 |
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| As everybody knows, the last few months have seen feverish building of alliances between telcos/ISPs and OTT content players. And the mobile sector is affected, too: a new survey reports that half of Asia’s mobile operators have partnerships with OTT players already, and the other half is very interested in doing a deal. Interestingly, even as big international players (like Netflix) roll out more content deals in the region, it is local players who are doing well at snapping up indigenous content at reasonable prices and making a push to lock in local consumers. |
 |
Kevin Jennings
Vice President, Programme
|
|
| South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has objected to the proposed merger between SK Telecom and the media company CJ HelloVision and have asked for an evaluation on the impact on market competition. An official with the antitrust authority told the Korea Times that the FTC agrees with the concerns raised by SK Telecom’s rivals over the potential impact on the deal, claiming the merger could restrain competition by handing SK Telecom market dominance, and give SK Telecom the ability to distort the market by offering bundle pricing that rivals may not be able to match. This is a big blow to SK’s ambitions; the company complained that the FTC was being “excessively stringent” and wasn’t heeding the needs of the market economy, as the cable industry needs “healthy restructuring”. SK now has to decide whether to drop the merger case totally, or try to press on despite the FTC’s objections, which are considered by many to be “an effective block” of the merge. |
 |
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
|
|
| Lots happening in VR this week. Following the money, HTC Vive announce a $10 billion VR VC fund “to put the investment weight of much of the industry on the back of itself and its partners”. On programming, NBC will offer 85 hours of VR Olympics courtesy of Samsung. None of it live though. And this Christmas one can expect to see a full-length, 90-minute “Jesus VR — The Story of Christ”. BTW, if you are into seeing how VR may evolve to take over the world, I highly recommend an excellent sci-fi book, Ready Player One. An even more fun read if you are a geek-pop-culture buff. |
 |
Andrew Lin
Regulatory Assistant
|
|
| Recently, Comcast and Netflix have reached an agreement to incorporate Netflix into Comcast’s X1 set-top-box platform. People with the X1 cable box will now be able to access Netflix content which will not only make binge watching TV shows easier, but also introduce Netflix to the elderly US residents who are less aware of it and watch more TV than the average. Despite issues in the past, Comcast teams up with Netflix as a way to keep their customers connected to their cable subscription. |
|
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| This week’s trawl for the dirt on censorship produces an interesting question, from Chennai: “Does Television Content Need Censorship?” There’s no single answer in that article, but a couple of other articles show the perils of creating a nanny-state censor board, as India has for the film industry: every Tom, Dick and Hari has an heartfelt need to have content of one kind or another blocked. Maybe it’s because regional films are a threat to national unity. Or because content shown isn’t appropriate to someone’s religious holiday season. Or even because it shows your city in a bad light. And remember that over in China, stories about space aliens get censored too! The point is that there are a never-ending series of reasons why somebody might object to some sort of TV content, and in a fully wired/wireless world, it is self-regulation and co-regulation that make sense. |
|
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| On the subject of censorship, the latest round of Chinese blocks on foreign content have the Koreans worried – Korean series have been fabulously successful in China. (Of course, Korea has long had in place a whole array of quotas and other constraints designed to keep out keep foreign content…….People who spent long years trying to negotiate access for foreign channels to the Korean market can be forgiven a bit of shadenfreude.) |
|
Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
|
|
REDEF has another fantastic “Original”, The Death and Resurrection of Live & Communal Entertainment. “Live isn’t just something you put in your queue – you prioritize it and go out of your way to watch it. This is of huge strategic value. Not only does live sustain greater ad loads and improve ad efficacy, it also does so with integrated, pre and post-roll advertising. To this same end, live defies binge-based consumption, thereby driving both sustained subscriptions and/or engagement. In addition, live affords fan engagement opportunities that can’t be replicated on-demand (e.g. audience interactivity) and can significantly increase a fan’s brand affinity. This will make live programming particularly important for video services that can’t compete based on the sizes of their libraries.”
|
 |
Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
|
|
| Another reshuffle, another round of period of `understanding issues’ (read slow decision-making process). At a time when industry thought MIB had an important role to play in giving those extra `nudges’ to India’s burgeoning, but regulation-intensive, media and entertainment sector, a recent Cabinet reshuffle saw senior ministers at MIB and Telecoms Ministry replaced. Critics went to town: one said the reshuffle was PM Modi’s way of admitting government was off track, while another blamed the PM for another squandered the opportunity for a “course correction that his government” needed. |
|
John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
|
|
| The Indian government is looking at three technologies that can help extend “Digital India” to cover the country’s many rural areas. And Eureka! Satellite is one of the three. |
