9 December, 2016

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Dec 9th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO It’s become a “trending topic” lately, the rise of “fake news,” particularly in the most recent US Presidential campaign; not only has Hillary Clinton blasted the trend, but Donald Trump fired one of his staff for re-posting a fake news story.   And how are the websites that produce this garbage funded?  You guessed it, often by big brands who have run sloppy programmatic ad campaigns. Sound familiar?  In response, one group called “Sleeping Giants” has set up a Twitter feed where people can post screenshots of legitmate brands’ ads appearing on racist websites, to name and shame them.  Likewise, Fake News Watch maintains pretty comprehensive lists of dubious news sources; and when in doubt, there’s always snopes.com.

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

People who make their living from creative works protected by copyright (and that includes our whole industry) are worried about proposals to adopt a broad and undefined “fair use” exception in Australia.   Now, a coalition of the print and audio industries have launched a new initiative, urging people to reflect on how a book or song had changed their lives. The book industry is terribly worried, of course, that fair use could result in Aussie court decisions like the one in the USA, that gave Google the right to industry-wide digitization of complete books, without the consent of, or remuneration for, the writers/copyright owners.  Google wouldn’t be the only beneficiary of fair use, of course……the head of the Copyright Agency (collective rights organization) called fair use “a lawyer’s picnic.”   Got that right.

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

This week the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference took place in New York. The heavy hitters of the industry were there sharing their wisdom and future plans. James Murdoch, CEO, 21st Century Fox says that Fox “feels pretty good about our mix of assets…we don’t feel the urge to go acquire some other large piece.” Fox also isn’t putting together their own OTT option for consumers but is focusing more on Hulu and third-party options. Whereas David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery says, “we’re well-positioned to take our product direct to consumer in 2017…we’re going to try to disrupt ourselves.”  Lastly, in 2017 Netflix’s original programming lineup will grow to up to 1,000 hours, more than doubling from 2016, and “that’s a conservative measure right now,” said Sarandos.

 

 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

It’s getting to be that time of year again; holiday decorations are going up, kids are writing letter to magical elves, and everywhere you look, “Best Of” lists are cropping up like, well, mistletoe. There’s a lot of overlap on various of these lists, but because this is the age of “Peak TV”, there are also a lot of great shows to choose from.  The really sophisticated critics choose the single best episodes, the really commercially-minded simply list the best-sellers.  And since there’s still another three weeks to go in 2016, you can expect many more Best Of lists before we get to the New Year.

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

In the run-up to Christmas I had every intention of sharing some of the best Xmas TVCs every week until I read that these special ads have little or no effect on consumers and shopping habits. A survey of over 11,000 consumers for the website MoneySavingExpert.com concluded that just 1 per cent of respondents said the adverts had a “big impact” on where they did their Christmas shopping, while 2 per cent said it had “an impact”.  Even if true, Christmas TV adverts undoubtedly help brands and afterall it’s all about the marketing funnel and touch points that lead to eventual sales. Me? I’m in the 1%.

 

 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

The biggest star in the YouTube firmament is PewDiePie, who earned US$15 million last year from his videos.  But lately, the Swede (real name Felix Avrid Ulf Kjellberg) has been biting the hand that feeds him, accusing YouTube of “sabotaging” his channel — wait for it — because he’s white. There’s actually a bigger story here, about whether YouTube has changed its algorithms resulting in drop-offs in viewers, which the company denies; but Kjellberg’s injudicious comment (sarcastic or not) has sort of eclipsed all that, and prompted questions about whether it’s just “evolved clickbait.” Regardless, I share the views of one commentator: “…I have yet to get more than 76 seconds into a PewDiePie rant without thrashing listlessly like a hostage handcuffed to a radiator.”

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

…And while we’re on the subject, the latest Forbes ranking of YouTube stars says the top 12 video performers saw an increase in revenue by 23% year on year to a collective £55m in the past 12 months. Not bad for what mostly started out as solo presenters who probably began their careers in the spare bedroom – and serves as an incentive for other wannabe rich n famous online celebs .  The substantial rise in income is a testament to the growing influence of YouTube celebrities, who have moved beyond the YouTube platform to monetise their digital success, by authoring bestselling books, integrated sponsorship deals, securing film deals and, in one case, becoming a face for L’Oréal.

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

As we’ve noted before, the Trump Administration is not going to be friendly ground for “net neutrality” advocates.   That doesn’t keep interested parties (like Ted Sarandos of Netflix) from continuing the debate, however.  And of course the stock analysts are busy figuring out who might win and who might lose from a policy shift; here’s one who thinks a mega-merger between Verizon and Comcast is a possibility. Meanwhile, in India there are reports that some OTT content providers are getting privileged access to consumers through “peering” agreements.   Regulation to try to enforce neutrality is clearly going to be a long-running rice bowl for bureaucrats and lawyers.

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

During the Business Insider IGNITION conference this week, business leaders explored what the future of tech and media will look like. In Henry Blodget’s “The Next Big Thing” presentation we hear things such as “The Bell Tolls for Legacy TV.”  “For the last 20 years, digital has disrupted print. For the next 20, it will disrupt TV.”  Not all is lost though as “TV won’t die…it will just get niche-ified.” There are a number of good slides in here that are definitely worth going through.

 

 

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Advertising spend is predicted to hit US$547 billion in 2017, representing 4.4 percent growth, of which half will come from the US and China. GroupM’s latest forecast ‘This Year, Next Year’ media and marketing report says the knock-on effects of paradigm-shifting events such as Donald Trump’s presidential victory and Brexit have led to a “new normal, more modest level of growth” in the global advertising industry. Zenith also predicts that global ad expenditure will grow 4.4 percent in both 2016 and 2017, reaching $566 billion by the end of next year.

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

A Taiwan political party suddenly made an issue (this week) of cable rate regulation restructuring that was launched by the previous NCC last June! I have no idea what political machinations are behind this, but it’s never good news when political parties start talking about rate regulation.