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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Google’s online video behemoth YouTube is apparently planning a streaming pay TV service that will launch as soon as 2017. Reportedly to be called “Unplugged” (ummm… wait a minute, hasn’t that already been… I mean, done before… and isn’t MTV going to do it again…?), the online service will reportedly be a "skinny bundle” that may or may not prove to be the “cable killer” that the always-reliable Business Insider seems to think it will be. (Variety co-editor Andrew Wallenstein’s nay-sayer piece features a picture of a pig with wings.)
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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Speaking of skinny, the morphing of the business of TV delivery continues, Fox and Disney want to sell their own web TV bundle, via Hulu, for $40 a month. Hulu has been the direct-to-consumer avenue for the owners of the TV channels so this seems to make sense. That is if they don’t mind upsetting their largest customers, the existing pay TV bundlers. This service would also be a direct competitor to Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Vue and Dish Network’s Sling TV who already stream skinny packages, but whose performance is little known. Apparently NBCUniversal is also now in talks to join which would round out the big three US networks.
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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Some of you may have seen that CASBAA joined a recent Indian consultation opposing regulation of set-top box technologies. A parallel issue is being hotly debated in the USA, where the FCC is considering rules to “open up the STB market” and force cable companies to accept consumer use of (previously incompatible) STBs provided by the internet tech industry. Some advocacy groups have pointed out that regulatory intervention by the FCC “carries no realistic promise of lower prices (nor) increased innovation.” But it’s worse than that. A couple of Congressmen wrote the FCC, expressing concern that “open” STB regs will lead to unscrupulous entrepreneurs selling “black box” devices to access pirated programming. Whoa! We’ve seen plenty of Android-based app piracy in Asia…….this debate in the USA must have them rubbing their hands with glee, up in Shenzhen.
The US debate will be amply aired at this year’s NCTA INTX conference. (FCC Chairman Wheeler is expected to speak, and he will no doubt be wearing Teflon clothing to deflect rhetorical assaults.) Also at INTX, CASBAA and NCTA will sponsor an “Asia Lunch,” which will talk about OTT and innovation in the Asian pay-TV industry. Anyone who will be in Boston on May 16 can sign up for the lunch here.
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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It’s earnings season again with first quarter numbers as follows: Time Warner’s revenues rose 3% to $7.3 billion, up from $7.1 billion a year ago. Operating income climbed 12% to $2 billion. Fox’s revenues exceeded estimates, hitting $7.23 billion and third-quarter profit dropped to $841 million. Viacom’s revenue declined 3 percent to $3.078 billion with a profit of $303 million. Discovery revenue rose 1.1 percent to $1.56 billion with net earnings of $263 million, compared with $250 million in the year-ago period. These all compare to Netflix which reported, a couple weeks back, revenue of $1.96 billion and net income of $28 million. Disney reports next week and analysts are hopeful for a good quarter.
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
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After weeks of speculation, it has finally been confirmed that Rovi plans to acquire TiVo for about US$1.1 billion. The new company will keep the TiVo branding but will be led by Rovi CEO Tom Carson. The consolidation move combines TiVo’s traditional TV and on-demand content with Rovi’s guides, advertising, analytics and cloud services. To capitalise on the greater scale, the new TiVo will offer an analytics platform dedicated to media and entertainment, and will enable better targeting of media spend and an improved commercial inventory and more efficient targeted advertising.
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Jane Buckthought
Advertising Consultant
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Since first announcing its Total Audience Measurement in October, Nielsen in the US has maintained that the new tool, which will include viewers across all linear and digital platforms in a single metric, would be ready in time for networks and buyers to use during this year's upfronts. However those plans are on hold saying clients are not quite ready for the data.
Meanwhile down under, The Australian Connected Consumer Report from Nielsen predicted that the proportion of online Australians using VOD services would rise from 59% to 67% over the course of this year. This makes sense when you see that Nearly six in 10 Australians has four or more devices including PCs, tablets and smartphones.
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Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
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Data is king, and the largest and peoplemeter panel has been running in India for the past year. The head honcho’s at BARC discuss the journey to get it up and running and where it is today.
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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And now for the gossip column: this is like “déjà vu all over again!” In Indonesia, the Lippo Group and Astro are still fighting (in court) over the failed Direct Vision DTH pay-TV joint venture. Now, the Jakarta press has reported the anti-corruption squad is investigating a Lippo exec in connection with somebody trying to bribe the court. First Media has denied it has any connection to the investigation. The reason we think we’ve been here before is that in 2008, another Lippo exec was arrested and convicted for bribing an official of Indonesia’s Competition Commission, also in connection with the dispute with Astro. (The evidence in that case was some damning pictures of money changing hands in an elevator.) And the 2008 convict and the 2016 suspect have the same last name! (Sindoro) No wonder we think we’ve heard this before! Meanwhile, there are allegations swirling about, concerning a purported member of the Broadcasting Commission (KPI) reportedly looking for donations from the Commission’s regulated TV networks.
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
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Elsewhere in China, the online video-streaming platform iQIYI has set its sights firmly on the VR industry and announced at this week’s “iVR+ World Conference 2016” in Beijing that it intends to build the world’s largest Chinese language VR ecosystem. Meanwhile, in another move seen as a significant boost for the fledgling VR industry in China, Hubei Radio & Television Information Network and China Digital TV will begin working together to develop and promote Virtual Reality solutions for TV households in the country’s Hubei Province.
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Sad news from LA this week, where producer Ian Sander has died at age 68. A relatively new friend and supporter of CASBAA, Ian accompanied his wife and partner Kim Moses at Convention 2014, and with her jointly led a CASBAA-sponsored Master Class in Production at Hong Kong's Baptist University. Best known for producing the long-running drama The Ghost Whisperer, the Sander/Moses team were also early to embrace online-TV crossover marketing opportunities, developing a multi-platform business called Slam 360. Over the course of his long career, Ian’s other TV credits include three Emmy nominations, some 600 hours of primetime TV drama and movies, as well as acting stints in '70s TV classics including The Mod Squad, Ironside, Baretta, and The Rockford Files. A scholarship fund has been set up in Ian’s memory at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Television Production Programme.
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