers made statements that they would stop selling loaded boxes, and just stick to unloaded ones. Of course, the retailers of the boxes complain they are being unjustly targeted: “Oh I’m just a small businessman,” they protested. Right — a small arm of a large global syndicate, which supplies you with your illegal product to sell. |
 |
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
|
|
| This week Bloomberg has a fantastic interview with Time Warner’s CEO, Jeff Bewkes. What’s the biggest threat to the pay-TV ecosystem right now? How has the success of Netflix changed the strategy at HBO? What do you think the cable-TV bundle will look like in the next decade? It’s all covered off in the Bloomberg piece. |
 |
Jane Buckthought
Advertising Consultant
|
|
| Global adspend will amount to $552bn in 2017, and when combined with other marketing services, total marketing expenditures worldwide will push past the $1 trillion threshold for first time, according to GroupM. The figures are contained in the media agency’s latest worldwide media and marketing forecast report, This Year, Next Year, which trimmed an earlier forecast of global ad expenditure growth for 2016 from 4.5% to 4.0%.This downwards revision was largely due to slowing growth in China and Brazil this year. GroupM lopped off 2.5 percentage points from its previous projection for China, suggesting that a “new normal” was still being established. |
 |
Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
|
|
Good sense triumphed over GST finally as India’s Upper House of Parliament backed a major tax reform that seeks to transform the country into a common market via goods and services tax, replacing a hodgepodge of state excise taxes. Though a lot still needs to be done before implementation, apart from isolated tweets from media execs, by and large, the media industry still evaluating the likely affects on business, but Economic Times reported certain segments of media and entertainment industry would benefit from GST rollout.
|
 |
Andrew Lin
Regulatory Assistant
|
|
| With the 2016 Rio Olympics just around the corner, people around the world are getting ready to watch one of the greatest sporting events. Unfortunately, Singapore residents will not be able to watch the games live as no broadcaster has secured live rights, though MediaCorp clinched a deal with the Olympic broadcast rights holder, Dentsu, for delayed telecasts. Despite the late broadcast of the Olympic events, MediaCorp promises that Channel NewsAsia will break footage minutes after the event of the performance of any Singaporean athletes that win medals to ensure that they get the national attention deserved. On the commercial level, it seems there is a message here for sports rights sellers: Singapore doesn’t want to be seen as ripe for the plucking. |
|
Christopher Slaughter
CEO
|
|
|
|
|
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
|
|
| Media companies in Asia have had numerous challenges over the years. How to meaningfully get into China has been a big one that’s been around forever. And how to transition to a digital B to C business is one of late. Discovery may have hit two birds with one stone by taking a minority stake in Ivy Wong’s multichannel network, VS Media. “As Discovery looks to build deeper traction in the Chinese-speaking markets, VS Media’s robust following is incredibly valuable to us,” said Arthur Bastings, president and managing director of Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific. “Through their advanced analytics, we can get fully plugged in to the Chinese millennial zeitgeist,” he added. |
|
Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
|
|
|
|
|
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| No need to wait any longer – the “other shoe” has dropped, in Bangkok, where CTH has officially announced it will cease broadcasting on Sept. 1. The ups and downs of the company’s four-year history were chronicled by The Nation, which observed that the initial plan to modernize the provincial cable TV industry foundered on resistance from small cable operators. Competition from the government-favored digital terrestrial broadcasters was also a factor, says The Nation. Now the government is looking for ways to let the DTT operators off the hook for payments of the license fees they bid at auction. Sensing some largesse in the air, the provincial cable operators have chimed in – also looking for fee relief.(BTW, all these players (except the now-departed CTH) will be on the platform in CASBAA’s “Thailand in View” conference in September.) |
|
Christopher Slaughter
CEO
|
|
| As far as I know, Gartner has not updated their Hype Cycle for 2016 yet, so I’m not sure whether VR has moved further along their “slope of enlightenment” (up from the “trough of disappointment”, at any rate). But in the UK, Sky is getting seriously stuck in to VR, setting up Sky VR Studio in February to become “…pioneers in this space.” And while the gaming industry is also grappling with how to monetise VR offerings, there is still skepticism about whether the lack of content will make the technology look “…more like a demo than a full-fledged product.” |
|
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| Whiff of scandal in Vietnam: The Government Inspectorate has been told to “launch an urgent and complete inspection” of the circumstances surrounding mobile operator Mobifone’s acquisition of pay-TV operator AVG a few months ago. Could this be part of a political struggle? The Saigon Times reports that Mobifone’s announced plan to roll out television services to one new million customers this year “has been moving at a snail’s pace” since the acquisition. |
|
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| Given the fame and important cultural role of Bollywood, the Indian content industry has more influence than its peers in other Asian countries. And so Indian courts have been relatively sympathetic to rights owners. Now the Delhi High Court has continued that trend, issuing a banning order against as many as 73 websites specializing in piracy of cricket content. Significantly the court found that banning specific URLs (the internet industry’s favorite remedy) was not an adequate measure to stop piracy. “Rogue websites….engage in rank piracy…and thus the stringent measure to block the website as a whole is justified.” Unfortunately, a Mumbai court came to the opposite conclusion in the same week, saying it would only authorize blocking of specific URLs. The legal battles will continue…… |
|
Christopher Slaughter
CEO
|
|
| There’s a long-standing TV tradition of playing full-frame footage of a fireplace at Christmas time, and of course, because it’s the Internet, there are about a million variants out there online. But now, Netflix is introducing Slow TV, which takes the whole monotonous-programming thing to another level completely. The content comes from Norwegian broadcaster NRK 2, which has carved out a fjord-sized niche in the world of intentionally boring TV shows. I know what I’ll be watching this weekend: National Knitting Night, here I come! |
