7 July, 2017

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending July 7th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer Mainstream media awakened to the ISD problem this week. Publication of a study indicating that fully a third of English football fans are watching pirate feeds resulted in substantial coverage on the BBC. And in the USA, Bloomberg said ISDs are “sweeping the US”. Their detailed piece quotes various people (concerned content industry and disingenuous pirates) but has a really irritating headline: No, it’s not “sort of legal”, as the headline claims. The entire ISD ecosystem is constructed around clearly illegal redistribution of video content.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Meanwhile, in Australia it’s also a third of the population that wants to pirate the upcoming season of Game of Thrones….. despite the fact that Foxtel has lowered its prices and “the excuses around pricing are getting increasingly hollow.”) Foxtel has been energetically squelching pirates in various ways: going to court to get site blocking orders against an additional 128 pirate domains, and getting Facebook to close down live feeds of the recent Horn-Pacquiao title fight. (Foxtel said they would consider legal action – richly deserved – against those trying to stream the fight illegally on Facebook. But I don’t think they’ll really do it – suing individuals is pretty much a last resort for reputable companies.)

Cathryn Chase Regulatory Assistant

We’ve been following the moves by Thailand’s NBTC to regulate OTT services.  Last week, John Medeiros told members of the Regulatory and Anti-piracy Committee that the NBTC was planning a “light touch” regime – at least as far as traditional and OTT content providers are concerned.   (A fuller report is available to Committee members.)  Google, Facebook, and friends have been denouncing what they see as the heavy touch that would apply to them – as platforms, not content suppliers.  But now, in an unexpected move, the NBTC has announced a decision to scrap its previously-announced plans to require certain OTT content providers offering their services in Thailand to register themselves by no later than July 22nd. But this does not mean that the Thai government has given up on its efforts to regulate OTT content providers. Far from it, a new framework meant to replace the failed one is already in the works, and is supposed to be completed within the next 90 days. This time, however, there are supposed to be public hearings, the NBTC’s full Commission is to monitor the drafting process, and the final regulations will need to be approved by the NBTC board before any enforcement actions can be made.   Stay tuned for the next
chapter in this saga.

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Top stories from the CASBAA OTT Group Newsfeed this week include: Optus has agreed to provide a National Geographic app to postpaid customers on a zero-rated basis. The National Geographic app includes a comprehensive curated experience with a library of videos, two live TV channels and more. See Why ITV sees upside in a Netflix-like ad-free service. The rise of the virtual MVPD continues with HBO and Cinemax now being available via Hulu  For a fantastic macro-view of the media business, 56 minutes spent listening to the Recode interview of BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield is great value. And just fun there is a interesting read asking the question, In the Age of Streaming TV, Who Needs Title Sequences?

Kevin Jennings Vice President

Some of the results are in from China’s Ministry of Culture who has said it is determined to clean up the internet and has been looking at around 30 live broadcasting platforms out of 50 internet companies, including huya.com, yy.com, longzhu.com, huomao.com and miaopai.com. More than 10,000 live streaming feeds & apps were checked, with only a handful being registered and investigated and 11 shut down, such as 5kong.tv. These platforms were all found to show pornographic content. The ministry also investigated the app stores of Baidu, Tencent, 360, Huawei and Xiaomi, and removed around 300 live streaming apps. In addition more than 30,000 live streaming performers have been reprimanded and almost 10,000 were removed for pornographic content.

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

A new UK study – Get with the programmes – reveals the mechanics of TV sponsorship and its ability to build affinity for brands. It provides marketers with the evidence and benchmarks with which they can measure the impact TV sponsorship will have on their business. People love their favourite TV shows and brands that sponsor them can share in that love and borrow from it. That is the central finding from research by YouGov and House 51, commissioned by Thinkbox, the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK.

Kevin Jennings Vice President

This week saw the launch of China’s Long March 5 end in failure when the rocket malfunctioned during flight. Something went wrong soon after launch, and state-run media unexpectedly ended their live video coverage of the launch without explanation. The country’s premier heavy-lift rocket was set to deploy a Chinese communications satellite. It’s a significant loss for China and its failure could have a significant impact on the future of China’s ambitions in the satellite business and plans for space exploration.