TV Asia Pacific MIPTV 2012

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The Indian Market Zee Group’s Subhash Chandra

asia pacific

www.tvasia.ws

THE MAGAZINE OF ASIA-PACIFIC MEDIA

APRIL 2012

MIPTV EDITION

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Food Network Asia www.foodnetworkasia.com

Andy Bates Street Feasts

“Our main goal

Since bringing Food Network to Asia in 2010, Scripps Networks International has been steadily building distribution for the lifestyle channel in key markets like Malaysia and the Philippines. Key to the company’s strategy going forward will be more local productions, including series and short-form content, says Hud Woodle, the general manager of Food Network Asia.“Our first original production, A Culinary Coup: The Launch of Ku Dé Ta, was met with unparalleled success. Affiliates and viewers have asked for additional episodes of the short-form content that we produced and filmed on location in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei and Seoul. We hope to further increase brand awareness with supplemental consumer marketing throughout Southeast Asia.”

Programming highlights include Restaurant: Impossible and Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics from the U.S. and Andy Bates Street Feasts from the U.K. “Food competition shows have performed well for us in the region with titles like Food Network Star and Iron Chef America,” Woodle adds.

is to continue growing Food Network Asia’s distribution footprint.

”

—Hud Woodle

Digitization is transforming India’s media market

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Interview Zee’s Subhash Chandra

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Publisher

Mansha Daswani

Editor

Kristin Brzoznowski

Managing Editor

Marissa Graziadio

Editorial Assistant Simon Weaver

Online Director Meredith Miller Lauren Uda

Production & Design Directors Phyllis Q. Busell

Art Director Cesar Suero

www.fmescreenings.com

FremantleMedia Enterprises’ diverse slate for MIPTV includes Bellator Fighting Championships, a mixed-martialarts series that Paul Ridley, executive VP of international distribution and home entertainment for the Asia Pacific, lists as a highlight for his clients. Ridley notes that the U.S. drama The Wedding Band is another focus, together with the “usual brand renewals for shows such as The X Factor USA, America’s Got Talent and American Idol, as well as our Jamie Oliver and Project Runway titles. Also keep an eye out for our new cooking show, Home Cooking Made Easy, from top chef Lorraine Pascale, and our three new exciting dramas from the U.K.: Hidden, Hit & Miss and the new season of Kidnap and Ransom.” Ridley points to the mix of drama, comedy, factual, lifestyle, entertainment and kids’ content as the strength of the FME portfolio.“We are fairly unique in the fact that we can supply top-quality content across all genres, which combines a nice mix of U.S., U.K. and Australian programming.”

India’s Next Steps

Ricardo Seguin Guise

FremantleMedia Enterprises • Bellator Fighting Championships • The Wedding Band • Hit & Miss

IN THIS ISSUE

“International

broadcasters seem upbeat and positive, which should result in an appetite to acquire new quality content for their channels.

”

—Paul Ridley

Hit & Miss

Sales & Marketing Director Terry Acunzo

Business Affairs Manager Vanessa Brand

Sales & Marketing Assistant

Ricardo Seguin Guise

President

Anna Carugati

Executive VP & Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani

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

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Televisa Internacional www.televisainternacional.tv • Abyss of Passion • A Shelter for Love • Valiant Love

Abyss of Passion

Televisa Internacional has been providing telenovelas, both finished versions and formats, to Asian broadcasters for many years. A recent development in the company’s business in the region, according to Ricardo Ehrsam, Televisa Internacional’s general director for Europe and Asia, is that there are now “certain countries in Asia where, once our content is dubbed, it is in very high demand.”

Televisa has a host of new programming to introduce to buyers at MIPTV. On the traditional telenovela front, there’s Abyss of Passion, set in a picturesque Mexican town; A Shelter for Love, in which a young woman faces trials and tribulations after her mother’s death; Conniving Renata, about a woman who would do anything to take revenge on the man responsible for her mother’s suicide; and Valiant Love, which deals with a couple facing a series of obstacles in their quest to be together. For kids and teens, Televisa is introducing Miss XV, CQ and the Brazilian series Rebel.

A Shelter for Love

Viacom18 www.viacom18.com

A fifty-fifty joint-venture operation of Viacom and the Network18 Group, India’s Viacom18 includes leading brands across television, film and digital media. This includes Viacom18 Motion Pictures, the Hindi-language general-entertainment channel Colors and the recently unveiled young-adult network Sonic, among others.

Gaurav Gandhi, Viacom18’s head of distribution and international business, is keen to expand distribution for the services. “The [joint venture] now has six broadcast brands, a couple of HD brands, the movie arm, and other projects under way,” he says. “These include expansion into other nearby regions, including the Gulf.... There is a huge [South Asian population] outside of India and this is our initial target audience. Around the world this equals about 25 million to 30 million people, but the big pockets are the U.K., the U.S. and the Middle East. It’s natural that any Indian broadcaster would want to try and reach this huge audience. We get a double advantage. By and large, and unlike many U.S. and European networks, we hold onto our IP rights to the shows. Therefore [the process to] get international channels up and running is much simplified.”

“The [joint venture] now

has six broadcast brands, a couple of HD brands, the movie arm, and other projects under way.

Balika Vadhu on Colors

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—Gaurav Gandhi

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Rajasthan, India.

Digitization is transforming India’s media market, creating new opportunities for local and international players.

By Mihir Shah

India’s

Next Steps I

ndia has been the international media market to watch during the last few years, a position the populous nation will undoubtedly retain as digitization takes hold. With the government having set 2015 as the deadline for operators to make the switch from analog—a move that will translate into increased channel capacity—domestic and international media companies alike are rushing to take the pole position in a market with an estimated 125 million subscriber households.

Indeed, the global significance of India’s TV industry continues to grow. Analysis from Media Partners Asia (MPA) indicates that India is still a small piece of the global pie for the majors, though its importance is massive in the Asian context.

This year, India will make up just 5 percent of global revenues for News Corporation and Sony (both long-established owners and investors in the market), but 65 percent to 75 percent, respectively, of their Asia-Pacific revenues. For others, like Discovery Communications and Time Warner, which are more reliant on mature markets such as Australia and Japan, India contributes about 30 percent to Asia-Pac revenues. Nevertheless, India is clearly a larger piece of the pie than it has been in the past and is a vital contributor to future growth.

How successfully India emerges as a profit engine for media companies will now depend on a number of key factors, including digitization; progressive regulatory change; 362

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consolidation and merger-and-acquisitions activity; and the growth of new markets.

The good news is that digitization is finally on its way. Having tried and failed in 2003 and 2006, the government is now intent on converting more than 100 million TV households (largely pay-TV subscribers) to digital over the next three years.

Today, about 90 million of India’s 145 million or so TV homes still have analog cable services, about 5 million have digital cable and 30 million have digital DTH pay-TV services. In addition, close to 15 million homes have opted for free DTH services from DD Direct, a subsidiary of the public broadcaster Doordarshan. The government hopes the state-backed broadcaster will capitalize on digitization to expand the capacity of its free DTH platform to more than 100 channels.

No one really expects India to reach 100-percent digital penetration by the targeted date of mid-2015—after all, the time it has taken for most global markets has been around 10 to 15 years. But the key issue is that the government is unlikely to step back from its lofty goals, and the deadline has encouraged broadcasters and cable operators to work together to reap the benefits of digital conversion.

This year, the key focus is the first phase of digitization, which involves about 10 million homes in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. The government recently suggested that Phase 1 4/12

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digital conversion would need to be completed by the end of June 2012.That will surely mean chaos for the next 6 to 12 months, but most industry insiders expect that by June of next year, 80 to 90 percent of Phase 1 homes will be receiving a digital multichannel service either through DTH platforms—these viewers will likely benefit the most in the short term—or digital cable networks and DD Direct.

The impact on broadcasters and content providers should be significant, as subscription fees rise and the costs to secure carriage fall.Another key development is that for the first time, tiering and packaging of channels will come to India in a big way.

Increased affiliate fees will reduce dependence on ad revenues, which are linked to weekly television rating points (TRP). Broadcasters can also identify and launch dedicated channels for specific niches, which may have smaller advertising potential but can deliver healthy subscription premiums. At the same time, viewer adoption of certain programming tiers and specific channels will ensure healthy consumer competition in the content marketplace, while broadcasters will also come under increasing pressure to produce premium quality, distinctive content (potentially advertising-free) that has local relevance.

Digitization will also limit the rising carriage and placement fees paid by channels to cable operators, which now average north of $350 million per year.

Meanwhile, according to MPA, pay-TV broadcasters received only $425 million in subscription fees from cable platforms in 2010, about 11 percent of overall cable-TV revenues. This number is expected to grow significantly in the future as digitization takes shape. Theoretically, a broadcaster’s share in the digital cable environment could increase to as much as 40 percent, versus 10 to 15 percent in analog. Large broadcast distribution networks, such as Media Pro, a joint venture of Zee and Star, have come together to encourage digitization, offering discounted rates to operators for packages of channels.

Dancing queen: Star Gold is said to have paid a record amount for the broadcasting rights to the new Bollywood feature Ra.One.

Advertising, of course, will always remain important, anchored to economic growth and the expansion in pay-TV homes. This year, forecasts are modest, with ad sales likely to grow by 8.7 percent, according to MPA data, against the background of a slowing economy. MPA also cites difficult comparisons with the first half of last year, which included the Cricket World Cup—held every four years—plus an extended Indian Premier League season.

BUYING TIME

Perfect pair: The Viacom and Network18 joint venture Colors has quickly ascended to the top of the ratings pack with serials like Uttaran.

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The forecast growth this year will be driven primarily by multinational corporations investing in India and a stronger, fast-moving consumer-goods sector, and there could be upward revisions made in the ad forecast in the second half of this year. Significantly, before the first phase of digitization is implemented, broadcasters are already rolling out new niche channels in various genres, including comedy, action and noncricket sports.This will attract advertisers who are willing to target and segment their audiences.

Competition in Hindi general-entertainment channels (GEC), a genre dominated by big guns such as Star (owned by News Corp.), Sony, Viacombacked Colors, and the domestic giant Zee, remains intense. There has also been a change in the pecking order of the top Hindi GECs, with Sony climbing up to the number two spot (behind number one player Star Plus), while Colors has slipped to number four behind Zee. Imagine TV, owned by Turner, is yet to show a sustained improvement after management and structural changes implemented last year.

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Looking to extend their dominance beyond the GEC category, larger networks, such as Star India, have started investing heavily in other genres, especially Hindi movies. Star Gold in particular has become aggressive in beefing up content by securing telecast rights to new releases. Furthermore, new launches in other genres, such as the music networks MTunes and Sony MIX, and the creation of ultra-niche genres—English entertainment with BIG CBS, AXN and Star World, among others—are fragmenting viewership.

NICHE INTERESTS Golden ticket: Localization has been Discovery’s mantra in India, with original series like Oh My Gold! on TLC, one of several channels it operates in the market.

Future increases in digital penetration will continue to fuel the growth of factual and lifestyle niche entertainment as well as home-shopping channels. Factual and lifestyle channels in particular have great potential to enlarge the ad pie. However, it has to be

said, the current base in small—about 13 factual channels currently garner less than 2 percent of the ad market. Nonetheless, a player such as Discovery has set the template for profitable growth in India, built on localization, regional feeds and HD offerings.

Competition will increase as new local lifestyle channels enter the market, with A+E Networks most recently investing heavily to launch HISTORY in the fourth quarter of last year in conjunction with joint-venture partner Network18. Regional and HD feeds will further help boost viewership and ad share for the genre.

Sports also remains critical, but the potential growth for the genre on television will depend on the mass adoption of sports beyond cricket (i.e., football, basketball, tennis, Grand Prix). Many channels have been priced out of the cricketbroadcasting market.

FROM THE REGIONS

The rise of the regional markets is a pervasive theme in Indian TV, reflected in viewership shares as well as increasing ad volumes.

For instance, outside of South India, regional channel viewership for the state of Maharashtra has increased from 10 percent to 25 percent, while more than 45 percent of overall viewership in West Bengal is of regional channels.

Investments in regional channels have become key for many media groups, especially for the national networks like Zee and Star India. Zee’s regional business now contributes about 20 percent to annual sales and close to 25 percent to its profit.

Star India has spent more than $300 million since 2009 to acquire and develop regional networks. As a result, profits have grown substantially over the past two years, with regional channels contributing almost 40 percent to earnings.

One of the biggest developments in the regional-channels business came in January when the conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), under the leadership of Mukesh Ambani, made a landmark deal involving Network18,TV18 Broadcast and Eenadu Group. Eenadu Group operates 12 regional channels in the South under the brand ETV, which generates about $100 million in revenues per year. Following the deal,TV18 will own 100 percent of ETV’s five regional news channels, 50 percent of ETV’s five regional entertainment channels (with an option to increase to 100 percent) and 24.5 percent of ETV Telugu channels, with an option to increase to 49 percent.To fund the transaction, Network18 issued shares to RIL’s subsidiary Independent Media Trust. RIL is likely to emerge as the largest shareholder in Network18 and TV18.Through the deal, RIL also gains national and regional content from ETV and Network18 for its 4G broadband platform, which is likely to launch commercially in 2014.

The ETV deal pushes Network18 into the fast-growing, profitable regional space. The ETV acquisition potentially also strengthens Sun18, Network18’s channel-distribution joint venture with Sun TV (a leader in South India).

Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures have become increasingly important as the industry starts to consolidate.

Last year, India’s largest TV businesses, Star and Zee, seemingly at loggerheads since their last equity joint venture fell apart more than a decade ago, united to form Media Pro, which brings together Star Den (Star’s existing alliance with the cable MSO Den Networks) and Zee Turner (Zee’s existing venture with Turner).

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The theory behind Media Pro is simple: create more scale to generate more value by bringing together 68 pay-TV channels across multiple genres and markets. This will help raise subscriber declarations. Media Pro could also indirectly force some level of last-mile cable consolidation and digitization among cable systems. With enhanced scale, Media Pro can look to switch off non paying or pirate cable operators, as the combination of Star and Zee channels will have significant leverage in northern India and also in regional markets.

The main challenge is bringing two different corporate cultures together.

Increased consolidation is likely on its way in pay-TV distribution over the next two to three Silk road: The Turner-owned Imagine recently premiered Gyan Guru, a game years, especially among cable operators (after show, as part of a refreshed programming grid.

Phase 1 digitization), sports channels (Neo Sports, ESPN Star Sports) and DTH operators. Elsewhere, business and a gaming division with potential, though its Viacom has the option now to buy more of Colors, while broadcasting business continues to generate losses. Now led Disney continues to pour money into India, spending more by the serial dealmaker and entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala, than $1 billion over the past seven years, including the Disney should be on the course toward value creation— recent acquisition of the film, television and gaming stuthough India is always full of surprises. dio UTV Software Communications.

Mihir Shah is an analyst with Media Partners Asia, a provider of Most of Disney’s value in India today is attached to UTV, information services on media and telecoms in the Asia Pacific. whose key business pillars rest on a cash-generative movie

The Major Players Star India

Sun TV Network

Estimated revenues 2012: $740 million Key properties: Star Plus, Star Movies, regional

Estimated revenues 2012: $360 million Key properties: Sun TV, Gemini TV, Surya TV

entertainment channels in Marathi and Bengali.

Future drivers: To benefit most from digitization with properties commanding leadership positions across major genres.

Key challenge: Limited room for advertising growth at its flagship properties.

Zee Group Estimated revenues 2012: $600 million Key properties: Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Taj TV

and Udaya TV. Future drivers: Revenues from the addition

of 12 mostly subscription-based channels in India. Should also see increased revenues from its channels in international markets, notably the U.S. Key challenge: Distribution hiccups that may affect domestic cable revenues, plus rising content costs.

Network18

Future drivers: Growth in domestic cable sub-

Estimated revenues 2012: $360 million Key properties: Web18, Home Shop 18.

Future drivers: Highly scalable business as

Multi-Screen Media Estimated revenues 2012: $500 million Key properties: Sony TV and SET Max. Future drivers: Better monetizaton of flagship

channels through advertising and subscription revenues with improved and sustainable ratings.

Key challenge: Lack of presence in highgrowth regional markets.

Bindass, UTV Motion Pictures, UTV Ignition, Indiagames.

Future drivers: Business-to-consumer platforms. Alternative revenues in the movie business.

Key challenge: Lack of presence in the dominant TV genres of sports, regional languages and Hindi-language general entertainment.

Time Warner

(Ten Sports). scription revenues driven by the Media Pro distribution joint venture with Star, reduction in losses at its sports business.

Key challenge: Increased content costs for its non-sports business, limited growth in international subscription revenues as a result of increased competition.

Disney India (including UTV) Estimated revenues 2012: $240 million Key properties: Disney XD, Hungama,

adoption of new platforms increase.

Key challenge: Saddled with debt. Multiple shareholders across major network properties.

Estimated revenues 2012: $110 million Key properties: Cartoon Network, Pogo,

HBO, Imagine.

Future drivers: Digitization and growth of

new media will help improve monetization of flagship properties.

Key challenge: Turning around the entertainment network Imagine.

TV18 Broadcast Estimated revenues 2012: $250 million Key properties: Colors, MTV, CNBC TV18,

and CNBC Awaaz.

Future drivers: Strengthened bouquet following the acquisition of ETV. Financial and technological backing from Reliance Industries Limited (RIL).

Key challenge: New shareholder does not have core expertise in media business. Huge dilution for existing shareholders.

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Discovery India Estimated revenues 2012: $70 million Key properties: Discovery Channel, TLC and

HD feeds, in Hindi and regional languages.

Future drivers: Digitization, HD growth and stronger advertising revenues.

Key challenge: Lack of content that will secure premium rates from advertisers.

Source: Media Partners Asia

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By Mansha Daswani

Looking at India’s crowded and chaotic television landscape today, it’s easy to forget that just two decades ago the country’s airwaves were ruled by one dominant state broadcaster. In 1992, Subhash Chandra took on the incumbent Doordarshan with India’s first Hindi-language satellite channel, Zee TV. Twenty years later the Zee portfolio includes a host of thematic and regional channels—many of which are also beamed to South Asian audiences across Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The Zee channel business is just one part of Chandra’s Essel Group conglomerate, which also owns the Indian DTH platform Dish TV and the North American health and lifestyle channel Veria Living. Chandra recently met with TV Asia Pacific to talk about the way forward for India’s booming media sector and his aspirations for turning Veria Living into his newest worldwide brand.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What challenges

do you see for the future growth of the Indian media business?

CHANDRA: There are challenges in the market, for example digitization. The government has set a deadline of 2014 [for all cable operators to upgrade their systems to digital]. My guess is it will [be partly completed by that deadline]. I think that it will take a few more years, maybe to 2017–2018, even 2020, for the cable industry to become more consolidated, from 100,000 mom-and-pop cable operators to one or two dozen corporations who can control a large [market share] and provide good quality [broadcasts] and technology, and service the customers in a better way. The ARPUs [average revenue per subscriber], which are just about $4 per home for a bundle of 400 channels, would [have to] increase to a viable level.

Currently it’s not at a viable level for any consolidation to take place.The regulator will have to open up the market—leave it to the market economy to see what [prices] people can bear.

Today, there is no pay market in India. Everyone says there is a $7-billion pay market in India. I don’t believe that. It is just giving a bundled service to the household; people don’t pay separately for HBO, they don’t pay for Zee Cinema, they don’t pay for premium content separately. Slowly that will start happening. For example, we have started an à la carte service, a 24-hour network [Zee Khana Khazana] that is all about food and cooking. People have started paying separately for it. We are soon launching a golf channel, which will be a premium high-quality pay channel. Pay services will have to develop and evolve over the next five to seven years.

Zee Group’s

Subhash Chandra

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Similarly, in DTH, [there are] far too many operators—six or seven of them. They will have to consolidate. Again, their ARPUs will have to increase to a profitable level. Today it’s not at a profitable level. That money will then have to flow into programming.

The production industry also needs to be well organized.

Today it is fragmented, it is again mom-and-pop shops. The pricing of the programming is very high [in relation to the] quality. Then, the advertiser and the programmer have to be on the same page.We are delivering almost 90 million homes but we are only being paid for 40 million homes, because the rating system covers only 40 million homes.

Many anomalies have to [be eliminated], and my belief is they will be and the market, from the current $17 billion 4/12

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American people will benefit from Veria to live healthy. We have already invested in excess of $100 million in Veria’s programming. We plan to invest $250 million more in the programming on this network. All the programming is being done in very high quality, high definition, a lot of celebrities are getting involved with it. There isn’t anything like Veria in the market at the moment.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What are

Jewel in the crown: Female-skewing daily serials like Choti Bahu are at the heart of the flagship Zee TV’s programming schedule.

to $18 billion [in revenues], will become $60 billion to $70 billion in five to seven years’ time. There is a huge growth opportunity.

the expansion opportunities for Veria in the nonlinear space?

CHANDRA: First and foremost, there is a complementary website, so if you want to find recipes or know more about the programming or about some particular ailment, you can go onto Veria.com and then get your information.

We are talking to various distribution networks, those who will distribute the programming on a VOD basis, on an over-the-top basis, and other ways. I’m sure we’ll make some of our videos available on different networks, including Facebook, and also make them available through libraries.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What are the priorities for your overall

TV ASIA PACIFIC: The channels’ landscape is so frag-

international business in the next 12 to 18 months?

mented. How do you maintain, and increase, your share of advertising dollars?

CHANDRA: We are a network of channels. We are serving [audiences in] seven languages [with] 30 networks, and we have almost 17 percent of the TV eyeballs. Against the 17-percent viewership we control, we are able to extract almost 25 percent of the advertising pie. Not many people are able to do that. So many channels are [launching in India]. But today, if you ask me, at least 100 channels are available for sale, and there are no buyers. The market will get consolidated. The fringe players will vanish or get bought out. Distribution is a big challenge.

There is no [carriage] space in cable. Even on satellite there is hardly any space.

CHANDRA: Veria at the moment is only in America.We are syn-

dicating the programming to different countries, but we would like to take the network [to the worldwide market]. In five to eight years, we’d like to make it a global brand. In countries like France or Germany we’ll probably dub the programming, in some places we’ll subtitle. Even within the U.S. there is a possibility that we could create a parallel network in Spanish.

For the Indian programming [on Zee TV], we are already dubbing into local languages. In Indonesia our programming is available in Bahasa. It’s very well received. In Saudi Arabia we have a channel that is subtitled in Arabic. It’s the number three channel there. In Russia we are also doing programming dubbed. Things are happening every day.

TV ASIA PACIFIC: You were recently honored with the

TV ASIA PACIFIC: What are your plans for Zee’s business in

the United States?

CHANDRA: In the U.S., having served the South Asian diaspora pretty well, we are now servicing mainstream American audiences with health and wellness programming through Veria Living, which is in 10 million homes. We relaunched it in January with a renewed programming thrust. We will expand the distribution and a lot more 370

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International Emmy Directorate Award. What does this recognition mean to you?

CHANDRA: Our programming, the South Asian programming, is very well recognized and appreciated by almost 600 million viewers across the globe. We are in 167 countries. What the International Emmy means to me is that it’s a recognition that India is not only a tech-savvy computer-software country, but it has also arrived in terms of media and programming.

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