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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Let’s talk about the “b” word, shall we? We’ve long maintained that “the bundle” provides consumers with the best possible bang for their media buck; now in these troubled cord-cutting times, it seems others are starting to wake up and smell the coffee. And while it’s hardly mainstream media, The Hollywood Reporter has assembled a handy comparison of what US streaming services cost and what they offer. As my old colleague Michael Goodman told the Seattle Times, “…be careful what you ask for.”
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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While we were carousing and Convention-ing last week, the European Parliament voted in favor of a single set of rules for “net neutrality” across Europe. According to the EU Commission, the rules ban blocking and throttling of internet content, give users access to the full and open internet, allow for “specialized services” with assured quality (such as streamed TV and video on demand), and give consumers the right to check if they are receiving the internet speeds they pay for, and to walk away from their contract if those commitments are not met. (BTW, all that has pretty much been CASBAA’s position.) But oh, what a cacophony of bleating resulted, from the usual alliances of “netizen” groups and their corporate backers. They lamented that the rules don’t ban network management, prioritization nor zero-rating. “It’s a vote against net neutrality!” “A major blow!” “The web will be in the grip of… (horrors!)… corporate interests!” Yadda yadda yadda. After the smoke cleared, what was interesting was the very large majority of the Parliament that decided to favor investment in quality networks over self-interested “neutrality” ideology. Meanwhile, on the other side, both telecom operators and broadcasters welcomed the rules. Guess if you’re trying to run a business, the simplistic solutions don’t always sound best… |
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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Private equity juggernaut KKR is buying into The Chernin Group’s Asian investment arm CA Media, and jointly setting up with them a new Asian investment platform called Emerald Media. The US$300 million fund will be the region’s biggest media fund, and will invest “…for both control and significant minority positions (in) media, entertainment, and digital media businesses in Asia.” Emerald Media will be headed by CA Media’s CEO Paul Aiello and COO Rajesh Kamat, and will have offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Mumbai.
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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The new Apple TV is out and the reviews are starting to come in. What is interesting is how apps from different programming suppliers: traditional broadcast networks and cable channels to new exotic entrants like Periscope are now able to comfortably commingle. I recently coffee’d with a well-known "Independent Media Consultant” who was considering the parallels between the music and the pay TV industries. This topic is discussed in, Why does Apple TV deserve to exist? A lot of truth to the line, "Paying $150/month to watch incontinence and erectile dysfunction ads—at a time not of your choosing—is preposterous for the young."
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Anjan Mitra
Executive Director, India
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BARC’s rolled out its new rural service in India and the data is interesting. For the first time FTA channels made it to the Top 10 Hindi GEC category. Other key trends highlighted 17 per cent of rural India viewers fall in the 15-21 years age group vs 14% of urban India, which is 14 per cent. However, the advertising industry wants to wait for more rural data before moving in for any effective killing. Meanwhile, BARC CEP Partho Dasgupta revealed at CASBAA Convention recently in Hong Kong that BARC is looking at having common panel for multi-screen measurement to capture effectively fragmentation. Seems BARC’s just warming up. |
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Kevin Jennings
Programme Director
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The private equity firm Altice has seen a meteoric rise in the past 18 months, transitioning from a company with a diverse range of smaller stakes to a multinational TV and communications company. Pending final approval on its Cablevision acquisition, Altice joins the largest global pay-TV players that control close to 50 percent of the world’s subscription TV revenue. While Altice ranks 5th on the list, it will account for just over 3 percent of global pay-TV revenue.
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Jane Buckthought
Advertising Consultant
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The CASBAA Convention was tackling measurement issues and Nielsen has been doing the same. The company is putting the finishing touches on total audience measurement which it says will forever change the industry. And perhaps unsurprisingly, curmudgeonly media critic Michael Wolff is skeptical, saying, “…it’s an almost comical exercise to try to portray the Wild West nature of current measurement standards."
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Christopher Slaughter
CEO
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SK Telecom is buying a 30% stake in South Korea’s largest cable operator, CJ Hellovision, and plans to acquire the rest of the company by next year for a total price of close to US$1.3 billion. By merging the cable company with its SK Broadband service, the deal will create South Korea’s second biggest pay TV operator. (That’s if the deal goes through; competitor LG claims it is “doubtful” authorities will approve it, as “SK Telecom is abusing its dominant position in the telecommunication business by moving into the broadcast sector.”) Meanwhile, top operator KT Skylife has unveiled a new ratings system that will use real-time data analysis to implement a “cost per perfect view” system, meaning it will only collect ad fees when a spot is watched from start to finish.
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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And in case you were wondering, Irdeto has declared that “The Walking Dead” was the most pirated scary show, in the run-up to Halloween. Pirate Zombies! (As opposed to the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which was full of Zombie pirates…)
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Yegee Chun
Regulatory Assistant
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Google has highlighted 11 security flaws in Samsung’s flagship Android handset, the Galaxy S6 Edge. This has not been the first security issue that has harmed the Android brand; faults have previously been found in lock screen security, and in an update that was actually designed to fix another security loophole. Unfortunately for Google, it is unable to control the final software that most people use, nor the frequency of users’ OS updates. However, BlackBerry seems to be marketing security and privacy with its new Android phone, Priv, which will have a tool called DTEK built in to constantly monitor for security risks.
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Kevin Jennings
Programme Director
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In a sign of the OTT times the British Film Institute has launched an online movie streaming service called BFI Player+. The monthly subscription service offers a 30-day free trial for all users and was developed to meet the demand for people to view the best of a century of cinema. A total of 300 film titles are available for selection at launch, with films grouped to help users browse around genres, collections and directors. Rights issues aside, the BFI also holds the largest accessible television collection archive of British TV programmes in the world which would make for an interesting business model should they ever find a way to start streaming all of their other content.
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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At the New York Times’ DealBook conference this week Reed Hastings had a lot to say. Programming: “Not nearly enough”…."over time we can make a great Bollywood show…we can make a great anime show.” Sports: shouldn’t expect Netflix to move into sports anytime soon. What he’s been most scared of: “TV Anywhere.” This while Time Warner is considering delaying SVOD licensing windows for some shows. Another recent critic of licensing to OTT providers is Discovery’s David Zaslav. He told analysts Tuesday that a Discovery OTT offering could eventually make its way to the U.S. Is Netflix the only threat or could Hulu be worse for pay TV?
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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So, I watched the very first season of Star Trek in my family living room, on a black-and-white TV. Loved it. Times change… I’m going to be watching the next season online in HD, it seems. (Geez, I hope it’s available in Asia… are there enough trekkies out here?)
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