TV Asia Pacific MIPCOM 2012

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Pay-TV Channels Fuji’s Hisashi Hieda KBS’s Kim In-Kyu FIC’s Zubin Gandevia www.tvasia.ws

asia pacific THE MAGAZINE OF ASIA-PACIFIC MEDIA

OCTOBER 2012

MIPCOM & CASBAA EDITION

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P A N O R A M A

By Mansha Daswani

Facing the Future As the major international channel brands rushed to launch in Asia at the dawn of the region’s pay-TV industry, companies had an inkling of the challenges they’d face as they tried to build successful, profitable businesses.

Nevertheless, the thinking on the part of many operators was fairly straightforward: enter the market with a single-language feed—often uplinked from the U.S.—and try to sell platforms on the concept that Asian viewers wanted channel brands that American and European audiences had already embraced.

Today, while the market no longer has that wild-west feel of the ’90s, the business is far more complicated. Localizing is not just about delivering market-specific subtitles; schedules, advertising and programming need to be tailored to speak directly to audiences in India, Singapore, Korea, the Philippines and more.

Indeed, the theme for the CASBAA Convention this year reflects the importance of understanding that you can’t afford to just have an “Asia strategy” anymore. “There is no such thing as that one homogenous Asia-Pac market,” says Simon Twiston Davies, the CEO of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasters Association of Asia (CASBAA). “It is a mosaic of 18 markets,” he says, referencing the convention theme of “18 Reasons Why.” That is the sentiment that permeates my annual survey of Asia’s major pay-TV brands in this issue. Zubin Gandevia, the COO for Asia Pacific and the Middle East at FOX International Channels, shared with me his company’s plans to staff up its presence region wide and roll out a host of new feeds. Christine Fellowes, the managing director for the Asia Pacific at Universal Networks International, discussed the work that went in to bring together the former Comcast and NBCUniversal channels.The combined portfolio, which includes DIVA Universal and E!, is seeing dramatic ratings increases in key markets like Singapore and Malaysia, Fellowes said. Ricky Ow, the executive VP and general manager for networks at Sony Pictures Television in Asia, told me about how his company is building its local ad-sales presences and even offering marketing opportunities specifically on its HD channels, targeting “early adopters” of a technology that is still fairly new in much of the region.

As pay-TV penetration rates slowly creep up across Asia, channels are also finding a host of new opportunities to launch new niche services. Sunny Saha, the senior VP and managing director for entertainment networks at Turner International Asia Pacific, told me about plans to bring Cartoonito and Toonami to Asia; while Tom Keaveny, president and managing director of Discovery Networks Asia Pacific, shared the rationale for expanding his portfolio to include Discovery Kids. Multi Channels Asia is see-

ing great traction for Outdoor Channel with platforms eager to target male audiences.And on the heels of positive feedback from Breaking Bad’s introduction to Asia, AMC/Sundance Channel Global has seen its distribution grow this year. For Bruce Tuchman, the president of AMC/Sundance Channel Global, being relatively new to the region has not been a disadvantage. “We have the ability to see and learn from what’s been done, good and bad, over the last 15, 20 years,” says Tuchman, who knows Asia well from his years at MGM Networks.“We’re hoping to be able to absorb lessons from that and really push forward.”

Reflecting the importance the company has placed on the Asian marketplace, Josh Sapan, the CEO and president of AMC Networks, will be at CASBAA to deliver a keynote address. He is one of many top-level executives slated to speak at the conference this year, a list that also includes Gerhard Zeiler, the president of Turner Broadcasting System International; and David Zaslav, the president and CEO of Discovery Communications. “That says something about the vibrancy of the market in this part of the world,” says Twiston Davies.

Obstacles, however, remain for the growth of the industry. HD takeup, by all accounts, has been slow, with consumers not yet willing to shell out extra fees to subscribe to high-definition tiers. The on-demand market is still evolving, and channels are waiting to see what impact there will be from the rollout of the iTunes Store, delivering movies and TV content directly to consumers. Meanwhile, on the traditional linear-TV front, convincing major advertising brands to share some of their dollars with pay TV has been an ongoing challenge.

Free-TV advertising, however, is a booming market. Even Japan has seen the market begin to recover. Hisashi Hieda, the chairman and CEO of the market-leading Fuji Media Holdings, shares in this issue the strategies he put in place to weather the storm. In Korea, meanwhile, KBS is facing an increasingly competitive landscape, with a rising number of cable channels in the market and a host of digital services in this highly connected country. Kim In-Kyu, the president and CEO of KBS, reveals his priorities for the organization in this edition. For Hieda and Kim, ramping up their international operations is a major priority, and KBS and Fuji will be part of the growing contingent of Asian companies at MIPCOM, looking to place their locally relevant content on screens across the globe.

Get daily news on the Asia-Pacific region

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ABS-CBN International Sales www.abs-cbninternationalsales.com • My Eternal • Be Careful with My Heart • Hearts on Fire

IN THIS ISSUE A Clearer Picture Our annual survey of Asia’s leading pay-TV channel brands

Interviews Fuji’s Hisashi Hieda KBS’s Kim In-Kyu FIC’s Zubin Gandevia

12 20 21 22

Ricardo Seguin Guise

Publisher

Mansha Daswani

Editor

Kristin Brzoznowski

Managing Editor Joanna Padovano

Associate Editor Simon Weaver

Online Director Meredith Miller Chris Carline

Production Directors Phyllis Q. Busell

Art Director Cesar Suero

Sales & Marketing Director

With its 13th edition this December, ATF is expanding into a four-day event. Kicking off the show this year will be a premarket conference on Tuesday, December 4, for delegates to hear about “issues close to the Asian content industry,” says Hui Leng Yeow, the project director at ATF organizer Reed Exhibitions. The business of buying and selling, meanwhile, will begin the following day, as exhibitors from around the world take to the floor of the Marina Bay Sands. The contingent of sellers will include 12 country delegations, including returning pavilions from China, Japan, France, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, and a new group from Australia. Another highlight,Yeow says, is a partnership with the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to showcase International Emmy nominees from the region.

Plus, the ATF is being co-located with the film trade show ScreenSingapore. “The coupling will encourage more crossmarket and content collaboration, promote growth in both Asia’s film and television production industries and create more buzz about our media scene.”

President

Anna Carugati

Executive VP & Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani

Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Asia Pacific © 2012 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website:

www.tvasia.ws

”

—Evelyn “Leng” Raymundo

www.asiatvforum.com

Terry Acunzo

Ricardo Seguin Guise

dramas are empowering and inspirational.

Asia Television Forum (ATF) • December 4-7, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Business Affairs Manager

“ABS-CBN

Over the last year, ABS-CBN has seen considerable uptick in demand for its slate of dramas, “especially from Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East,” according to Evelyn “Leng” Raymundo, the VP for program acquisition, distribution and DTT channels at the Filipino broadcaster.

She is looking to capitalize on that trend with the new series being launched at MIPCOM, among them My Eternal, which peaked at a 66-percent share in its Filipino broadcast; Be Careful with My Heart and Hearts on Fire.

With its series, ABS-CBN “always upholds the values of strength of character or the ability to overcome difficult situations and make difficult decisions,” Raymundo says.

“The triumph of the human spirit above all else is a very strong underlying theme in almost all dramas worldwide.

ABS-CBN has effectively mastered the art of putting this on the screen.”

Vanessa Brand

Sales & Marketing Manager

Hearts on Fire

“Stepping into its 13th year,

ATF has been firmly established as Asia’s foremost stage for international and regional companies to meet, network and trade content.

”

Marina Bay Sands

—Hui Leng Yeow

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FINAS www.finas.gov.my • Documentaries • Feature films • Animation

FINAS is leading a delegation of more than 30 companies to MIPCOM this year, delivering content across the documentary, animation and feature-film genres. “As a result of the implementation of various government incentives and the development of the industry, FINAS will be bringing almost 200 new titles” to the market, says Mohd Naguib Razak, the director general of the government-backed organization. Discussing the gains made by the Malaysian content industry, Razak points to the development in the feature-film sector. “Incentives such as the recently announced Compulsory Screening Scheme, where cinema operators will now be obliged to run two Malaysian films in any given week, have provided a boost in Malay content in the past year.” Razak is also encouraged by the Film in Malaysia scheme, intended to attract international producers with a 30-percent tax rebate.“This has brought a significant increase in foreign inquiries and interest in developing content with Malaysia and strategically positioned Malaysia as a global filming destination and a content hub of Asia.”

“FINAS has been increasingly aggressive and instrumental in the efforts to develop [Malaysia’s] entertainment and media industry.”

—Mohd Naguib Razak

Flea-Bitten

FremantleMedia Enterprises www.fmescreenings.com • Battleground • Gallery Girls • Wizards Vs Aliens

Gallery Girls

Dramas, lifestyle shows, entertainment franchises and kids’ series all feature prominently on FremantleMedia Enterprises’ (FME) catalogue for Asian buyers. Battleground, an original series for Hulu, is a dramedy set in the world of political campaigns and was executive produced by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man). Gallery Girls, from Bravo, focuses on seven women working their way up in New York City’s hippest art galleries. And for the kids’ set there’s the new live-action adventure drama Wizards Vs Aliens. Plus, “FME’s blockbuster drama and entertainment franchises Merlin, American Idol, The X Factor USA and Project Runway return with new series,” says Paul Ridley, the executive VP of international distribution and home entertainment for the Asia Pacific. “These titles continue to grow in popularity and are real ratings winners in the region.”

FME also has some new lifestyle shows on offer. “There is constantly high demand for this type of content and we hope that the new additions to our catalogue will satisfy [broadcasters’] appetites. New titles such as Gallery Girls have already been on the radar of some of our clients.”

“We have always been, and will continue

to be, a great source for top-quality programming across all genres.

”

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—Paul Ridley

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Media Development Authority of Singapore www.mda.gov.sg • Angel’s Gate • Wendy • The End/Beginning

“Compared to MIPCOM 2011, the participation

rate of Singapore companies has increased 23 percent this year.

”

The Singaporean delegation at MIPCOM, under the Media Development Authority (MDA) umbrella, will be showcasing more than 400 hours of factual, drama and animation content at the market, reports Yeo Chun Cheng, the chief information officer and director of broadcast, animation, film and music. The 21 companies on site—a 23percent increase on MIPCOM 2011—will be touting more than 50 titles.Among them is the reality series Angel’s Gate, a transmedia production that gives entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their ideas to leading angel investors. The CG-animated Wendy focuses on a teenage equestrienne.

The documentary The End/Beginning, produced for Channel NewsAsia, chronicles the harrowing escapes of two individuals, one from the Khmer Rouge, the other from the clutches of the Nepalese sex-trafficking trade.

“MDA is participating in MIPCOM 2012 to actively promote Singapore media content,” Yeo says, and to “seek out collaboration opportunities in content development and production, as well as sales and acquisition.”

—Yeo Chun Cheng

Wendy

Multi Channels Asia www.multichannelsasia.com • Outdoor Channel • Havoc Television • Motorvision

“Outdoor Channel is a very clear proposition.

The programming that we have is completely differentiated. It’s all unique, it’s all exclusive, it’s all first run.

”

Founded five years ago by Asian pay-TV veterans Gregg Creevey and William Kelly, Multi Channels Asia (MCA) has built a healthy business off distributing its own and thirdparty channels across the region. Among its most successful in recent months has been Outdoor Channel, which the company owns and operates in the Asia Pacific, with content largely drawn from the network’s U.S. library of originals.“When we launched the channel, we couldn’t see anything like it in the market, targeting a predominantly male audience,” says Creevey, MCA’s managing director.

“Outdoor Channel is a very clear proposition. The name describes exactly what it is. You won’t see the content on any other channel.” Currently distributed in about 4.5 million homes across 12 countries, Creevey heads into CASBAA with the aim of upping that distribution to 5 million homes “quite quickly.” He is also keen to secure carriage for the network in India. MCA is also introducing two new channel brands to the region: Havoc Television, a music and action-sports service, and Motorvision.

—Gregg Creevey

Madfin Shark Series

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TV ASIA PACIFIC

Shine International www.shineinternational.com Best Bakery

• MasterChef • Minute to Win It • Best Bakery

This year, Shine International set up a new Asian headquarters in Singapore,“with a clear mandate to grow the business into a regional content hub and become the market leader in production, development and program syndication,” says Matthew Ashcroft, the company’s senior VP of sales for the Asia Pacific.The goal, Ashcroft says, is to “increase local production, format and tape sales and content distribution. We must think local and develop richer deeper relationships with our partners to drive more local commissions and offscreen ancillary and brand-partnership opportunities.”

Recent gains in Shine’s Asian’s business include an uptick in format sales. MasterChef China has rolled out on Dragon TV, and Ashcroft says the company has great ambitions for its long-running entertainment format Minute to Win It. Also on offer are Got to Dance and the new series Best Bakery.

“These great formats have been developed and evolved in some of the toughest TV markets in the world. They all offer programming starring real people, showcasing their best talents by doing inspiring things.”

“The Singapore HQ will

provide Shine’s partners with an on-the-ground presence, specializing in content and brand partnerships.

”

—Matthew Ashcroft

Universal Networks International www.uninetworks.tv • DIVA Universal • E! Entertainment • Universal Channel

Following Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal, the payTV channels owned by both groups were combined under the Universal Networks International (UNI) umbrella.

Today, in the Asia Pacific, the group runs seven channel brands, encompassing a total of 20 feeds. With the work of restructuring the business complete, the focus is now on refocusing the channels themselves, says Christine Fellowes, the managing director of UNI for the Asia Pacific. E! Entertainment has been refreshed with a new logo, on-air look and tagline in line with the U.S. branding. It will continue to feature signature originals from the U.S., plus local entertainment coverage in E! News Asia. DIVA Universal will see some new programming rollouts to cement its positioning as a leading general-entertainment channel for women. And work is underway on refining Universal Channel, which has fared well with U.S. imports like Grimm. “We’re out in the market with the proposition that we know women’s audiences,” Fellowes says. “We deliver a portfolio that addresses women more than any other portfolio of channels in the market.”

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“We have a real strength in

terms of content that works for women and brands that are focused on women.

”

—Christine Fellowes E! News Asia World Screen

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Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour.

A Clearer

Picture

Asia’s biggest pan-regional channel brands are firmly focused on driving their reach further into local markets as they head to CASBAA this year.

By Mansha Daswani

A

s the Asia Pacific’s pay-TV industry heralded the arrival of the long-awaited digital transition last year, there was much talk about what that would mean for next-generation services like HD, on-demand and over-the-top television. But if the theme of 2011 was the potential of multiplatform, 2012 has been much more about realizing the basics: driving linear distribution growth and increasing pay-TV’s share of the ad pie.

For both the well-established brands looking for growth opportunities and newer entrants, the outlook is bullish; the number of pay-TV subscribers across the region is expected to exceed 600 million by 2016, according to Media Partners Asia, up from 411 million last year, with the penetration rate rising to 62 percent after finally topping the 50-percent benchmark in 2011.

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of the industry growth still to come has been a top priority.

“We’re big believers in a decentralized model for our organization,” says Zubin Gandevia, the COO for the Asia Pacific and the Middle East at FIC. For the company, whose flagship brands FOX, National Geographic Channel and STAR World are already well distributed, the next stage of expansion has been ramping up the number of localized feeds for each service, as well as staffing up across Asia, with bigger teams in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, and a new base:Vietnam. In the Philippines, meanwhile, “We used to have five people two years ago,” Gandevia says, “now we have 50, and they make five channels, including one that’s made specifically for the Philippines, called FOX Filipino.We’ve done deals with two of [the terrestrials] to buy their product.We will probably create similar channels in some other markets too.”

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Feeling the heat: UNI’s female-skewing DIVA Universal has begun airing locally produced originals like Hot Guys Who Cook.

“It is becoming a market-specific approach,” notes Sunny Saha, the seniorVP and managing director for entertainment networks at Turner International Asia Pacific, on his company’s plans for expansion.As an example, Saha cites Turner’s deal with TV5 in the Philippines for a Cartoon Network-branded free-to-air block, a move he is looking at replicating in other territories as well.

FOLLOWING THE MONEY

Being seen as a local brand can drive distribution, ratings and, ultimately, ad revenues.

“Local ad sales will be the focus for the next few years,” says Ricky Ow, the executiveVP and general manager for networks in Asia at Sony Pictures Television (SPT).“We are extremely happy with Indonesia because we think that that market has a lot of potential to grow, both in terms of penetration and advertising.

We think Thailand will come up, too. We now have [ad-sales] operations in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India,Taiwan and Hong Kong.”

A+E Networks is also looking at boosting local ad sales in Southeast Asia, according to Alan Hodges, the managing director for the Asia Pacific. Hodges says that A+E is beginning to staff up in key territories like Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, with a continuing emphasis on India and Japan.

India, in particular, has been a highlight for A+E’s Asia-Pacific business over the last year, following HISTORY’s debut in the country in 2011.“HISTORY has helped grow the [factual] genre in India by an unprecedented 55 percent over the last nine months, something that was the key element of our launch strategy,” Hodges says. “We did not want to just eat into existing audiences but grow the category. HISTORY has also garnered a leadership position in ratings, as well as achieving a number two position in revenue within the genre.”

While A+E’s focus is on increasing its local ad-sales businesses, Hodges notes that pan-regional ad sales “continue to deliver steady growth as we build our distribution and viewership.”

Gandevia, too, is seeing gains in FIC’s pan-regional ad revenues. “It may be that we’re getting more share out of the market than we used to.That’s a result of an increasingly compelling proposition that we offer the advertiser. First of all, there’s the scale that we can offer across 30-plus channels. We also provide efficiency in terms of buying spots or ad time on our platforms. We have our leading core brands—FOX, FOX Movies Premium, STAR World, National Geographic Channel, etc.—which are priced at a premium.You also get a lot of coverage on our other channels: FOX Crime, FX, etc.

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Increasingly, we’re starting to encroach on advertisers who would traditionally go only to free to air.”

“We’re still seeing growth this year on our pan-regional advertising,” says SPT’s Ow.“AXN is attracting a lot more Asian multinationals.They are much more willing to try the entertainment route than [advertising on] the usual news channels.”

Nevertheless, Ow admits that the pan-regional market “is still soft in a sense—it’s not going downward, it’s just not moving upward much either.”

Christine Fellowes, the managing director for Asia Pacific at Universal Networks International, states that while there are “strategic branding campaigns that will go out on a panregional basis, anything now that’s tactical in retail is all going out to the local markets.”

STEPPING FORWARD

Watching that trend, Fellowes and her team have started building out their local ad-sales operations. “We’re a late entry to the advertising business,” concedes Fellowes of the UNI portfolio, which has only just recently been formalized in the last year following Comcast’s buyout of NBCUniversal. “When we pulled these businesses together, we’d had a little bit of advertising on E! DIVA and Universal had been doing advertising for about two years. So we’re really just entering [the market].The emphasis is going to be local,” particularly in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Korea and Australia, which Fellowes says “has been a juggernaut from an ad-sales perspective.We’ve seen an 8-percent growth in 2012, the expectation for 2013 is it will be 17 percent.”

The selling point for the UNI portfolio, Fellowes says, has been its strength in attracting female audiences. “We deliver a portfolio that addresses women more than any other in the market,” Fellowes says. “For advertisers and for operators, who know that women make decisions on what channel bouquets they’re going to subscribe to, we’ve become a compelling portfolio.”

While the landscape of female-skewing channels in Asia has become increasingly congested, a number of operators see growth opportunities in the kids’ sector.

Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific (DNAP), for example, added to its portfolio of lifestyle and factual networks this year with Discovery Kids. “The kids’ market is a high-potential sector, with over 50 percent of the world’s under-14s located in the Asia-Pacific, and India having the largest kids’ population in the world at 420 million,” says Tom Keaveny, the president and managing director of DNAP. “In the TV landscape, there is a gap in the market for edutainment programming targeting 10/12

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Wild times: Multi Channels Asia has been rolling out Outdoor Channel, which delivers content like Zona’s Awesome Fishing Show across Asia.

older school-going kids between the ages of 6 and 12. Our research has shown us that there is an appetite among kids and parents for a channel that is fun and enriching, that stimulates learning and imagination within a safe environment that parents can trust.”

Discovery Kids, Keaveny says, fits that bill, with distribution already secured in India, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Turner is also looking to broaden its kids’ portfolio in Asia, recently announcing plans to roll out Cartoonito, for preschoolers, and Toonami, targeting boys aged 10 to 14.

Another key gap in the market, according to Gregg Creevey, the managing director of Multi Channels Asia (MCA), has been networks focused on male audiences.To fill that void, MCA has been rolling out Outdoor Channel, which today reaches about 4.5 million homes in 12 territories.“The programming proposition is unique and differentiated,” Creevey says on why operators, and audiences, have responded well to the network. “When we launched the channel we couldn’t see anything like it in the market.When you look at the lineup of channels on platforms, there’s a lot of duplication in various genres.When we come along with Outdoor Channel, it’s a very clear proposition.”

Next up, MCA will be looking to introduce operators to Motorvision and, targeting the 15-to-34 set, Havoc, a music and action-sports network with a strong social-media component.

Creevey says he expects the channel to “appeal to viewers who aren’t typically in front of a TV these days. It makes television a bit more relevant to that generation.”

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

While Creevey himself is a veteran of the early days of Asian pay TV, MCA is among the newer crop of channel operators in the region, part of a second wave of companies that weren’t around in that initial land grab in the ’90s. Those early entrants—notably Discovery, Sony, Turner and STAR/FIC— have now built up substantial portfolios that offer considerable leverage when dealing with pay-TV platforms.“The challenge is always trying to secure shelf space for something that is new,” Creevey says, “and in the eyes of the operators, is unproven, untested, and is not riding on the back of a big mas492

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ter channel deal. That for us has been a bit of a challenge because we’re an independent, but at the same time that’s been quite a good calling card as well.”

Also in this set of newer players in the market is the BBC Worldwide Channels portfolio, which has been targeting a broad range of audiences with a slate that includes BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle, BBC Entertainment and CBeebies. Over the last year, the group has seen distribution gains in Taiwan,Thailand and Indonesia, according to Mark Whitehead, the senior VP and general manager of BBC Worldwide Channels Asia. And further launches are expected over the next six months. “With this offering of quality content, combined with the legacy and trust that the BBC brand brings to the table, we are poised for growth,” Whitehead says.

A far newer entrant to Asia’s pay-TV arena is AMC/Sundance Channel Global, which has notched up a number of distribution deals in recent months, including landing on TrueVisions in Thailand and rolling out a Sundance Channel-branded VOD service in China. “That’s been in the wake of lots of other activity this year,” says Bruce Tuchman, the president of AMC/Sundance Channel Global. “Taiwan and South Korea, in particular, have been really great markets for us,” joining existing territories Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. “We’re seeing some of our best growth rates in the world coming out of Asia,”Tuchman says.

Sundance Channel in particular has been resonating with audiences and platforms,Tuchman continues, in part thanks to exclusive program launches like Breaking Bad. “Being new in and of itself may not be good if you don’t have the brand or the programming,” Tuchman says. “But we come in with some key advantages.We have a brand that is arguably as famous and certainly has as much, if not more, goodwill than any of the incumbent legacy brands.We have really hot programming that very few people have. And then, especially on the technological side, you see a lot of programmers have invested heavily in old analog or early age digital-linear technology. We came to the region in HD. Our investment is state of the art. So we don’t have to make excuses for old technologies.”

HIGH-DEF EXPECTATIONS

Offering up an HD feed—or gearing up to do so—has certainly become standard operating procedure for Asia’s biggest channel brands. But the technology is nowhere near critical mass; a recent study by ABI Research estimated that just 15 percent of the region’s pay-TV subscribers are signed up for HD services.

“We launched [Outdoor Channel] in HD—that was about future-proofing it,” says MCA’s Creevey. “But most of our distribution, oddly enough, remains in SD. A lot of markets still have not made that transition. Where HD exists, it’s a very small subset. For the most part, operators are still charging a premium for HD.” Creevey believes channel operators need to do a better job of offering “original, unduplicated HD channels—that might be the catalyst. Consumers have been sold on the technology, they take [the HDTV] home and plug it in and they wonder, why does this look worse than what I had before? The penetration of the technology is way ahead of the content. With channels like Outdoor Channel, Havoc and Motorvision, I think we can help shift that.”

Turner began offering up an HD feed for Cartoon Network last year, making it the first kids’ network to do so.“That has helped 10/12

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Asian stories: Hidden Cities, an Asian original, has been one of HISTORY’s top shows in the region.

us get a tremendous response from [the platforms] as well as from consumers,” Saha says. Carriage deals have been secured in Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Mongolia. “Digitization is finally starting to pick up pace,” Saha says.

A+E’s Hodges is also “bullish on HD; it is the engine of digital growth in Taiwan, [there’s been] a massively quick uptake in Malaysia and a steady growth in Singapore. It is an inevitable trend, although some markets will obviously get there much quicker than others. HISTORY was launched in HD in India and we wouldn’t have thought of a non-HD launch in that market.”

DRIVING THE FUTURE

AXN has an HD feed in almost all of its markets. “It is a big driver for us,” Ow says.“In every market that we operate in, both the HD feed and the SD feeds coexist. We do expect that at some point, in the next two years, there will be a gradual reduction in the SD subscribers and an increase in the HD subscribers.

The transition will be a natural one. As the penetration of HD sets grows, we will see more of that happening. In a market like Malaysia, where we have three channels in HD—AXN, BeTV and One—we do extremely well for the HD pack. On the back of that, we launched our first HD-pack ad sales in Malaysia so that [brands] can buy into a very select audience who are the early adopters.That shows how confident we are about HD.” FIC has made HD a priority, already having rolled out 16 high-definition networks. “It’s [not only] a value addition and therefore increases ARPU, but it’s actually driving digital takeup.” says Gandevia. “Ultimately that’s what we want.”

UNI has HD feeds for a number of its brands, including DIVA Universal and Syfy, in Singapore,Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines. “We’ll see a couple more markets launch in HD in 2013,” Fellowes says.

“It’s inevitable it all goes there,” says AMC/Sundance’s Tuchman on the transition to HD. “It’s a question of whether it’s months or years. It’s just like any other transformation. You’ll reach a critical mass, a turning point 494

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where technologically it’s actually cheaper because there will a supply of new infrastructure that is HD-ready. It will become more economical each day that goes by.”

The pay-TV operators that have taken the lead in offering HD tiers to their customers have also been experimenting with multiplatform rollouts, offering on-demand and online access to programming. But the concept of over-the-top television in Asia is still in its infancy.

Nevertheless, a number of companies are developing ways they can work with operators to enable viewers to access programming on a device of their choosing. FIC, for one, has been making an online and tablet version of its premium service FOX Movies Premium available in select markets.

“We want to be in a position where we provide our platform partners the ability to offer a transactional VOD service, like iTunes, for our content, [as well as] our linear channel and the nonlinear catch-up service,” says Gandevia.“We’ve done the last two already.”

BBC Worldwide Channels has been piloting its Global iPlayer in Asia,“in order to establish a greater understanding of the appeal of our content and of the subscription model,” says Whitehead.

The key with any multiplatform rollout, says Discovery’s Keaveny, is doing it in a way that “builds viewership and strengthens loyalty without cannibalizing our core TV business model. We will be working closely with our affiliate partners to offer our content on new platforms, and helping them experiment with new technologies and interaction opportunities.”

OTT ON THE HORIZON?

Although Hulu has launched in Japan with its online-content subscription service, the consensus among Asia’s leading channel executives is that the threat of OTT is still a long way off.

FIC’s Gandevia notes,“A platform that has a dominant position in the market already, has all the big brands from a linear point of view, has a critical mass of subscribers—those are significant entry barriers to a new player coming along who is only going to provide an OTT service, who is going to have to shell out bucks for content, which they can’t subsidize from other businesses. If a traditional platform also provides an OTT service, they’ve captured everything. Ideally that’s what you want to do.You want to address the consumer at every price point and every proposition.”

While they plan ahead for new-media business models and face the continued problem of signal piracy in Asia, channel operators are still feeling upbeat about where the business is headed.“Penetration will continue to grow,” says SPT’s Ow. “As a whole, Asia is not isolated from the problems around the world, but the economies are much more fundamentally sound.

They’re not facing high unemployment and they still have a huge middle class and a growing one that is willing to pay for entertainment.That bodes very well for pay television.”

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By Mansha Daswani

With revenues of $7.4 billion in 2011, Japan’s Fuji Media Holdings is Asia’s most dominant free-to-air broadcaster. But its assets go well beyond the flagship Fuji Television Network. It operates BS (broadcast satellite) channels, has stakes in the pay-TV platforms SKY PerfecTV! and WOWOW, owns a number of production companies and the advertising agency Quaras, and is involved in publishing, video and music distribution, and even real estate. Hisashi Hieda, the chairman and CEO of Fuji Media Holdings, shares with TV Asia Pacific his strategy for the Japanese media group in the digital age.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: How has Fuji’s expansion into new fields such as mobile phones, the Internet and IPTV progressed?

HIEDA: Progression is steady. In the field of the Internet, we partnered with Google this spring and began program distribution on YouTube. We are currently planning various business collaborations for the near future. For smartphones and mobile devices, we are offering [pay-per-view] programs and games. NOTTV is a broadcasting station created exclusively for smartphones that we launched with NTT DOCOMO. Its services began this April and we have high expectations for its growth.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What is the next step for Japan’s media

industry, now that the digital transition has been completed?

TV ASIA PACIFIC: How are you positioning the international-

HIEDA: Various steps come to mind, but one topic is how

distribution business?

we tackle digital devices and services such as Smart TVs that are popping up in the market one after another.

Another major topic is how we enter the international market as a media content company. We are in the process of investigating ways to develop the business multilaterally, instead of just the usual program sales.

HIEDA: We have actively developed our distribution busi-

ness. It used to be that program sales of [Japanese] dramas in the Asian market [were] mainstream. But that very market has been affected by the conquest of Korean-made drama in the past ten years. Now we are not just selling programs, but selling formats, producing local versions, and developing related merchandise. By evolving the business, we aim to diversify profits.

Fuji Media’s

TV ASIA PACIFIC: You have interests in the payTV sector. How important is this business for Fuji?

HIEDA: In comparison to commercial broadcasting, pay-TV broadcasting is less susceptible to fluctuations in the economy. For this reason, it holds an important position in our business portfolio and its role will grow bigger in the future. Fuji TV was early to [invest in] SKY PerfecTV!, a satellite platform business. We are also the largest shareholder of WOWOW, Japan’s biggest movie channel and one of the first to embark upon the pay-TV business. Fuji TV operates three pay-TV channels directly, and its earnings are on the increase.

Hisashi Hieda

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What are the greatest challenges facing

Fuji currently? And what are your greatest opportunities?

HIEDA: One of our most important challenges is how we

can respond to the diversification of technology and media. Fuji TV is Japan’s strongest [entertainment] content manufacturer and we believe that by maximizing this production power to its fullest and allowing it to conform to new technology and media, [opportunities] for new business are born.

This April, a real-estate business focusing on urban development became a member of the Fuji Media Holdings group as a wholly owned subsidiary company.This will allow for Fuji TV, whose forte is entertainment, to synchronize with the urban-development business. This expands our chances to occupy new unclaimed territory.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What are your goals for the company in

the next year?

HIEDA: Recently we have made drastic changes to our

organization in order to strengthen programming and contentproduction power, as well as [reinforcing our] motion picture, pay-TV and digital businesses. Under this new structure, we will strive to achieve solid results and simultaneously take steady steps in building a foundation for the future.

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South Korea has the highest broadband penetration in the world, while multichannel penetration stands at 98 percent. Against this backdrop, public broadcaster KBS has been working hard to retain its leading position in an increasingly cluttered landscape. Kim In-Kyu, the organization’s president and CEO—who will receive the International Emmy Directorate Award this year—shares with TV Asia Pacific his strategies for navigating Korea’s complex terrain.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What is the role of KBS as a public-service

broadcaster in the fragmented Korean market today?

KIM: In a multimedia, multichannel era, where the launch of the general-entertainment cable channels last year exacerbated the competition, it is our duty to contribute to the maintenance of public value and perform a central role in the globalization of Korean [content]. In addition, we will continue to provide programs for families that reflect diverse and sometimes conflicting views in our society. [We want to] fight against the commercialization and sensationalism in media brought up by the intensified competition in the market.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What challenges do you face in financing the organization through the license fee?

KIM: The Korea Broadcasting Act states that the license fee is the main financial source of KBS. However, the license fee currently makes up only about 40 percent of [our] whole financial income, and the ancillary income such as advertising revenue and profits from content sales account for 60 percent.

To remedy this defective structure, KBS proposed a bill to raise the license fee (from the current KRW2,500 ($2.20) per month) to the House of Parliament twice, but amid political disputes the committee could not reach an agreement.

In the era of digital multimedia and commercial competition from pay TV, KBS needs the public-funding system in order to fulfill responsibilities to the audience.

recently sealed a deal with a French company for the broadcast rights to Boys Over Flowers and Iris.What is [driving] the popularity of Korean content is K-Pop and Korean pop-music stars, such as Girls’ Generation, TVXQ, Big Bang, and other artists [who] are popular across Asia as well as in Europe and America.

Dramas that feature them also enjoy enormous popularity.

KBS’s

Kim In-Kyu

is essential. How have you been able retain audiences’ faith in KBS? KIM: Through consistently producing excellent content. In addition, KBS runs various systems to reflect the diverse voices of viewers. Firstly, there is the Audience Council. The members, who represent all walks of life, suggest their views on scheduling and programs through regular meetings. We listen to ordinary viewers’ opinions on programs, and put them up on the intra bulletin board for employees. Furthermore, through programs such as TV Critique: Audience Advisory Desk and KBS News Ombudsman, we broadcast audiences’ critiques on news programs.The audience-participation program Open Channel guarantees public access [to KBS].

TV ASIA PACIFIC: How are you positioning KBS’s

international-distribution business? Do you see Korean content becoming more popular on the global stage?

KIM: In the Asian markets, Korean content is one of the most popular [genres]. The 2011 revenue [from distributing KBS content was] approximately $80 million. And it is expected to grow to $85 million in 2012. Overseas sales are occurring mostly in Asia. However, we are trying to expand our markets in the Arab region, Eastern Europe, Russia/CIS and Latin America.Although VOD is the preferred form of [Korean] content consumption in Western Europe and North America, we 10/12

By Mansha Daswani

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What are your main priorities for the company in 2013?

KIM: The goal is to maintain audience trust and love through excellent content. In various polls, KBS has been named number one in reliability and influence among domestic media organizations. This is because KBS has been striving to value the public nature of our organization and the quality of program-making. We plan to expand digital services for the audience to be able to enjoy KBS anytime, anywhere. We are preparing various services in response to the spread of smartphones, tablets and VOD [and the rise of Internet downloads].

TV ASIA PACIFIC: For public broadcasters, viewer trust

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one in its genre all of that time. Not only is it number one in terms of ratings, we’ve had 100-percent growth in ad revenue in one year, and it’s continuing to create buzz in the market. In the Middle East we were one of those who changed the game by going into free to air. We have Nat Geo Abu Dhabi, a free-toair-channel going to 50 million homes, whereas our competitors are stuck with a million homes.We also have the FOX channel and FOX Movies in the free-to-air space.You will see more announcements on that front, especially in the area of sports.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What are your plans for expanding the

premium-channel business?

GANDEVIA: First of all, we need to build volume in terms of

the number of channels and the number of offerings we have.

We have built STAR Chinese Movies (SCM) and FOX Movies Premium as some of our flagship premium brands, and we’ll continue investing in them. We also have FOX Family Movies, and we are going to launch another channel soon.We will certainly have three channels in the Hollywood space, perhaps more. SCM is our market-leading Chinese movie channel and it’s number one in Hong Kong, Singapore,Taiwan. It’s just gone through a significant upgrade, very similar to what FOX Movies Premium did—a new graphics package, a lot more non-movie content.We want to create a pack of several channels and have a nonlinear component to them.And that nonlinear component is available through the set-top box or the [online/tablet] player.

Also, there’s an HD component.That’s element one of our premium strategy—improve the product. Element two is, work much closer with the platforms to actually retail the product. We are lucky because in our family in Latin America, we have a joint venture called Moviecity. There’s a lot of collaboration.We are implementing a lot of best practices now to work closer with platforms to prevent churn, to get more subscribers. And the last element is the piracy angle.That’s never easy to solve, but we’ve made headway through working with platforms and we’re focusing on trying to get authorities to help us with site blocking. Talking about piracy goes back to the product point, because we’re also improving the product in terms of the rights. We’re trying to get shorter windows. The player obviously helps with the antipiracy. If you have a legitimate source where you can go watch content online, why would you go and pirate?

FOX International Channels’

Zubin Gandevia

By Mansha Daswani

With a portfolio of brands that includes the general-entertainment services STAR World and FOX; National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD; premium movie networks; and more, FOX International Channels (FIC) is the biggest player in the Asia Pacific’s pay-TV landscape. Zubin Gandevia, FIC’s COO for the Asia Pacific and the Middle East, talks about the company’s strategies to maintain that lead, including launching an online authenticated player and staffing up its offices across the region.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What’s been driving the growth of FIC’s business in the last year?

GANDEVIA: We just had this big strategy meeting, and the headline I used was “Game Changers.”We have now attained leadership in pretty much all of our markets across Asia Pac in all of our categories. We didn’t get there just by doing the normal things. We got there by changing a lot of the rules, sometimes even breaking them. Now that we’ve attained leadership, we have to use that leadership to grow the categories and grow the market. Our assumption is that as the leaders we will get the lion’s share of that growth. I can give you some examples of what we’re doing across Asia Pac. In Japan, we launched a BS [broadcast satellite] free-to-air channel. In Australia we finally moved out of just being in the factual space to actually being in the entertainment space as well, with the launch of FX. In India we rebranded FOX History to FOX Traveller about [a year] ago, and it’s been number 498

World Screen

TV ASIA PACIFIC: How have you structured FIC across the

region to make sure you can take advantages of new opportunities in local markets?

GANDEVIA: We’re big believers in a decentralized model for our organization. We’re in a creative business and product can only be truly relevant to the audience if it’s made by people in the local market.Today there’s one or two feeds for our flagship channel, FOX. In the next 12 months there will be six or seven. [There will also be] six or seven for National Geographic Channel, six or seven for FOX Movies Premium, and other brands.They’ll all be made from that market and played out from that market by people from that market. We think we can be way ahead of our competitors by understanding the market a lot better and servicing our affiliate partners a lot better.

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