9 June, 2017

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending June 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 Last week, Mary Meeker was top-of-mind; this week, it’s PwC’s turn. The annual Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2017-2021 hit the streets, warning of anaemic growth or even decline in the sector over the next five years. Growth will come from VR, video games, and music, and the industry as a whole will see revenues increase from US$1.8 trillion this year to US$2.2 trillion in 2021. Meanwhile, another huge data dump from Cisco, whose Visual Networking Index report was updated this week, too. A couple key predictions: global bandwidth consumption will triple by 2021, as much as 82% of all consumer Internet traffic will be video, and the amount of global IP traffic from smartphones will also triple over the same period.

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

The EU decision-making process grinds on, and it now seems that a mandate requiring content portability for pay-TV customers within the EU will come into force early next year. This means that pay-TV customers who are temporarily away from home will have the right to access their content online – it won’t apply to people who leave the EU. Views on this vary; cable industry association Cable Europe likes the idea, but content producers are nervous about getting on the slippery slope to abolition of territorial licensing, which is a key financial underpinning for European content production.  I’m not sure how customers are going to feel…..rules were tightened after complaints that earlier drafts had too many loopholes that would lead to abuse; it seems the process for actually making this work will be rather complicated, requiring multiple IDs, etc. etc.

Cathryn Chase Regulatory Assistant

On Tuesday the NCC announced its plan to reveal a revised version of a media monopolization prevention and diversity bill by the end of the month. The original bill, drafted in 2013, received preliminary approval from Taiwan’s legislature, but was retracted a year later. The revised version will aim to prevent media monopolization by providing guidelines for media company mergers. According to the NCC, one of the main motives behind the revised bill is the rise of OTT content. While a draft has not yet been made available, this has led people to wonder how the bill will address the issue of ownership of OTT services. The NCC will also seek to make amendments to three existing broadcasting acts, in an effort to further limit the intervention of political parties, the government and the military in Taiwanese media outlets. A relatively lengthy period of discussion is envisioned before the bill goes before the legislature, expected in February 2018. All this — and more — will be on the agenda at CASBAA’s upcoming Taiwan In View conference, to be held in Taipei in just two weeks, on 22 June. If you haven’t already signed up, register here.

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

For those that think that cable TV operators can’t innovate, Foxtel just announced a major shift in their product offering. They will now also offer internet delivered, low-priced, flexible bundles with no set up costs and the ability to cancel at any time. “We want to transform our business from being known as the pay-TV provider for the premium segment to become known as the premium entertainment provider for all Australians,” said Peter Tonagh, Foxtel CEO. For a market “stuck” at 30% penetration this is a good move, indeed. Five entry level packs are available from as low as $10 per month, with the ability to add Movie and Sports packs on top of that. This is a major rebranding, program packaging and technology makeover and I urge you to read the article for more details.

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President

News from the embattled Qatari state is that Al Jazeera has been experiencing relentless cyber-attacks . Hacking is something that has affected other global networks in the past and it’s not clear whether this latest round of attacks is a product of the political situation with Qatar’s neighbours or the start of something broader reaching that other platforms and netwroks should be aware of. Unconfirmed reports say that the attack seems to involve the Mirai botnet that surfaced at the end of last year, when it led to an internet blackout for major sites in the northeastern U.S

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Trial balloons in Bangkok: having decided that OTT services fall under the Thai Broadcasting Act, the authorities are talking about how they might actually exert control. They seem to be looking at controls for the largest operators of Facebook and Youtube channels, and beyond that a “complaints-based system,” which might not be very heavy for most operators. But people with controversial political content are likely to find themselves in hot seats. It’s no surprise that the military-led government would be worried about content they regard as sensitive…..but some of the trial balloons have foreseen squeezing OTT to fatten profits for digital terrestrial operators. That’s not good.

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President

India’s space agency has successfully launched its heaviest rocket. The Indian-built rocket also launched the country’s heaviest-ever satellite into orbit. ISRO say the rocket will reduce reliance on foreign companies in what they considered to be a game–changer and were hopeful of winning business from Western companies. The launch successfully put the sGSAT-19 communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite weighed over three tonnes. The national coverage of the launch has been euphoric, and often colorful, with websites comparing the rocket to the weight of 200 elephants, or five jumbo jets. (That’s Asian elephants, obviously.)

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

The war over Net Neutrality (NN) continues to rage in the US; now the Internet industry is promoting a Day of Action. There will be lots more like that before the issue is put to rest. There are large financial interests at stake: as one commentator observed, Big Internet likes the Wheeler-era NN ruling because “it improves their bottom lines.” No surprise there – but note that Netflix has stopped fighting, with Reed Hastings saying “It’s not narrowly important to us because we’re big enough to get the deals we want.” Well, Duh – given the huge market power they wield in negotiating with telcos and cablecos, their bottom line will do just fine in an environment where they might be able to negotiate access to consumers’ homes in the US – just like they’re doing in Asia!

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President

A reminder that the deadline for entering the UNICEF Child Rights Award is the end of June. If you’ve produced any TV programmes promoting the rights or welfare of children in the past year then you can enter the UNICEF Child Rights Award. The UNICEF Award will be announced at the CASBAA Convention in November. More information can be found on the CASBAA website and you can download the application form here