CASBAA Connections 2014 Issue 2

CASBAA CONVENTION 2014 ISSUE BEYOND THE BOX KNOW YOUR MEMBER: HUANG BAOZHONG OF APT

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Volume 9 Issue 2

CASBAA CONNECTIONS

C O N T E N T S REPORTS

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9 CASBAA Convention 2014 How we went “Beyond the Box” 13 15 21 25 29 33 35 37 39

Victor Koo, Chief Executive Officer, Youku Tudou Jon Feltheimer, Chief Executive Officer, Lionsgate Entertainment Bruce Tuchman, President, AMC Global, Sundance Channel Global James Rosenstock, President, Discovery Education International Mike Weatherley, British Member of Parliament Kim Moses, Principal, Sander/Moses Productions Jim Samples, President, International, Scripps Networks Interactive Andrew Rashbass, Chief Executive, Reuters Barry Cupples, Global Chief Executive Officer, Investment, Omnicom Media Group 41 David Haslingden, Chief Executive Officer, NHNZ 43 Danny Keens, Global Chair of TV, Twitter

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53 CASBAA Profiles

Huang Baozhong, Vice President, APT Satellite Company

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61 CASBAA Album

Snapshots from a busy season of events

Volume 9, Issue 2

CASBAA Connections is published biannually by CASBAA, the Association for digital multichannel television, content, platforms, advertising, and video delivery across Asia, on behalf of its 130 member companies serving the region’s over 500 million connections.

Copyright © 2014 Marcel Fenez, Chairman; Christopher Slaughter, CEO; John Medeiros, Chief Policy Officer; Mark Lay, Vice President, Singapore; Anjan Mitra, Director, India; Sara Madera, Director, Member Relations and Marketing; Annie Ma, Director, Events; Tammy Choy, Head of Administration; Desmond Chung, Associate Director, PR & Communications.

Executive Office: 802, Wilson House 19-27 Wyndham St, Central, Hong Kong Telephone: +852 2854 9913 Email: casbaa@casbaa.com Website: www.casbaa.com

DEPARTMENTS 2

Board and Council

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Chairman’s Report

5

Briefing

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By the Numbers

70

Committees

72

CEO Memo

BOARD AND COUNCIL

Board of Directors

CHAIRMAN MARCEL FENEZ PwC

SOMPAN CHARUMILINDA TrueVisions

CHRISTINE FELLOWES NBCUniversal

MARK PATTERSON GroupM

JANICE LEE PCCW

TODD MILLER Celestial Tiger Entertainment

ALEXANDRE MULLER TV5MONDE Asia Pacific

FRANK RITTMAN Motion Picture Association

BILL WADE Asia Satellite Telecommunications

CHRISTOPHER SLAUGHTER CASBAA

JANICE LEE PCCW (Patron)

LAURENCE PEAK Verimatrix (Patron)

PAUL BROWN-KENYON MEASAT (Corporate)

Council of Governors ALAN HODGES A+E Networks (Patron) HUANG BAOZHONG APT Satellite (Patron) TOM CHOI ABS (Patron) BILL WADE Asia Satellite Telecommunications (Patron)

ARJAN HOEKSTRA Discovery Networks Asia Pacific (Patron) DEEPAKJIT SINGH Encompass (Patron) ANDREW JORDAN Eutelsat (Patron)

SREEDHAR SUBRAMANIAM Asian Broadcasting Network (Patron)

ZUBIN GANDEVIA Fox International Channels (Patron)

ROHANA ROZHAN Astro (Patron)

JONATHAN SPINK HBO Asia (Patron)

DOUG FRASER Australia Plus TV (Patron) MONTY GHAI BBC Worldwide (Patron) GARY GROENHEIM Bloomberg Television (Patron)

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TODD MILLER Celestial Tiger Entertainment (Patron)

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TERRY BLEAKLEY Intelsat Asia Pacific (Patron) BENGT JONSSON Irdeto (Patron) CHRISTINE FELLOWES NBCUniversal (Patron)

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MARCEL FENEZ PwC (Patron) DEREK CHANG Scripps Networks International (Patron) DEEPAK MATHUR SES (Patron) ANGELOS FRANGOPOULOS Australia Channel (Patron) ANG HUI KENG SPE Networks (Patron) DEEPAK JACOB STAR India (Patron) ROBERT GILBY The Walt Disney Company (Patron) SOMPAN CHARUMILINDA TrueVisions (Patron) RICKY OW Turner International Asia Pacific (Patron)

MARK WHITEHEAD Viacom International Media Networks WARD HANSFORD Ericsson (Corporate) BRICE BERTRAND France24 (Corporate) DARBY SANCHEZ GlobeCast (Corporate) MARK PATTERSON GroupM (Corporate) PJ WONG iMediaHouse Asia/Focus Media (Corporate)

FRANK RITTMAN Motion Picture Association (Corporate) DAVID K. LEE Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (Corporate) TERENCE TEO Tata Communications (Corporate) HARIT NAGPAL Tata Sky (Corporate) BELINDA LUI Time Warner (Corporate) JEREMY KUNG TM Net (Corporate)

NIC van ZWANENBERG ITV International Channels

ALEXANDRE MULLER TV5Monde (Corporate)

GABRIELA KENNEDY Mayer Brown JSM (Corporate)

JAMES ROSS Lightning International (Individual)

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Consolidating the New Normal

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f 2013 felt like a year of change for both the industry and CASBAA, 2014 was a year to establish a new normal and continue to reinforce the three pillars of the association’s mandate – inform, represent and connect.

CASBAA published a number of informative reports and studies to help our membership better understand the diverse Asia-Pacific multichannel-TV industry. In depth, market specific studies explored dynamic emerging markets with updated Philippines in View and Vietnam in View reports, both providing essential analysis and data for deeper insights into their respective broadcasting landscapes.

Our updated Asia Pacific Multichannel TV 2015 guide revealed that there were now more than 500 million multichannel-TV homes in the region, accounting for 61% of homes in Asia. An annual compendium of regional facts and figures and advertising research culled from a variety of sources, Asia Pacific Multichannel TV Advertising 2015 is updated every year to provide indispensable data for the region’s broadcasting industry.

Another resource published annually was the CASBAA Asia-Pacific Broadcast Directory 2014/15, an important resource listing the major players across a number of categories dealing with multichannel TV in the region. For anyone in the business, this truly is a one-stop shop for information.

Digital, Legal and Anywhere – Innovation in Australian TV was our second country specific report, after one focused on Singapore, outlining the abundance of legal options to view programmes on the Internet while Connections Magazine continued the tradition of keeping you updated on CASBAA’s activities.

You can find all of these publications on our website for download at http://www.casbaa.com/publications.

Over the past year, CASBAA also crisscrossed the region organising a host of events covering a variety of topics and functions. Country specific forums helped focus attention on a number of markets this year including Philippines in View in January, the India

Forum in March, and Vietnam in View in September.

Industry-related topics were also at the forefront throughout the year with advertising taking the spotlight at the CASBAA TV Upfronts – The Jakarta Screenings in February. Other special interest events included the OTT Summit in March, CASBAA International Seminar – Cable TV Policies & Practices in Taiwan in April and our annual Satellite Industry Forum in June.

Our newly introduced CASBAA 101 seminars provided a useful overview of how to best utilize your CASBAA membership while our CASBAA Cocktails provide numerous casual networking events for our membership to mix and mingle throughout the year.

And of course, our annual CASBAA Convention was a successful way to round out the year attracting more than 900 attendees including delegates, speakers and media and provided the ideal venue to honour Astro with this year’s Chairman’s Award. You can read more about the Convention and hear from some of our speakers in this issue of Connections.

We also welcomed some new members into the CASBAA family this year with beIN SPORTS, The Indonesia Channel, MP & Silva, NetViet, Thuraya and Viacom18 added to our diverse roster of companies.

Finally, I would like to welcome Frank Rittman, Senior Vice President, Deputy Managing Director and Regional Policy Officer, Asia-Pacific, at the Motion Picture Association to the Board of Directors.

I would also like to thank Andrew Jordan of Eutelsat, who is retiring from the Board after many years of service, for his outstanding contributions to date and we look forward to benefitting of his wisdom and involvement with both the Council of Governors and the Satellite Industry Committee As this busy year comes to a close, we look forward to a new year full of new milestones and challenges.

On behalf of CASBAA and the executive office, I wish you a very happy holiday ahead.

Marcel Fenez Chairman, CASBAA

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BRIEFING

Spotlight on Vietnamese Industry Shows Immense Room for Growth

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ietnam in View, which focused on the country’s dynamic multichannel-TV landscape, took place on September 11 at the Hotel de l’Opéra in Hanoi.

Featuring a top-tier roster of speakers representing both local and international broadcasters, producers and agencies, the event explored the current situation in Vietnam as well as the future of the country’s broadcasting industry.

Vietnam remains one of the most promising AsiaPacific markets, given its vast potential. Since 1995, the country’s economic expansion has seen significant growth in its pay-TV services, currently available on cable, digital terrestrial, satellite, IPTV and mobile platforms.

However, with total TV households at 20.3 million and pay-TV penetration at 61% (12.4 million

households), there are still opportunities for the multichannel-TV industry in the country.

“As the engine room of global pay-TV growth, Asia Pacific has a number of markets with huge room for expansion – and none more so than Vietnam,” said Christopher Slaughter, Chief Executive Officer of CASBAA. “With more than 42% of the population below the age of 25 and an improving standard of living, the climate is ripe for continuing multichannelTV growth – with the right conditions.”

The event, which was presented in association with VTVCab, the pay-TV unit of stateowned Vietnam Television, covered key areas such as regulation and reform, production, bundles, packages and niches, intellectual property rights and monetising over-the-top content.

“As the engine room of global pay-TV growth, Asia Pacific has a number of markets with huge room for expansion – and none more so than Vietnam.”

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BRIEFING

Innovative Solutions Crucial to Future of Satellite Industry This year’s CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum, an annual spotlight on the satellite market in Asia Pacific, attracted more than 230 delegates, speakers and media to the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore.

“With a speaker pool drawn from the biggest and most trusted names in the industry, our attendees experienced the best of the business at the CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum 2014,” said Christopher Slaughter, Chief Executive Officer of CASBAA. “And despite the ever changing multichannelTV landscape, CASBAA remains committed to supporting the satellite industry to foster continued growth and expansion in the region.”

With regulatory and spectrum challenges, and the emergence of over-the-top (OTT) alternatives bringing new competition, more collaboration within the industry is needed, noted Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES, in the opening keynote address. He also suggested the need for more collaboration with service providers in the information and communication technology industry, in which players are actively looking for new market opportunities.

The forum also addressed the importance of innovation to the satellite industry during the “Satellite Leadership Round Table” later in the day. While the general consensus was that there was a good amount of innovation taking place, not enough is coming from satellite companies themselves.

“TV broadcasting demand for satellites will remain the bedrock for most Asian markets that rely on the technology to meet their entertainment needs,” said Thomas Choi, Founder and CEO at ABS. “While we may see a 2-3% growth, we need to look for the next wave of innovation, which could require better compensation to attract the best and the brightest to our industry. If we don’t innovate, we will be wiped out.”

Throughout the day, panels explored key issues.

With the onset of new projects in the market, with some highly innovative solutions, and some existing operators extending their reach into Asia Pacific, the “New Markets, New Technologies and New Operators” panel examined the challenges these potential game-changers will face.

Panellists debated on the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration forecasts suggesting that 2014/15 will be a bumper year for satellite launches in the “Launch Market Update” session. Trends in pricing and market segmentation were also discussed, 6

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“While we may see a 2-3% growth, we need to look for the next wave of innovation, which could require better compensation to attract the best and the brightest to our industry. If we don’t innovate, we will be wiped out.” as well as how launch service providers are differentiating their products.

Another session presented an overview of the results of a recent authoritative study of the extent to which satellite C-band services provide socio-economic benefits to countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The study, which was carried out by Paris-based technology consultancy Euroconsult on behalf of the CASBAA Wireless Action Group, found that “C-band is extensively used for communication networks, often of critical importance to these countries’ economy, society or security.” The markets selected for the study were India, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

BRIEFING

Painting a Bigger Picture TV’s Best Moments of Indonesia’s TV Industry Celebrated for World Television Day One of the most exciting emerging markets for the pay-TV industry will be given an in-depth look with Indonesia in View, one of CASBAA’s first events of 2015. The event is scheduled to take place on January 20 at the Hotel Mulia Senayan in Jakarta.

The forum will feature a roster of high-profile local and international speakers to explore the hot issues affecting the future of Indonesia’s pay-TV industry, which is seeing well-established and new platforms developing myriad content offerings.

As well as several lively panel discussions and presentations, the event will cover subjects such as the development of the Indonesian pay-TV industry, sports programming, and broadband as a major payTV platform. Panellists on the day will also debate on the growth of online piracy and who’s profiting from it, as well as provide an overview of the advertising rules and market in Indonesian pay TV. Indonesia in View is being generously sponsored

by Presenting Sponsor SES and Supporting Sponsor Tata Communications. To register, please contact Cherry at cherry@casbaa.com.

Viewers across Europe, Asia Pacific and North America celebrated World Television Day on November 21, the initiative led by the United Nations in recognition of the increasingly crucial role television plays to inform, educate and entertain.

As part of the initiative, supported by CASBAA, broadcasters around the world were invited to screen a 30-second video commissioned by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) and EGTA, the Brussels-based association of television and radio sales houses. Broadcasters then aired the video clip on November 21 across their networks or online portals.

The clip featured entertainment, news, culture, sport and drama highlights and viewers were urged to nominate their best TV moment using the social media hashtags #WeloveTV and #WorldTVDay. EBU President Jean-Paul Philippot said public service media television helps strengthen democracy by ensuring that anyone can access information. “The EBU has 63 active TV members in 55 countries, operating 937 TV channels broadcasting in 69 languages with a potential audience of 1.02 billion people,” Philippot said. “It gives a voice to those who would otherwise go unheard and by serving all sections of society, it promotes tolerance and understanding and facilitates debate around issues of national concern.”

The initiative celebrates how television continues to appeal to a growing number of viewers across Europe, noted EGTA President Franz Prenner. “Throughout the European Union, the average viewer tunes in for 236 minutes a day. The odd fluctuation cannot mask the big picture that people love to consume quality content on multiple screens, including OTT. TV is only beginning to embrace its golden age.”

According to UN Regional Information Centre Deputy Director Caroline Petit, World Television Day was proclaimed an annual event by the UN in 1996 in recognition of the impact television increasingly has on decision-makers.

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CONVENTION ROUNDUP

Pay-TV Industry Faces Changes Far Beyond Our Expectations Attendees at CASBAA Convention 2014 delved into new business models for creating and broadcasting content beyond what linear TV can offer

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or those who took public transport to the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong for the CASBAA Convention 2014, the local population’s fixation with pressing the play button on their smartphones couldn’t be clearer. It therefore comes as no surprise that the city’s mobile penetration rate of around 237% is one of the highest in the world, as K C Chan, Hong Kong’s Acting Financial Secretary, noted in his opening remarks.

The ever-increasing popularity of smartphones and other hand-held devices makes the rationale behind the theme of this year’s flagship event – “Beyond the Box” – needing little explanation. “The

days of television being furniture is long gone as it’s much more than that,” said CASBAA Chairman Marcel Fenez in his welcoming remarks. “It’s about very cool content.”

While the proliferation of new technologies and platforms present content providers with fresh challenges of meeting today’s consumer demands, the overarching viewpoint at the convention was that content beyond linear TV offers a wealth of opportunities that Members must take advantage of, while never losing sight of the core business of linear TV. Cable and satellite industry professionals now

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CONVENTION ROUNDUP

“realise the importance of thinking outside the box, to seize opportunities beyond the box and devise novel ways to meet the challenges thrown up by the crowded marketplace of new media,” Chan told attendees.

With that, the 21st edition of the CASBAA Convention was in full swing. In comparison to last year’s event, delegates welcomed a much more focused and tightened format, with this year’s Convention being held over two conference days instead of three.

The two-day event effectively packed in broad themes, concise conversations and panel discussions surrounding the future for the broadcasting industry. Throughout this year’s Convention, audience participation was made more attractive and meaningful through various ways including an interactive live Q&A system that attendees could use to digitally ask speakers questions during live sessions, eliminating the need for raised hands.

The exploration of changes being made to existing business models and strategies was a key theme throughout day one. A year into his newly-created position as the Chief Executive of media giant Reuters, Andrew Rashbass, talked to Sharanjit Leyl, Producer and Presenter of BBC World News, about the development of Reuters TV, an adsupported digital service that offers subscribers customised video content. Created in an effort to find new ways of making live TV news more on-demand friendly, the latest product aims to cater for today’s audiences made up of the “always-on” and “Netflix” generation, said Rashbass.

The importance of immediacy in news was also discussed. “We said to ourselves, in a world that wants ondemand yet up-to-date news, how do we satisfy that need?”

Rashbass said, in explaining the driving force behind the new product’s curated bulletin model of multiple stories that are up-to-date.

To respond to an increasingly fragmented audience, the company recognised the need to change both “the economics and technology of creating content so that you no longer require the huge revenues that traditionally were needed to support traditional TV news.”

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GROWING LOCALISATION

Speaking on the business of production, David Haslingden, Chief Executive Officer of NHNZ, told the audience that he sees a future based on further acquisitions and more competitors. “The production business is one that depends on individuals,” he said. “We will only acquire businesses where we can find these individuals.

Haslingden shared how he built Asia’s first “super indie” production company. The demand for local programming was “exploding around the world,” he said, propelling him to amalgamate independent production companies in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, China and the United States to form a unified company.

Delegates were given an even closer look at the theme of localisation through a lively panel discussion titled “Content is King, but Local Content is Emperor,” revealing how A+E Networks, HBO Asia, NBCUniversal, Tata Sky and Viacom18 were ramping up localised content. Shows such as 24 India, Grace, Serangoon Road, It Takes Gutz to be a Gutierrez and Super Model Me, were used as examples of how companies were currently broadening their staple of local productions.

“The difficulty is what language will they speak... is the English they speak so understandable that everyone in our region will get it? Usually the answer is no.”

This, of course, does not come without obstacles.

One of the challenges for A+E Networks, noted Michele Schofield, Senior Vice President, Programming and Marketing, is finding “real characters in Asia” to star in shows for the complex and multidimensional Asian market.

“The difficulty is what language will they speak... is the English they speak so understandable that everyone in our region will get it? Usually the answer is no.”

Following on from NBCUniversal’s first reality series in the Philippines, Scott Mackenzie, the company’s Vice President, Channels, announced during the session that it was releasing its first Malaysian reality show. The panellists agreed that there has never been a better time to be producing content specifically for the Asia-Pacific region.

The theme of technology during this year’s convention focused on opportunities between media companies and mobile operators. Another panel discussion covered the difference 4G networks make for consumers, and confirmed that the technology was just one component making video prevalent on mobile across Asia.

The question is, “how to make that content ecosystem work on mobile, not just in Hong Kong and Singapore but also in tier two cities,” said Alex Lambeek, Executive

CONVENTION ROUNDUP

Vice President, Mobile and Digital Partnerships, at FOX International Channels. With their lack of knowledge on emerging markets and the rise of innovative short-form videos for mobile, the need for Hollywood producers to change their business model was also stressed.

The world’s biggest online video market took centre stage at the end of the day with Victor Koo, CEO of China’s Youku Tudou, highlighting the development of his company’s multiscreen entertainment ecosystem. In his China Keynote, Koo ran the audience through how his company’s original content has been increasingly distributed to mainstream TV channels in China.

Koo announced onstage a partnership with Endemol China to produce the first-ever Chinese version of global reality show Big Brother, adding to its successful strategy of partnering with production companies, both locally and internationally.

Co-Founder, Elemental Technologies. Despite the slow migration process to HD services and the consumer confusion it brought, Bill Wheaton, Senior Vice President, Media Products Division, Akamai, said the adoption of 4K would be much quicker. “OTT models works for 4K. In a market like Hong Kong we can deliver to about 30% of connections today in 4K.”

“OTT models works for 4K. In a market like Hong Kong we can deliver to about 30% of connections today in 4K.” INNOVATIVE THINKING

Day two of the convention kicked off almost immediately with Barry Cupples, Global CEO of Omnicom Media Group’s investment capability, speaking controversially on the topic of accurate measurability in advertising, saying that researchers and agencies needed to step up.

“Consumers are there, we just don’t have the measurement to go with it,” he said. In responding to the notion of advertising hurting media content, Cupples admitted being sympathetic to the idea. “We try to stay away from areas where we think that may be an issue. You can’t get it right all of the time.”

The monetisation of over-the-top services and how channels and operators are developing their digital strategies were among the other topics that panellists discussed. Janice Lee, Marketing Director of PCCW Media Group, spoke about her content strategy in relation to OTT and noted that PCCW is looking to utilize it as a way to fill gaps in the market such as a lower-priced segment with differentiating content.

The prevalent theme of the future of the industry was illustrated during a session on the adoption of ultra-highdefinition 4K television and the impact it has on channels and operators. There was general consensus that 4K resolution provides a new standard of picture quality and video experiences for consumers. “It’s like the switch from black and white to colour,” said Pierre Benoist, Deputy CEO Asia, Eutelsat. “You see more details that you can’t catch in real life.”

Asia is currently ahead of other regions in the world for 4K proof of concepts, said Sam Black, CEO and

Delegates outside the main ballroom were asked to share their views on camera of the key issues reshaping the pay-TV industry for the purpose of the last session titled “5 Reasons Why.” Ricky Ow, President, Turner International Asia Pacific and Henry Tan, COO of Astro, this year’s winner of the CASBAA Chairman’s Award, both commented on the issues raised, including fixing poor audience measurement in the region. Both said that they are willing to invest to come up with better solutions that could lead to advertising revenue growth.

CASBAA Chairman Fenez believed this year’s Convention successfully covered, in just two days, a broad base of themes and in-depth insights from the technology, advertising and content industries into how to adapt to a future “beyond the box.” “Whether it’s around the strength of cool content, whether it’s about the disruptions, whether it’s about the partnerships we need,” he said.

The high level of participation within the two days, from both the delegates and expert speakers, did more than enhance the overall experience for attendees at this year’s premier event. It also underlined Members’ strong interest in understanding more about various aspects, such as future business models and revenue drivers, in order to fully benefit from the opportunities brought by the future of the industry and beyond.

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Up to 89 transponders on C, Ku and Ka-Band, ABS-2 delivers increased capacity Contact ABS for more information at: info@absatellite.com www.absatellite.com

CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

All Things to All Users Victor Koo, Chief Executive Officer of Youku Tudou, explains how a website evolved into a multiscreen media and entertainment ecosystem

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o entity more dramatically encapsulates the “beyond the box” evolution than China’s Youku Tudou. Once a mere video-hosting website, the company has become a multiscreen app and web-based video platform.

“Youku Tudou has built a much larger and comprehensive portfolio of original content than from its earlier stages and has recently established Heyi Film, our wholly owned subsidiary in film making,” says Victor Koo, who founded Youku as an Internet TV provider in 2005, and became Chief Executive Officer of the combined entity after Youku merged with Tudou, an Internet video site, in 2012.

The company is now partnering with Dutch TV hit factory Endemol to bring the Big Brother reality franchise to China – with a twist. “This is the first time in the successful history of this franchise that this show will be in an online television format.”

Koo says the company’s content creation capabilities complement its multiscreen content distribution platform. “These core competencies enhance each other in product offering, user experience, and revenue generation.”

Youku Tudou’s combination of user-generated content and a subscription-TV service prompted Koo to describe the company as a combination of Netflix and YouTube. Yet all eyes are on the subscriptions. “[They have] been growing very fast, and subscription service revenue saw a 379% increase in the second quarter of 2014, year-on-year,” he says. “We expect

subscriptions to be a significant part of our revenue in the coming three to five years.”

Koo says original content production is scaling up to include more movies, while the company plans to increase its partnerships with domestic and foreign production teams. “Eventually, we plan to move even beyond our multiscreen platform into other offline ventures like merchandising, festivals, artists’ appearances and other channels in order to reach out to our users, similar to The Walt Disney Company [strategies].”

Long-term strategy is Koo’s focus after nearly a decade at the helm. “I’m not a hands-on CEO in terms of day-to-day management, but I’m proud to have built a team of capable young executives that can manage key businesses well,” he says.

Koo says one landmark was the successful integration of Youku and Tudou. “We have consolidated the business back-end of Youku and Tudou, including content, technology, copyright procurement, operations and marketing. However, from a user and customer’s perspective, we retained both brands and have kept the sales teams separate.”

He acknowledges that monetisation remains a challenge. “In the fourth quarter of last year, Youku Tudou actually was profitable,” he points out, adding that multiscreen monetisation has grown from 3% of revenues in Q3 2013 to more than 30% today.

He notes that growth remains paramount.

“Currently, though, as we are in an expansion phase, staying still is not part of our business model. We

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need to invest capital to add more to our ever growing and diverse media and entertainment ecosystem.”

Some of that capital – RMB300 million in 2014/15 – will go towards creating original content. “We expect that this will continue to grow,” says Koo. “With our experience as China’s largest online video company, we are able to evolve our original content strategy to the next level.”

One of Youku Tudou’s strategies is to find the right partners for coproductions. “[We are] cooperating with top-tier production teams around the world to improve the quality of our original content,” says Koo. “Youku has been working with the production team of the number one variety show in Korea, SBS’s Running Man, while Tudou’s reality TV show Guest House is co-produced with SBS and SM Entertainment and features Super Junior, one of Korea’s top bands.”

Koo says the company is also looking at more investment in cinematic productions. “As part of our media and entertainment ecosystem, we want to leverage our ability to take our content to a multiscreen entertainment platform, which includes the big screen.”

The company has been using a three-pronged strategy to work with Hollywood: providing Hollywood movies via its video-on-demand service and splitting revenue with the studios; purchasing online-only rights to show Hollywood movies to subscribers; and providing marketing services to U.S. studios.

“We marketed 58 movies in the past two years with a box office total of RMB16 billion,” Koo points out. “We marketed Captain America: The Winter Soldier so well that it garnered almost RMB800 million in box office in China, which is 10 times the China box office of the first instalment of this franchise.”

Successful marketing relies, in part, on comprehensive knowledge of the audience, and few companies approach Youku Tudou when it comes to user data. “We are able to leverage the scale of our user base to enhance our understanding of them,” Koo explains. “With this in-depth understanding, we will be able to change the way content is produced.”

Youku Tudou uses its data to keep track of a rapidly evolving online population. The number of China’s Internet users has doubled over the past five years and become more diverse. “Our user age range is growing to reach younger and even older generations in China,” says Koo. “We have content for the mainstream users, and we also produce original content to cater to the needs of younger audiences.”

Koo acknowledges there will be challenges, not least of which will come from China’s capricious regulatory

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“As the nature of the industry is new to all parties involved, working together is the best way we see to move forward.” regime. China has not yet finalised laws and policies concerning online streaming sites and how they can compete with traditional TV. “Youku Tudou works closely with government authorities to communicate and discuss what each side wants,” he says. “As the nature of the industry is new to all parties involved, working together is the best way we see to move forward.”

One potential barrier is the imposition of a limit on the number of foreign television shows that Chinese online video-streaming services can offer. Koo says Youku Tudou’s foreign content is already at the limits put forth by the Chinese government and expected to go into effect in 2015. “As our original domestic content continues to advance as well, we do not see this as having any impact on our business,” he observes.

Despite such obstacles, Koo is upbeat about Youku Tudou’s ability to provide the right content at the right time. “With our experience, understanding, and market share, we are able to bridge the cultural gap between international content producers and the Chinese market to maximise opportunity.”

CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

Directing Disruption Jon Feltheimer, Chief Executive Officer of Lionsgate Entertainment, explains how nimble content companies can keep fickle consumers

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he pay-TV industry’s biggest disruptive influences are not Internet companies, social media networks or multichannel networks – they’re the viewers, says Jon Feltheimer, Chief Executive Officer of Lionsgate Entertainment.

“Five years from now none of your businesses will look the same as they look today,” he says, delivering a warning to attendees at the CASBAA Convention 2014. “In the next five years, everything, from the way we package, the way we produce, distribute and monetise content, will be different.”

Lionsgate, founded in 1997, has transformed from a small Canadian producer to one of the world’s largest movie and TV studios. Feltheimer, who has been CEO since 2000, notes that when he arrived at the company there was no Netflix, Hulu or even Facebook, adding that there were no “smartphones, tablets or electronic sell through.”

However, Feltheimer sees advantages in the plethora of new models. “The beauty of digital platforms is that they offer opportunity for everyone,” he says. “You don’t need a Harry Potter or a Hunger Games… if you’ve got the right content, a trusted brand, an efficient distribution mechanism and the means to effectively market to the consumer, channels will be created and they will be successful.”

By way of example, Feltheimer points to his own company, which despite its reputation for

making blockbusters as well as award-winning films like Monster’s Ball (2002) and 2005 Best Picture Oscar winner Crash – has also taken a close look at niche offerings, citing some of the “new digital kids on the entertainment block” as an example.

“Look at Freddie Wong and RocketJump, online content creators who started in their basement,” he marvels. “Now they’re one of the top providers on YouTube.”

In October 2014, Lionsgate announced a joint venture with Tribeca Enterprises, which owns and operates the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, to launch a subscription video-on-demand (VOD) service next year called Tribeca Short List. “We won’t get everyone to subscribe to the Tribeca Short List, but we don’t have to because we want to create a core affinity group of motivated film consumers and keep them satisfied,” he notes. “If we do, the channel will be very successful.”

Feltheimer also addresses the importance of cross-border appeal, some of them unexpected.

“The best content knows no boundaries,” he says, citing the demographics of DramaFever – an online platform based in New York and recently bought by Softbank that showcases Korean TV dramas. “85% of its viewers are non-Asian, contrary to what you expect.”

Closer to Feltheimer’s heart, and popular outside the U.S., is the Lionsgate-produced prison comedyCASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

drama Orange Is the New Black. “It does not sound like a recipe for success in the international marketplace, [yet it] is one of the most popular western shows on Youku Tudou [in China], where it screens the next day after it screens in the U.S. on Netflix. Why is that important? It’s when the consumer wants it.”

Feltheimer expects the Chinese consumer to become more important to Lionsgate. He recalls losing money in China two decades ago as President of Columbia TriStar Television. However, things have changed dramatically. “We made more [money] last year than in the previous five years,” he notes.

Escape Plan (2013), an action thriller starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, did better in China than in the U.S.

digital start-ups and new platforms that are causing disruption in the industry. “Disruption is coming from both sides now,” he says, “from people that you think would have been traditional Internet players [and] online players and it’s coming from the linear players who are using Internet distribution to expand their audiences.”

He notes how just last year cable giant Comcast saw an opportunity to expand their business through electronic sell through. “Within the very first week they became a market leader and one of our top three customers on nearly every title,” he says. “Their 23 million subscribers recognise the value of instant access and they’re willing to pay for it.”

“The whole form of serialised drama has had an incredible resurgence when you look at Netflix and when you look at ondemand viewing, where people want to binge view.”

In July 2014, Lionsgate and e-commerce giant Alibaba announced that they would launch a subscription streaming service in China. “Our Lionsgate Entertainment World streaming service with Alibaba [will combine] some of the biggest blockbuster movies, premium TV series and exclusive footage behind-the-scenes interviews and other special content for the Chinese consumer,” Feltheimer tells the CASBAA Convention audience.

“There are tremendous opportunities to do business in China, but we’re going to be cautious and look for the right partners.”

To Feltheimer, continuing to succeed in a world of changing consumer desires means addressing the needs of the so-called millennial generation.

“Everyone is scrambling to figure out the best way to connect with millennials,” he says, noting that they “had a smartphone as their first phone” and who may never have read a paper newspaper and “never knew that video wasn’t on demand”.

Feltheimer says the consumer is the true disruptor by asking for things that are different. “It’s our job to accommodate that disruptive consumer,” he says. He adds that Lionsgate is looking at a number of different ways to service those needy consumers. “We’re looking at models where we’re releasing films day and date to VOD,” he says. “We were one of the first companies to produce content for Netflix, for Hulu, for Amazon.”

Feltheimer points out that it is not only such

There are signs, he adds, that the “digital floodgates have opened”, citing HBO and CBS launching their own streaming services, ESPN planning an Internet channel, Sony and Dish launching virtual MSOs and Verizon rolling out its own online platform. “Nobody is just in the cable, satellite or telecommunications business anymore.”

What hasn’t changed, he observes, is audiences’ desire to witness compelling storytelling. “The whole form of serialised drama has had an incredible resurgence when you look at Netflix and when you look at on-demand viewing, where people want to binge view.”

However, while there remains an appreciation for very high production values in content, and the communal cinematic experience of a movie is still popular, millennials in particular are also happy to watch programming on a small screen such as an iPad or a smartphone. “And that’s because you’re watching the story – you want to see what happens in the next episode.”

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

Bringing Cinematic Experience to the Small-Screen Audience

Bruce Tuchman, President of AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global, tells of the continuing value of brands that underpin content

W

hile Bruce Tuchman is well aware of the power of digital – “if you don’t have it, you’re sunk or you don’t have a high value proposition,” the head of AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global told the CASBAA Convention audience – but he cautions against overstating its global impact.

“In some markets, [digital] is around the corner; in others it may never happen,” he says. He points to Indonesia, a country of more than 250 million people and an increasingly important market for his companies, as an example. “Subscriptions don’t cost much so you can’t meaningfully undercut that and still be able to afford content,” he says. “And there’s no broadband infrastructure – or very little. The vast majority of the world’s population will not have Netflix.”

Indeed, Tuchman asserts, there is very little deployment of many services that are hailed as the next big thing. “Look at VOD authenticated or OTT authenticated,” he says. “In the United States, people

talk about Netflix but the vast majority of the viewing experience remains linear.”

As Tuchman described in his Convention conversation, Netflix is an example of a “nightmare scenario” business model. “Some people say there will only be a Netflix model for the rest of eternity, and rather than paying US$100 or US$200 or US$300 a month for pay TV, you’re paying US$8 a month.”

That, he argues, would not provide enough revenue to create good enough content. “In a world where the revenue opportunities drop, consumers won’t get the programming they’re used to because that programming costs us a lot of money to hit the level of quality that people expect,” he says. “No one watches, per se, a platform – I watch the content on it.”

Tuchman believes TV content is becoming more like the movies, citing his own network’s crop of recent shows such as Rectify, the acclaimed first original series from SundanceTV, about the struggles of a man convicted of rape and murder CASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

who is exonerated and set free after nearly two decades on death row. “The folks behind Rectify are Oscar winners so they’ve gone from the movies and they’ve come to a place where they have freedom to do what they want,” says Tuchman. “You see that freedom all on air – you see their vision.”

When not focusing on content, Tuchman is busy with integration: since August 2014, the MGM Channel is being rebranded as AMC, which has begun launching channel feeds on cable and satellite platforms across Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East that include authenticated video-on-demand (VOD), high definition (HD) and TV Everywhere services.

AMC Networks acquired MGM through its US$1.04 billion purchase of Chellomedia from Liberty Global. The deal gave the company’s flagship network brand its first distribution outside North America and capitalises on AMC’s recent popularity sparked by original shows such as advertising industry period piece Mad Men, zombie apocalypse hit The Walking Dead and geek drama Halt and Catch Fire. AMC will also feature films from the MGM, Paramount and Sony film libraries internationally.

“A lot of people have taken an existing new portfolio channel and flipped a new brand on it, but we’re taking someone else’s channel and turning it into a brand that has never existed outside the U.S.,” says Tuchman, who helped build MGM into a global TV brand as president of MGM Worldwide Networks between 2001 and 2011. “AMC has got to become something more without alienating the existing [MGM] subscriber base.”

Tuchman says the reality of relaunching a new brand brings home the risks. “We are going to thousands of operators all around the world and asking them to embrace [the rebranding]. The good news is it’s working,” he says. “We just launched in Latin America in 25 million homes in Spanish and Portuguese.”

Despite its on-going economic woes, Europe remains a core business location for the company.

“It is perhaps our biggest international market,” he says. Perhaps surprisingly, he adds, “the TV business is good even in places that had been really hurt a few years ago. We’re seeing good growth in Spain, and Greece, for example. If this is the worst, it’s not so bad.”

Asia Pacific, he adds, is a source of potential.

“Depending on the country, there’s so much room to grow in Asia Pacific,” Tuchman enthuses. “We’re very excited about being here.”

One source of that excitement, he adds, is India. “I like the market because it’s huge and growing – there are challenges through restructuring and digital – but

“A lot of people have taken an existing new portfolio channel and flipped a new brand on it, but we’re taking someone else’s channel and turning it into a brand that has never existed outside the U.S.” there has been a rapid welling of subscription homes in an economy that continues to grow and a political environment that is beginning to offer more clarity and transparency.”

The other great Asia-Pacific economy, of course, remains problematic. “China is difficult,” he concedes. “We’re in the linear channel business and obviously you can only crack that so far in China, so we’re constrained. There are some SVOD plays and content plays, but in terms of meaningfully large business, the constraints in China from a regulatory and legal standpoint are significant.”

In the meantime, the Asia-Pacific region can serve the company as a source of content, either directly or through inspiration. “We’re buying a lot of Asian films for Sundance and we have a show in the works called Badlands, a cool fusion of the postapocalyptic and the traditional martial-arts genres on AMC in the U.S.” Tuchman discounts the idea that brands might no longer be as significant in the digital universe. “It remains as important as ever,” he says, noting that worldwide its hottest show is branded as ‘AMC’s The Walking Dead’. That, he adds, helps to establish that “all these different shows you’re watching, their heart and soul comes from the same place.”

“I have heard that in the digital world brands do not matter but I don’t think human psychology works that way,” Tuchman says. “Something’s got to unify [a brand] so a person will sample AMC vs. Brand X and we are tapping into the goodwill of our past successes. The pot of gold is to continue to live up to a high quality brand image – that is what the consumers want, and what the operators want to pay for.”

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

Hungry for Knowledge, and More Acquisitions James Rosenstock, President of Discovery Education International and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development at Discovery Communications, explains a recent buying binge

D

iscovery Communications didn’t find itself operating in 200 countries and territories through idly watching. The company, which operates TLC, Animal Planet and the Military Channel as well as its flagship Discovery Channel, has been an aggressive acquirer of properties in recent years, and James “Jay” Rosenstock, its Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, has been a leading proponent of expansion.

The pay-TV network is unafraid of mature, even saturated, markets. Last year, Discovery acquired the SBS Nordic operations of ProSiebenSat.1 Group, adding 12 television networks, as well as radio stations and digital brands, to the company’s existing portfolio of eight brands in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The resulting combined regional business, renamed SBS Discovery Media, has added general entertainment and scripted programming to its existing genres.

Some of the acquisitions have been prompted by a desire to build on existing portfolios. “We see the advantages of increased scale with the latest M&A activities such as the acquisition of majority control of Eurosport International… across Europe and Asia,” says Rosenstock. “Our first priority is to drive momentum across our existing international portfolio to maximise organic growth.”

He adds that some purchases have been designed to establish the brand more solidly in individual markets. “The acquisition of The Living Channel and Food TV deepens Discovery’s commitment to the New Zealand market and increases its presence from two channels – Discovery Channel and Animal Planet – to a robust four-channel portfolio encompassing factual entertainment and lifestyle.”

Other developments have been content-driven, such as its acquisition this year of British independent reality-TV producer Raw, which echoed its purchase in 2011 of Betty, another studio based in the United

CASBAA

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Kingdom. In September 2014, Discovery and Liberty Global combined to buy All3Media, yet another British production group. Those kinds of deals, says Rosenstock, “strengthen our connections to the very best creative people in the industry while contributing to Discovery’s pipeline.”

Discovery built its success, in part, on exporting content made in the United States to other markets worldwide.

“Discovery has been extremely successful in globalising our home-grown content and brands,” says Rosenstock. “For instance, TLC – one of the fastest-growing female lifestyle channels in the U.S. – launched internationally just over four years ago,” he notes. “Now it reaches 260 million subscribers in 187 countries and territories.”

More recently, due to its ambitious international acquisition strategy, it develops content with a global audience in mind from the start. “Three years ago, we created an international production team based in London, which produces global content not just from the U.K., but from all over world,” says Rosenstock.

The group’s content strategy has resulted in titles such as Deadliest Catch, a 10-year-old series that portrays real-life adventures among Alaskan crabbers, and one of its most successful franchises. “Wherever we screen it, it works,” says Rosenstock. “Other than language, we don’t have to do much to it because of its universal themes about the male pursuit of adventure with great characters and great stories.”

The company is unlikely to rest on its laurels. “We have launched more brands than any other media company,” says Rosenstock, adding that there is an average of eight Discovery-owned channels per market and about 2.7 billion cumulative subscribers. “We will continue to be opportunistic on where we can augment our portfolio to improve scale and market share,” he says. “We will continue to identify white space and invest in new brands where it makes sense.”

Despite its reach, there is still plenty of white space to colour. Sub-brands tread the familiar pattern of building up an audience in the U.S. before being prepped for international exposure. “Investigation Discovery has followed in TLC’s footsteps and just hit a key milestone of reaching 100 million homes outside of the U.S.,” Rosenstock points out. “Having the distribution to light up new global brands and utilize content that has universal appeal is a key element driving our steady and consistent organic growth.”

One other significant area for the company is educational TV, the expansion of which Rosenstock

is helping to guide as President of Discovery Education International. In 2013, Discovery paid about £20 million – its biggest investment so far in the education sector – for Espresso Group, a British provider of primary school digital content.

“In January, we will launch Discovery Education Secondary, a new digital learning service spanning a wide range of subject areas,” says Rosenstock. It will cover Key Stage 3, the three years of schooling in England and Wales when pupils are between 11 and 14 years old; Key Stage 4, the two years of school education, which incorporate GCSEs and Progress 8, which captures progress a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of Key Stage 4 as well as EBacc subjects, he adds.

“We’ve also partnered with Cambridge University Press, a division of the University of Cambridge, to develop first-class learning materials for millions of learners of English nationwide,” Rosenstock adds.

“Under the partnership, Discovery Education’s video and digital assets are being used in Cambridge English Language Teaching’s publishing, giving English language learners access to engaging, high-quality video content and a unique learning experience.”

Discovery Education’s content and services reach students in 40 countries around the world, including, in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia and South Korea.

“We work closely with education ministries to implement systematic changes in instruction, utilising and customising Discovery Education’s solutions to meet each country’s needs,” says Rosenstock.

Can an entertainment company make a difference to national education systems? Rosenstock thinks so. “Our measure of success is always student achievement, and the results we have seen are promising.”

He says Discovery partners with third-party, independent research companies to conduct studies on the effectiveness of its educational products and services in improving student outcomes. “For instance, data suggest that the Discovery Education Science Techbook increases student science achievement and bolsters the effectiveness of teaching when educators integrate it into classroom instruction.”

Discovery Education recently formed a learning analytics group, which is spearheading personalised learning methods and putting the company’s extensive trove of data to use. “I believe that rapid advances in digital technologies will allow education to be increasingly personalised,” says Rosenstock.

“That will help us to meet the unique needs and support the success of diverse learners.”

“Discovery has been extremely successful in globalising our homegrown content and brands.“

CASBAA

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Creating a Front Line to Fight Battle for Intellectual Property British Member of Parliament Mike Weatherley looks back on his stint as an IP adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron and outlines his three-pronged strategy in winning the war against infringements

M

ike Weatherley says the turning point in his campaign against intellectual property rights infringement was the moment the British government decided to take him seriously about two years ago.

“In the past two years the British government has made very welcoming progress,” says Weatherley.

“Overall I would give the government a ‘B’. Not quite ‘A’ yet but getting there.”

The Conservative Party backbench parliamentarian – he was elected to his seat of Hove and Portslade on the southern coast only in 2010 – had previously been a businessman in the manufacturing and entertainment industries, two sectors that rely on a robust IP rights regime.

David Cameron, who led the Conservativedominated government elected in 2010, appointed Weatherley as IP adviser to the Prime Minister, a new position. “This was an important historic step,

enabling progress in many specific areas.”

In true parliamentary tradition, Weatherley decided what was necessary was a report to give Cameron and his colleagues. The result was Search Engines, a private discussion paper released in May 2014. He stressed that search engines are not the cause of online piracy, but that data showed that they play an important role in inadvertently guiding consumers towards illegal content and are well placed to be part of the solution.

“My first report recommended that the Internet search engines sit down with government and industry to thrash out problems and solutions, and the first such meeting took place, showing that the government was taking the report seriously.”

Search Engines was the first of a trilogy of reports.

Emboldened by support from Cameron and Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Weatherley published Follow the Money, which CASBAA

Issue Two 2014 29

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addresses the impact of illegal websites profiting from advertising, and Copyright Education and Awareness, which examines IP education and aims to help reinforce the importance of respecting IP and paying a fair price for content.

Weatherley says his business background explains his interest in IP. “As the owner of a company

“Before any punitive action can be taken, we do need society to be on the side that piracy is wrong as a general concept.” exporting customised products around the world, I built up a knowledge of patents and trade marks.

And then I worked in the music and film industries around licensing and rights holders,” Weatherley says. “It became a logical step to use this expertise in Parliament.”

One of the shortcomings in the prosecution of IP infringement cases was the absence of a coordinated response by the authorities. Weatherley campaigned for the creation of the national Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), which was set up in September 2012.

“Setting up PIPCU signalled a change in tactics that infringers would be tracked down and prosecuted by a specialist team,” Weatherley says. “It has brought in other and more specialists as well. It basically just got more serious.”

The support of senior politicians also galvanised the bureaucracy. “The Intellectual Property Office has restructured to become much more focused on delivering a robust programme,” Weatherley says of Britain’s government body responsible for IP policy, educating businesses and consumers about IP rights and responsibilities and supporting IP enforcement as well as granting patents, trade marks and design rights throughout the U.K. Weatherley says his reports were received by the IPO with some trepidation, as he urged that the IPO coordinate cross-sector IP working groups and awareness programmes reach out to the wider public and set out a strategic outreach plan by the first quarter of 2015, with a cross-industry working group convening quarterly to review its progress. “I think they were a little nervous to start with but now see that [the reports] are there to be constructive and support them.”

Weatherley recommends that every country

develop a coordinated structure that defends IP rights and prosecutes infringements. “With a variety of agencies all with their own part to play – the IPO, PIPCU, National Crime Agency, the various trading standards organisations and legislators – the task seems almost too daunting,” he observes.

The solution, he adds, is a “dedicated IP tsar” or coordinator. “Without one, coordination is almost impossible. I would recommend every nation appoint one as soon as possible.”

Once coordinated, IP protection can be a basically three-pronged approach, Weatherley recommends. “There is no one solution to piracy – it involves a combination of education, carrot and stick,” he says, “and then on top of that there are further disruption measures such as search engine support and follow-the-money initiatives.”

However, Weatherley acknowledges that education and awareness campaigns have had very limited impact. “The big challenge of the future is in how we deliver a meaningful message on respect for IP,” he says. “It’s a huge task with little immediate tangible gain.”

The carrots, he says, involve creative industries changing the way they make products available to ensure that consumers can easily access content legally. “Proponents of piracy say downloading content legally is too complicated,” says Weatherley.

“Industry, therefore, needs to find innovative ways to ensure that content is easily available and in so doing make piracy a less attractive option.”

New, workable solutions that Weatherley welcomes include the film industry’s multi-format licence option for home use. “Industry must step up and provide alternatives that are attractive to consumers – they can’t just keep insisting on getting the stick out,” he says. “We need to start embracing solutions like Spotify and Bloom.fm, both of which have a one-off licensing model, which is proving popular,” he says.

When the sticks are deployed, Weatherley says, they should be used proportionately. They can be directed partially at end-user infringers, but much of the heavy artillery should be aimed at upstream providers of infringing content. “Before any punitive action can be taken, we do need society to be on the side that piracy is wrong as a general concept,” he says. “Only then can we think about punishment for offenders.”

Weatherley stepped down as Cameron’s IP adviser in October 2014 and is not seeking reelection to parliament next year. However, he hopes he will continue the IP rights fight outside the House of Commons. “I remain available to advise and support in any capacity industry or government would like me to,” he says. “The difference will be that I will need to be asked formally to be involved in projects, rather than initiate debate as I do now.”

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

Exciting Life Lived at the Intersection Kim Moses, Principal in Sander/Moses Productions says technology will bring bigger, broader benefits

K

im Moses has been creating and producing TV shows in Hollywood with her husband Ian Sander for more than two decades, most recently the legal drama Reckless for CBS, and remains eager about what the future holds. “I’m very much an innovator so this is my time,” says the Principal of Sander/Moses Productions. “I absolutely love working at the intersection of television and digital media.”

The next big thing, says Sander, will be the Oculus range of 3D virtual-reality headsets due for general release next year. Oculus is currently developing the Oculus Rift in an effort to revolutionise the way people experience interactive content and immersive gaming.

“The Oculus is going to change everything in TV and digital media,” she forecasts. “It’s going to change how we produce content and how we consume it.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the Oculus.”

Moses expects more of global TV production will be met by international content.

“Although formats have always played a part in American TV development, I foresee formats becoming more important in the global market moving forward into the future.” In Hong Kong, Moses spent her time exploring possibilities for development from the AsiaPacific market. “I have not really been exposed to this market and its original content,” she says.

She sees four factors that make content compelling enough to transcend borders. “The original concept has universal elements so it is culturally relevant for the times, the content is cohesive and well produced for the market that it serves, there was traction in its original marketplace and the production company or distribution company is willing to understand deal requirements that are unique to the American marketplace.”

Moses has seen digital demand change the content production process. “Because viewers are consuming content in new ways – for example, binge watching – there is a greater need for new content that does not take the traditional average of nine months to

incubate a pilot,” she says.

There is also a financial upside to multiple distribution platforms. “For the first time ever, TV series are going into the black before the end of the first broadcast season,” Moses points out. “In the past, a TV series was in the red usually until it went into syndication – and even then, lots of shows did not hit black.”

Pre-existing formats have demonstrated they have legs when they ran in other countries.

“I am loving my collaboration with 21st Century Fox Television on my new drama series Runner, which is based on a Turkish format that I optioned at MIP-TV,” she says “I also just sold a French format, Détectives,” which has been renamed Risk by ABC in the United States.

During her career, Moses has been named to Newsweek’s Women and Leadership Advisory Committee and was honoured with Women In Film’s Woman of The Year Award in 2011. Moses says she is pleased to see women having more executive input in Hollywood. “Nina Tassler is President of CBS Entertainment and Dana Walden is the new Cochairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox Television with Gary Newman,” she points out. “And there are a number of very successful cable network heads who are women and many female executives.”

However, she would like to see more female creative talent. “In the director, showrunner, and creator categories, we don’t see it so much,” she says.

“We must keep giving women opportunities to move forward in those areas.”

“Although formats have always played a part in American TV development, I foresee formats becoming more important in the global market moving forward into the future.”

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

Giving Local Talent a Global Audience

Jim Samples, President, International, at Scripps Networks Interactive, believes in the global power of lifestyle brands

S

cripps Networks Interactive owns as well as distributes most of its major content, which gives the lifestyle entertainment network a leg-up when it comes to deploying its programming on digital platforms.

“I think it is imperative that we stay as nimble as possible in the face of rapidly changing technologies,” says Jim Samples, President of International at Scripps Networks Interactive, who oversees the American company’s international programme licensing and distribution business.

“We’re able to accommodate viewers on whatever screen they choose.”

That has helped Scripps to develop Ulive, a digital lifestyle portal featuring programming from Food Network and Travel Channel, and a host of original web series over the past year. “As consumer preferences for on-demand, multiscreen viewing develops, the technology will only continue to get more sophisticated,” Samples says.

Scripps has made its mark mostly in the food, travel and home sectors, which are categories that Samples believes can only grow globally. “We believe that there are significant opportunities for us in the international pay-TV landscape. The successful evolution of our business, from our programme sales business to the development of our burgeoning channel business, has shown that there is a tremendous appetite for our unique brand of home, food and travel lifestyle content.”

Samples oversees the strategic direction and daily operations of Scripps Networks’ international division, which distributes six global brands – Food Network, Asian Food Channel, Travel Channel, HGTV, DIY and Fine Living – across Europe, Middle East and Africa as well as Asia Pacific and Latin America. The recent launch of Food Network in Brazil marks Scripps Networks’ first channel entry into that continent.

Samples acknowledges that much of Scripps’ offerings are overtly American in culture and taste, such as Diners, Drive-ins & Dives hosted by the loud and kitschy Guy Fieri or Unwrapped, which reveals behindthe-scenes details on how classic American foods like Twinkies and bubble gum are

made. Such shows, he says, “[prove] to have great potential around the world.”

The company’s Asia-Pacific reach received a shot in the arm in 2013 when it acquired the Asian Food Channel, giving it three lifestyle brands as well as Food Network and Travel Channel. Samples won’t rule out more acquisitions. “Our approach varies from market to market,” he says, “[but] we will always evaluate opportunities that complement our growth strategy, particularly those that fit within our core categories of home, food and travel.”

The region is assuming a greater focus within Scripps: The launch of HGTV in Asia in December 2014 represents its debut outside of North America.

“As the viewers in these markets continue to seek out programming relevant to their growing interests, we are very well positioned to meet their demands with our unique brand of aspirational lifestyle programming,” Samples says.

The company will continue addressing access to the largest Asia-Pacific markets. “We hope to find a rational entry point into the [Indian] market as we believe in the power of our brands and content and their ability to resonate with audiences,” says Samples. “China is an important market because of its size and its growing appreciation for lifestyle programming, so we will continue to explore opportunities.”

CASBAA

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Guy FIeri

Ching-He Huang

Drew Scott

Jonathan Scott

Henry Cole

The most powerful brands in

lifestyle

CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

The New Face of Broadcast News Andrew Rashbass, Chief Executive of Reuters, faces the challenge of bringing a legacy brand into the digital age

A

ndrew Rashbass is conscious that almost every aspect of his current project has been tried before, sometimes even at his own organisation, as the Chief Executive of Reuters heads a project to create a personalised digital news app set to launch in January 2015.

Reuters TV marks a second attempt by Reuters, the newsgathering arm of the Thomson Reuters media giant, to build a consumer brand. The previous effort, also overseen by Rashbass, the former chief executive of The Economist Group, was abandoned after two years.

This time around, Rashbass believes the legendary media brand has got it right. “We said to ourselves that there is still a demand for curated TV news but it now needs to be on-demand, on the device you want it to be on, where you want it and when you want it,” he says.

The app, scheduled to launch initially in the United Kingdom and United States on Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices, will use a proprietary algorithm to draw down a selection of content for each viewer based on their location and usage-based data.

A combination of subscription revenue – with a fee estimated at about US$2 per month per person – and advertising will fund the service, which will provide three lengths of feeds ranging from five to 30 minutes.

“We’re moving away from mass broadcasts to one that’s relevant for every single user,” says Rashbass.

The challenge was to leverage the talent of thousands

of journalists and videographers at Reuters to produce content that would appeal to digitally minded viewers.

“We saw that the idea that the connected generation – the Netflix generation – is still going to want to have a nine o’clock appointment on their sofa at home with a box on the wall to watch a news programme was increasingly irrelevant,” says Rashbass.

Yet data suggested that people still retained an overarching interest in news content. “Look at Twitter and Facebook,” says Rashbass. “The majority of postings and tweets are actually about news and the most shared content type is actually news. The millennial generation is the most news-oriented generation that we have ever had but they’re interested in [getting] news on their own terms.”

Rashbass believes immediacy is the key. “It’s fine to watch an episode of House of Cards that was recorded a year ago but watching a news programme recorded five hours ago actually isn’t the way people are living today in the world of Twitter immediacy,” he explains. “If someone in New York presses the button they will get a completely different programme at that moment from somebody pressing the button in London, [and both of them] would get a completely different programme at 10 o’clock than at 10.30.”

The project’s success hinges on rethinking news budgets, Rashbass insists. “We are changing the economics of TV news [by reducing production expenses] to 5% of the traditional cost. It’s not about cutting costs, it’s about building a different model.”

CASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

In Search of the Right Numbers Barry Cupples, Global Chief Executive Officer, Investment, of Omnicom Media Group, hopes better data will drive change

T

he advertising sector is just as disrupted by technological advances as content makers, distributors, operators and other stakeholders in the pay-TV industry, especially in a fluid and high-growth region such as Asia Pacific.

Barry Cupples, who last year became Global Chief Executive Officer, Investment, of Omnicom Media Group, says he can handle the disruption.

“It’s great,” he says. “It keeps us locked into the need for open-minded and flexible management.

With change being so fluid, it’s imperative that your colleagues feel we are meeting the challenges head on and innovating wherever possible.”

OMG is keeping a keen eye on consumer behaviour. “I think transactional execution and how we shop via devices for convenience and time saving will be even more interesting as that story unfolds,” he says.

Cupples is now based in London, where he leads the group’s strategic investment. “My role is to interact with all our investment teams to drive client value,” he says. “That means staying close and ensuring two-way dialogue. Strategically, we think about change and how best to stay ahead for our clients.”

In his global role, Cupples finds that the Asian region is still sought after by clients, who see the region through the lens of its still relatively high growth. “Asia is extremely dynamic,” he says. “[Clients in] New York and London want to drill down on the Asia experience, and not just China – but also markets like Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia,

Australia and New Zealand.”

But as Cupples has found, clients would like to see some hard numbers. “Answering questions about what is going to happen next is tough, but it is still an upwardly mobile region.”

He is quick to point out that there are plenty of raw data, but what is lacking is useful interpretation.

“We’ve been drowning in data, not really knowing what to do with it,” he noted at the CASBAA Convention. Research companies, he added, need to “step up” and provide better measurability.

By way of example, Cupples says OMG is still on a learning curve with social media. “The measurement part of social media is a dilemma – there’s a long way to go,” he says. “We’d like to see the data from influence all the way through to sale but we don’t have that.”

That can cause difficulties under client pressure, he noted. “Lots of clients want to be in the social platform space and our job is to make sure that it works,” he says. “We’re learning. We’re trying to find the value equation [in social media] and drive a better position for our clients together and it is a difficult task.”

CASBAA, says Cupples, could become a regional champion of better measurement, giving stakeholders a keener view of the market. The result, he adds, would be “huge amounts of highly informative insight,” he says. “That will lead us down a path to identify what is the true return on every dollar we spend.”

CASBAA

Issue Two 2014 39

CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

How Media Enhances Nature David Haslingden, Chief Executive Officer of NHNZ, explains how technology will increase the appeal of natural history programming with high values

P

roducers of natural history programming are among the keenest embracers of exciting new visual technologies such as Ultra-HD, also known as 4K. “Higher resolution films displayed by larger, sharper screens will bring the content to life in a way we haven’t seen before,” enthuses David Haslingden, Chief Executive Officer of NHNZ, a rapidly expanding maker of factual TV based in New Zealand.

Haslingden says running NHNZ is a different kind of challenge. “I’ve always wanted to build my own business and I’m finding it challenging in a good way,” he says. “There’s no doubt a whole new level of rigour when it’s your own money.”

While principally supplying networks in the United States – such as National Geographic Channel (co-owned by 21st Century Fox) as well as Discovery Networks’ Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and Science Channel, and the CBS joint venture Smithsonian Channel – Haslingden expects NHNZ to have an increasing Asia-Pacific focus.

It has a controlling stake in the Singapore-based production company Beach House Pictures and sells content to major broadcasters in the region such as Japan’s NHK. “I would like to have a presence in any market in Asia where I can find the right people,” Haslingden says.

The greatest potential lies in China, says Haslingden, who was previously president and chief operating officer of FOX Networks Group, running its U.S. and international networks.

He left in 2012 with the idea of building NHNZ, formerly Natural History New Zealand, into a “mini-major” documentary production house.

China will drive AsiaPacific content by dwarfing the amount any other country in the region will spend on content production, he forecasts, adding: “China will boom, and content produced in China will become the dominant form of

international programming in the region, as will formats developed and launched in China.”

Chinese programming, Haslingden notes, can have regional relevance just as Japanese and Korean TV do today. “It’s important to remember that borders are more permeable when they separate audiences who share cultural and day-to-day similarities,” he says. “So it’s easier, obviously, for Chinese programming to cross borders in Asia than American programming.”

Despite a foothold in the U.S., China, New Zealand and Singapore, and recent office openings in Taiwan and Brazil, Haslingden says NHNZ will hew to a policy of organic growth. “We’ll almost certainly build not buy,” he says. “We aren’t necessarily looking to acquire businesses. We would like to be in all the major markets, but our ability to do so will depend on whether we can find the right people.”

Haslingden expects NHNZ to display its strengths among the millennials by “making sure they can watch compelling content wherever they are and whenever they want,” he says. “Story is everything.”

He is also embracing new opportunities for data analytics. “The ability to use data to measure the effectiveness of video advertising as precisely as any form of digital marketing – and the speed by which competitors gain that ability – will determine the winners and losers over the next five years.”

CASBAA

Issue Two 2014 41

Global connectivity, local delivery

YOUR SATELLITE SOLUTIONS FOR ASIA

www.eutelsat.com

CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

Turning Tweets Into Revenue Danny Keens, Global Chair of TV at Twitter, explains in more than 140 characters why the platform is a bridge, not an island

T

o the folks at Twitter, the short-message social media platform, television is a natural partner. “Twitter is the social soundtrack for TV and connects people all over the world so they can have a conversation about it,” says Danny Keens, the company’s Sydney-based Global Chair of TV. Keens’s challenge is to harness the conversation around TV, which is a major driver of engagement on the platform. “There’s a roar around great content,” he says. “There’s an entire dimension that opens up as people share their reactions. Sharing makes TV better. It’s not just word of mouth, it has energy and a quality that’s unique to Twitter.”

His major task is to forge strategic partnerships.

“We don’t have an island strategy as a business and, if anything, our strategy is a bridge strategy, finding

ways to work together with partners and carve out synergies between partners and Twitter,” says Keens, a former TV producer. A big focus of those partnerships is on TV. “All the parts of anyone’s content business and all the parts of Twitter combine to make a whole that’s much bigger than the sum of both.”

Whether it’s on-air integrations, discovery, TV tune in, measurement or revenue, Keens says the collaborations are still in their early stages. “We work with our media partners and try to find ways to help them achieve their goals as a business,” he says. “I believe we are the best possible platform for them to build on new digital possibilities.”

Some of those possibilities are created by Twitter’s trove of user and usage data. In 2013, the company combined with market information company Nielsen Holdings to launch Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, a suite of metrics analysing engagement. ”We enable TV networks to access measurement of Twitter engagement surrounding their programmes, to measure the effectiveness of any Twitter TV-related audience engagement strategies so they can then better understand the relationship,” says Keens.

On top of this, he adds, the ratings assist agencies and advertisers in making data-driven media planning and buying decisions. “The ultimate goal,” says Keens, “is to allow networks to find revenue streams around the buzz they are creating on Twitter.”

The partnerships with TV have a particular resonance in the Asia-Pacific region, says Keens.

“We’ve found the conversation around TV to be a huge driver of engagement on the platform and we are heavily invested in the region,” he says. “We continue to invest heavily in the region because 60% of all millennials will reside in Asia by 2020 and another one billion people will be in the Asian middle class by 2030.”

One result has been Twitter Amplify, a revenuesharing product with broadcast partners in Australia, Japan and India. Amplify allows digital content rights holders to create new revenue streams by targeting people tweeting about their content. “You can distribute your short-form content on Twitter and monetise it,” says Keens. “We’ve got dozens of partners globally and, ultimately, Amplify makes us a new distribution and revenue channel for broadcasters’ video content.”

CASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

DAY 1 October 27, Hong Kong

44

CASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

DAY 2 October 28, Hong Kong

CASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

DAY 3 October 29, Hong Kong

46

CASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

DAY 4 October 30, Hong Kong

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CASBAA

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CASBAA CONVENTION 2014

Convention at a Glance Attendees Breakdown Global Attendance

Decision Makers

Sponsorship The CASBAA Convention 2014 received tremendous support from 39 Sponsors.

Official Entertainment Channel Partner

Official Media Partner

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Skies Are No Limit as Satellites Soar Huang Baozhong, Executive Vice President of APT Satellite, says his company will focus on its core competitive advantages

S

ometime in the second half of 2015, Huang Baozhong will be keeping a close eye on a Long March rocket lifting off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan, China, carrying the Apstar 9 satellite. The satellite, expected to have a 15-year lifespan, will feature 32 transponders in C-band and 14 in Ku-band.

Apstar 9 will be the latest effort to build up the fleet at APT Satellite, of which Huang is Executive Vice President while economic conditions look so promising. “I would say in general the whole industry is financially very healthy,” says Huang.

“Most companies have demonstrated strong growth during the past few years and some showed two-digit growth, including our own company.”

APT recorded 26.8% growth in revenues and 68.4% growth in profits in 2013, but is far from alone in its bullish forecasting – or in unveiling new launches. “Due to the strong and healthy growth of the industry, nearly all satellite operators have one or more satellites in their plans during the next few

years,” Huang acknowledges.

He notes that AsiaSat launched two satellites late in 2014: AsiaSat 8 in August and AsiaSat 6 in September. In addition, Chinasat M was launched in November, Optus 10 and MEASAT 2 in September, while February saw the deployment of Asia Broadcast Satellite’s ABS 2. “It looks like everybody is very ambitious,” Huang remarks.

Despite the rush to orbit, Huang is unfazed by emerging competition, whether from new birds, or new operators such as O3b, which is making inroads into the Pacific Ocean and other markets with its medium-Earth-orbit satellite constellation. “We position APT Satellite as a key operator in the AsiaPacific region, one of the most important regions in the world [and] a very dynamic and fast growing market, especially for the data and broadcasting industries.

To service its growing markets, APT’s orbital locations range from 76.5 degrees to 142 degrees east, Huang notes. “Therefore we are able to cover most countries in Africa and most countries in Europe all the way east to Hawaii,” he says. “Within the Asia-Pacific CASBAA

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© 2014 DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS

CELEBRATING TWENTY REMARKABLE YEARS

KNOW YOUR MEMBER

region, right now I would say our biggest market is Indonesia and for the next decade that will be our biggest potential market.” Other markets that are encouraging include Myanmar, Philippines and Papua New Guinea.

APT also plans to increase its fleet by buying back Telstar 10, which provides coverage of Asia, Australia, parts of Europe and Africa through its C-band payload and Korea, Taiwan, Macau and China, including Hong Kong, through its Kuband payload. “We have several other satellite programmes under consideration,” says Huang.

Flexibility is another feature, he notes, citing Apstar 9 as an example. “In addition to two C-band beams, we have equipped Apstar 9 with another four Ku-band beams, and together they can cover almost all the South Pacific Ocean,” he says, referring to its appeal to service providers in the maritime and oil and gas industries.

Maritime VSAT broadband via high-throughput satellites (HTS) could be another game-change.

The number of maritime vessels relying on VSAT as their primary communications is expected to more than double by 2016. “We do not yet have any HTS payloads but it is only a matter of time.”

“APT wants to grow together with our clients. Service is a top priority. We understand our customers and we understand our business and we can provide tailormade solutions.”

Moreover, Huang adds, four beams can be crossstrapped, where an uplinked signal in one frequency band is converted to a different frequency band for the downlink, such as a C-band uplink to Ku-band downlink.

Huang would like to see the fleet size and flexibility help to ensure that APT has a strong market position. Indeed, it dominates in certain territories, Huang notes. “In some countries, such as Bangladesh, we have 100% market share,” he says.

“All the Bangladesh TV channels are using Apstar 7, as are those in the Maldives and Sri Lanka. In Nepal, Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar, APT has a majority market share.”

APT adheres to high ethical standards, says Huang, by way of explaining its strong positions.

Huang Baozhong, Executive Vice President of APT Satellite

“Our philosophy is we need to be accountable to the customers, and to do that we should be reliable, both in terms of our satellite reliability and of the company itself,” he says.

“The third factor is being reasonable – we have to behave like reasonable people,” he stresses. “That means not over-emphasising our contractual rights or trying every means to enforce our rights in the contract.

Of course, we need to have a sustainable business but we should allow our customers to be sustainable.”

Huang says APT will focus on its core competitive advantages to maintain its market position. “We differentiate ourselves from the others by capacity – every time we need a satellite, we buy two satellites; pricing – we charge a reasonable price based on construction cost plus a 10-15% margin; and service.”

“APT wants to grow together with our clients,” Huang adds. “Service is a top priority. We understand our customers and we understand our business and we can provide tailor-made solutions.”

Huang sees his role as not just commercial, but as an ambassador for APT Satellite. “If you used the commonly understood meanings, I’m the one responsible for sales and marketing, but I do not admit that I’m a pure sales guy.” He cites Bangladesh as an example, where APT worked with CASBAA and the Global VSAT Forum to greatly improve the South Asian country’s satellite service level.

He believes that far more cooperation is necessary to address the industry’s outstanding issues. “I do believe that the C-band will play a major role in data CASBAA

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KNOW YOUR MEMBER

services,” he says. “How can we protect the C-band? either a five-tonne payload or about two tonnes each in CASBAA has done a very good study and this has a twin payload,” says Huang. brought attention worldwide,” he adds. “We are Huang also welcomes new entrants in the launchsupporters of this study.” vehicle business. “We are a commercial entity so we A second major issue is signal interference. “People are very glad to see come into market companies such have to try their best to avoid interference from each as SpaceX and they have been very successful so far,” other, because with satellite launch orbits, 2-degree or he says. “We would also like to see more satellite 2.5-degree spacing is no longer enough,” says Huang, manufacturers as brave as SpaceX, as that would to adding that the 1 to 1.5-degree spacing now commonly greatly reduce the cost but also be reliable.” seen presents problems. “I hope all the satellite Higher reliability and massive increases in capacity operators should abide by a set of industry rules to are going to be necessary for developments such as avoid interference with each other. This is not only inflight connections. “Sports content can be delivered good for them but good for the industry.” directly to airlines instead of to a specific country so Huang says APT is unlikely to concentrate on the we need to consider how to create more effective Ka-band like so many of its rivals. “Who right now does distribution,” says Huang. not have plans involving the Ka-band?

Only me,” he says with a chuckle. “I The Apstar 9 satellite undergoes an inspection in its think broadband capacity is a good assembly, integration and test phase at the China Academy of Space Technology facility in Beijing. thing but currently there is too much supply. The take-up rate on Ka-band transponders is only about 16%, and 45%-plus is needed for profitability.”

That, he says, means there’s a long way to go before broadband suppliers are profitable. “The customers are cautious and the technology still lags behind,” he says. “Maybe there is concern about rain fade, or the reliability of the newcomers or they simply consider the technology as not mature.”

Huang says exactly two-thirds of APT’s income comes from data, while the remaining one-third comes from the broadcasting industry, reeling off famous pay-TV names such as HBO, Disney, Sony Pictures, ABC and BBC. To keep attracting those networks, Huang concedes, it is necessary that capacity is increased dramatically. “In this regard, we are doing very well,” he says, pointing to the 80% occupancy rates of Apstar 7 and Apstar 9A. “That was shortly after we put the satellites into their designated orbit slots.”

Technological advances among launch vehicle suppliers are also promising, he says, citing early information from the Long March 5 project, the nextgeneration heavy lift launch system currently under development by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. “The capability of the launch vehicle is such that they will able to send 12 tonnes of payload into geostationary transfer orbit. Normally they can launch CASBAA

Issue Two 2014 57

501

million

MULTICHANNEL HOMES

CAN’T BE WRONG. BECOME A MEMBER TODAY!

www.casbaa.com

ALBUM

CASBAA 101 August 28, Singapore

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INTRODUCING AUSTRALIA PLUS TELEVISION

A new international television service for Asia and the Pacific from ABC Australia Australia Plus Television comes to you from the same broadcaster that brought you the Australia Network and features the same mix of award-winning news, sport, lifestyle, drama, kids, English language learning and entertainment from around Australia and the region.

For more information please contact Doug Fraser on +852 35999246 or fraser.doug@abc.net.au

BY THE NUMBERS

Non-Terrestrial TV Connections Latest data from CASBAA Asia Pacific Multichannel TV Advertising 2015 book

61%

57%

54%

PAKISTAN 11.6 MILLION

of homes in Asia now receive Multichannel TV.

9

CHINA 255.5 MILLION

92%

INDIA 149 MILLION

SOUT 24.5 M

85% 97

HONG KONG 2.5 MILLION

64%

THAILAND 14.7 MILLION

TAIW 7.8 MI

61%

VIETNAM 12.7 MILLION

61%

MALAYSIA 4.1 MILLION

63%

FAST FACTS POPULATION................................... 3,579,814,080 TOTAL HOMES..................................... 936,147,053 HOUSEHOLD SIZE...............................................3.8 TELEVISION HOMES........................... 824,757,429 MULTICHANNEL HOMES.................500,639,000 INTERNET USERS............................ 1,228,382,259

Note 1: This data includes multiple connections to non-terrestrial channels in 000s and multichannel homes penetration as a percentage.

Note 2: Thailand data under review as market is in a state of flux.

Sources: Casbaa, SNL Kagan, MCN, SARFT, CSM, TAM India, SKY, Gallup Pakistan, Starhub, Kantar, Nielsen, Astra, Astro, Video Research, TmNS.

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CASBAA

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SINGAPORE 950,000

11

INDON 4.4 MIL

98%

30%

Multichannel Homes Growth (Millions)

JAPAN 15.2 MILLION

TH KOREA MILLION

501

2014

7%

WAN ILLION

20%

2013

468

2012

446 407

2011

PHILIPPINES 3.2 MILLION

363

2010

326

2009

1%

NESIA LLION

291

2008

2007

264

2006

255 228

2005

36% AUSTRALIA 2.9 MILLION

218

2004

56%

NEW ZEALAND 900,000

Millions of homes Sources: Casbaa, SNL Kagan, MCN, SARFT, CSM, TAM India, SKY, Gallup Pakistan, Starhub, SingTel, Kantar, Nielsen, OzTAM, Video Research

CASBAA

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COMMITTEES

CASBAA 2020 Committee BOARD MEMBERS RESPONSIBLE MARK PATTERSON GroupM CHRISTINE FELLOWES NBCUniversal CO-CHAIRS MATTHEW KURLANZIK FOX International Channels MATT POLLINS Olswang COMMITTEE MEMBERS PREM KAMATH A+E Networks SAUGATO BANERJEE A+E Networks SUSHANT SHARMA Accedo

MARK LAY CASBAA

SARAH SANFORD Irdeto

BENSON KOH Tata Communications

NICOLA NGAN CASBAA

FARINA YUSOF Motion Picture Association

ROMAIN OUDART TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific

CASBAA OTT & Connected Media Group

TONY MCGINN Movideo

DARYL KHO Viacom International Media Networks MARK LAY CASBAA

CO-CHAIRS REUBEN VERGHESE Accedo

CASBAA Research Committee

KELLY COOKE ESPN International

DUNCAN MORRIS Turner International

CHU YOUNG-LEE Astro

COMMITTEE MEMBERS E-LIN KOK A+E Networks

DAWN TAN Bloomberg AMIT MALHOTRA Disney Media Distribution MARK CHAN Disney Media Distribution

JEREMY PHUA BBC Worldwide SALLY WU BBC Worldwide AMY LAU Bloomberg

SHAD HASHMI Encompass

ATHENA HO Celestial Tiger Entertainment

KHUSH KUNDI Ericsson

CHUSAN YEH Discovery Networks Asia Pacific

VIC WONG Ericsson MICKAEL ZEGGAGH France24 NICK BINNS GroupM

JULIE PETERSEN Discovery Networks Asia Pacific ADITI GUHA Disney Media Distribution JOANNE FAIRHEAD Disney Media Distribution

JUNE TAN HBO Asia

SHAILENDER SINGH MEASAT CONNIE CHAN MEC Global

RIX YU FOX International Channels HENRY ROBLES NBCUniversal NASRUDDIN MD KASSIM Scripps Networks Interactive

BEATRICE LEE MP & Silva

ANNIE YUAN Sony Pictures Entertainment

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PETER HAMMER Turner International Asia Pacific

MARK CHEW MP & Silva

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SARA MADERA CASBAA

CO-CHAIRS MARTYN UREN FOX International Channels

CYNTHIA ZHANG APT Satellite

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COMMITTEE MEMBERS SUSHANT SHARMA Accedo

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OLIVIA CHAVASSIEU A+E Networks

ANDREW STOTT Olswang

RICHARD WOO A+E Networks

MATT POLLINS Olswang

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HANS-GUNTHER HERRMANN Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton Garrison

JANICE TOH Brightcove TOMER AZENKOT Brightcove PAUL JACKSON Cisco JOHN KJELLEMO Conax STEPHEN LEE Conax AMIT MALHOTRA Disney Media Distribution MARK CHAN Disney Media Distribution SHAD HASHMI Encompass Digital Media VIC WONG Ericsson EDWINA NGAO FOX International Channels

JANICE LEE PCCW COLIN LIGHT PwC BEN RENEKER SNL Kagan LIN SHU FEN StarHub MEHERNAAZ GREEN Turner International Asia Pacific STEVEN KOPEC Turner International Asia Pacific VISHAL DEMBLA Turner International Asia Pacific ALEXANDRE MULLER TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific ROMAIN OUDART TV5MONDE Asia-Pacific MARK LAY CASBAA

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SARA MADERA CASBAA

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CHRIS HAMPARTSOUMIAN Irdeto

JOHN CHAN PCCW

JASLYN CHUI Viacom International Media Networks

CHRISTINA THORSEN Irdeto

CO-CHAIRS ANDREW MARSHALL The Walt Disney Company

VOO CHIH YEONG SPE Networks

JANE BUCKTHOUGHT CASBAA

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JOE WELCH 21st Century Fox

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COMMITTEE MEMBERS LISE-ANNE STOTT A+E Networks POOJA DUA A+E Networks

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BELINDA LUI Time Warner

WINNIE CHANG SES

LAILA SAAT Astro

JENNY WONG Time Warner

LAURA BYRNES BBC Worldwide

CHAIYAN CHOUVAPARNANTE TrueVisions

SYLVIA NORONHA Celestial Tiger Entertainment

MARGARET JOHNSON Turner International Asia Pacific

AVIGAIL GUTMAN Cisco PAUL JACKSON Cisco HANS KWAAITAAL Conax SEOW SI CHIN Discovery Networks Asia Pacific

DESMOND CHAN TVB LAURENCE PEAK Verimatrix EMILY FUNG Viaccess-Orca WEI-HAO LOH Viacom International Media Networks

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JOHN MEDEIROS CASBAA

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MARK LAY CASBAA

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DEEPAK MATHUR SES KATSUAKI KOIKE SKY Perfect JSAT MAX CHUNG SKY Perfect JSAT

CHRISTOPHER SLAUGHTER CASBAA

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DESMOND CHUNG CASBAA

COMMITTEE MEMBERS ROHANA ROZHAN Astro

MARK LAY CASBAA

CASBAA Technology Advisory Group BOARD MEMBER RESPONSIBLE JANICE LEE PCCW

YI-FONG CHANG Chunghwa Telecommunications JANICE LEE PCCW RAY MONTINOLA Sky Cable Corporation THOMAS EE Taiwan Broadband Communications

CO-CHAIRS MATT McDONALD Sony Pictures Television International

JEREMY KUNG TM Net

CASBAA Satellite Industry Committee

TAN YEE TIANG Disney Media Distribution

GODFREY CHAN CASBAA

BOARD MEMBER RESPONSIBLE BILL WADE AsiaSat

COMMITTEE MEMBERS SABIL SALIM A+E Networks Asia

MARK LAY CASBAA

CHAIR PAUL BROWN-KENYON MEASAT

ROGER TONG AsiaSat

CASBAA Wireless Action Group

PHUAH AIK CHONG Astro

CHAIR GREGG DAFFNER GapSat

KEVIN PILLAR Discovery Networks Asia Pacific

COMMITTEE MEMBERS GARIE PIMENTEL ABS

FRANK RITTMAN Motion Picture Association of America

COMMITTEE MEMBERS TOM CHOI ABS

BEATRICE LEE MP & Silva

HUANG BAOZHONG APT Satellite

ANG SOO KHOON Disney Media Distribution

FERNAND ALBERTO NBCUniversal

ANDREW JORDAN Eutelsat

KENNETH LEE Disney Media Distribution

MATT POLLINS Olswang

SOO YEW WENG GlobeCast

DAVID K. LEE Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton Garrision

MARTIN TURNER Inmarsat

MICHAEL FAGAN PCCW

TERRY BLEAKLEY Intelsat

SARAH JACKS Scripps Networks

CHARMAINE ANG MEASAT

GRACE PAUL SingTel

GREGG DAFFNER GapSat

JESSICA DEERY SPE Networks

YAU CHYONG LIM MEASAT

KEVIN LIOW Viacom International Media Networks

TIM GOODCHILD StarHub

DAVID BALL NewSat

THOMAS LAM Viacom International Media Networks

AARON SHAW Encompass Digital Media Asia COLIN SHERRIFF FOX Sports VINCENT TEO HBO Asia ANDREW STOTT Olswang ONG BEE LIAN StarHub PATCH KHAN Turner International Asia Pacific

CHEN XUN APT ROGER TONG AsiaSat ETHAN LAVAN Eutelsat PAUL DEEDMAN Inmarsat GONZALO DE DIOS Intelsat GEETHA VINCENT MEASAT DAVID BALL NewSat TINGLING LEE SES YOSHIHITO YOKOYAMA SKY Perfect JSAT JOHN MEDEIROS CASBAA

CASBAA

Issue Two 2014 71

CEO MEMO

Our Dynamic Agenda for 2015

A

s we reach the final few pages of this issue of Connections Magazine and, more importantly, the last few days of 2014, we look ahead to what the new year may hold for us in the multichannelTV industry.

If the past was any indication, the growth of digitisation and digital delivery of content will continue to provide major impetus for change in the broadcast industry. This translates into how companies are positioning themselves in a world where content can be accessed anytime, anywhere and on any platform.

While the digital migration is a profound change for the industry, we see this as a process unfolding over time, rather than a single dramatic event. Looking forward, it is critical to get the digital piece of the puzzle right, and the industry is developing the tools needed as well as changing its collective mindset about how to embrace this change.

To address this issue, CASBAA will be holding its second annual OTT Summit in Singapore on March 3 at the Grand Hyatt. Even as OTT opens up completely new ways to generate revenue from video content, do we truly understand how to deliver it, how to protect it and how to monetise it?

Yet despite the buzz over OTT, however, the linear television business remains a powerful driver for the industry in the region. There is still a substantial upside in this traditional mode of TV distribution and consumption, and growth continues in a variety of markets in the Asia Pacific.

Kicking off the year in January, CASBAA will turn the spotlight onto the emerging market of Indonesia with

72

CASBAA

Issue Two 2014

Indonesia in View taking place on January 20 in Jakarta.

Explore all the promise and pitfalls of this dynamic economy with a full roster of expert speakers and guests.

The association will also head back to New Delhi on March 23 for the annual India Forum, the industry event providing the necessary information to help businesses navigate the complex Indian broadcasting market.

Other factors playing a role in the development of the industry include regulatory and policy shifts in various markets, audience measurement issues and the ongoing attack on satellite spectrum – the backbone of broadcast delivery in the region.

For the latter topic, join us again in Singapore for the annual Satellite Industry Forum on June 1 for an in-depth look at the satellite industry in Asia Pacific and the vital role it plays in multichannel-TV distribution across the region.

And, for an overview of what the broadcasting industry is all about in the Asia Pacific, don’t miss our flagship CASBAA Convention 2015, scheduled from October 26 to October 28 next year.

Be on the lookout for more information about these events and other CASBAA activities throughout 2015 and plan to join us for another busy and exciting year ahead.

Finally, this will be the last issue of Connections in its current format. Expect a brand new experience next year for receiving news about CASBAA and the industry including a special Year in Review publication in Q4 of 2015.

Christopher Slaughter CEO, CASBAA

* Jan 20 (Tue)

Indonesia in View

Jakarta

Jan 28 (Wed)

CASBAA Board of Directors Meeting

TBC

Feb 26 (Thur)

CASBAA Council of Governors Meeting

Hong Kong

Feb 26 (Thur)

CASBAA Cocktails

Hong Kong

Mar 3 (Tue)

OTT Summit

Singapore

Mar 18 (Wed)

CASBAA Board of Directors Meeting

TBC

Mar 23 (Mon)

CASBAA India Forum

New Delhi

May 5-7 (Tue-Thur)

CASBAA / NCTA Breakfast

Chicago

May 14 (Thur)

CASBAA Board of Directors Meeting

TBC

Jun 1 (Mon)

Satellite Industry Forum

Singapore

Jun 2 (Tue)

CASBAA Council of Governors Meeting

Singapore

*Subject to change

casbaa.com

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