13 June 2014: What industry bosses said and heard at APOS
"There's a place for bundling, unbundling, subscription, pre-paid, free, adex..."Rohana Rozhan, CEO, Astro
"If you don't differentiate, it's a matter of time before you die."Rudy Tanoesoedibjo, President Director, MNC SkyVision, Indonesia
"Throwing up a channel isn't the thing that gets you across the line. It's not as easy as it looks."Andy Kaplan, President, Worldwide Networks, Sony Pictures Television
"In data we trust... hopefully we can make return-path data the new currency."Tan Tong Hai, CEO, StarHub
"In some way, my left hand will fight with my right hand and that's a situation I need to deal with."Li Ruigang, Chairman, China Media Capital, on the challenges involved in maintaining revenues at IPTV platform BesTV and embracing and investing in an OTT model."We will definitely have to move into that area otherwise we will die," he added.
"We believe there exists a space for a large pan-regional service to emerge that can aggregate English and local language content effectively, and distribute via both pay-TV and telcos." Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Media Partners Asia (MPA)
"There clearly remains a dearth of quality premium Asian content that could drive the pay-TV business to the next level." Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Media Partners Asia (MPA)
"The bundle is here to stay."Haim Saban, Chairman & CEO, Saban Capital Group
"I agree with Haim... the bundle is not dead. The bundle is very much alive." Ben Pyne, President, Global Distribution, Disney Media Networks
"If you go past three clicks, you're toast." Vince Roberts, EVP, Global Operations; CTO, Disney/ABC Television Group
"From a content perspective, we are seeing the economics of the middle being squeezed. The middle is where the vast and sometimes inappropriate profits were being made. In the next years, you had better be doing stuff that's really extraordinary and stands out in the market place or you better be doing cheap stuff that's volume... it's worth playing on both sides of the spectrum. The dangerous place to be is spending a lot of money on content that's not great." "With SVOD there's a huge opportunity for targeted verticals."Peter Chernin, Chairman & CEO, The Chernin Group"The great opportunity of being a startup is that you can be an insurgent, do things that other people aren't doing because they have a much bigger more successful business to protect... hopefully we will be a lot more aggressive about doing new things... We have nothing to protect except our reputation and our reputation is to be bold."Peter Chernin, Chairman & CEO, The Chernin Group"There's no accountability in [Asia's pay-TV] industry... we are tying both hands behind our backs in an era where online is ...
13 June 2014: What industry bosses said and heard at APOS
"There's a place for bundling, unbundling, subscription, pre-paid, free, adex..."Rohana Rozhan, CEO, Astro
"If you don't differentiate, it's a matter of time before you die."Rudy Tanoesoedibjo, President Director, MNC SkyVision, Indonesia
"Throwing up a channel isn't the thing that gets you across the line. It's not as easy as it looks."Andy Kaplan, President, Worldwide Networks, Sony Pictures Television
"In data we trust... hopefully we can make return-path data the new currency."Tan Tong Hai, CEO, StarHub
"In some way, my left hand will fight with my right hand and that's a situation I need to deal with."Li Ruigang, Chairman, China Media Capital, on the challenges involved in maintaining revenues at IPTV platform BesTV and embracing and investing in an OTT model."We will definitely have to move into that area otherwise we will die," he added.
"We believe there exists a space for a large pan-regional service to emerge that can aggregate English and local language content effectively, and distribute via both pay-TV and telcos." Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Media Partners Asia (MPA)
"There clearly remains a dearth of quality premium Asian content that could drive the pay-TV business to the next level." Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Media Partners Asia (MPA)
"The bundle is here to stay."Haim Saban, Chairman & CEO, Saban Capital Group
"I agree with Haim... the bundle is not dead. The bundle is very much alive." Ben Pyne, President, Global Distribution, Disney Media Networks
"If you go past three clicks, you're toast." Vince Roberts, EVP, Global Operations; CTO, Disney/ABC Television Group
"From a content perspective, we are seeing the economics of the middle being squeezed. The middle is where the vast and sometimes inappropriate profits were being made. In the next years, you had better be doing stuff that's really extraordinary and stands out in the market place or you better be doing cheap stuff that's volume... it's worth playing on both sides of the spectrum. The dangerous place to be is spending a lot of money on content that's not great." "With SVOD there's a huge opportunity for targeted verticals."Peter Chernin, Chairman & CEO, The Chernin Group"The great opportunity of being a startup is that you can be an insurgent, do things that other people aren't doing because they have a much bigger more successful business to protect... hopefully we will be a lot more aggressive about doing new things... We have nothing to protect except our reputation and our reputation is to be bold."Peter Chernin, Chairman & CEO, The Chernin Group"There's no accountability in [Asia's pay-TV] industry... we are tying both hands behind our backs in an era where online is offering accountability." Alan Hodges, MD, Asia Pacific, A+E Networks Asia"There's probably more great television being made now than there ever has been. Piracy is the real issue that hangs over everything. We can't get away from that."Jonathan Spink, CEO, HBO AsiaMalay titles have become "the new premium" in Malaysia's VOD space at US$4.90 per title for a two-week window. "45% of the titles are Malay but 65% of the revenues are Malay". Rohana Rozhan, CEO, Astro Holdings Berhad"We don't think we're late in Asia." Ken Lowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive "The single largest issue [in authenticated apps] is the user unfriendly way of authenticating... it's a pain. If we iron out those kinks and work together, it's a great way to stop piracy."Zubin Gandevia, President, Fox International Channels (FIC) Asia and Middle East"We have 35,000 hours of library content that we own and add more than 2,500 hours of original content a year... we are moving from programme syndication to our own channels... the timing is right for our lifestyle brands in this part of the world." Ken Lowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive"Keeping our 94% live viewing is going to be challenging going forward on one hand. On the other, over the past few years, that number hasn't gone down at all... We rank just below sports and news. How? Because we're family friendly, vertically integrated and not dependent on a handful of hits, there's no violence, no profanity, no sexual innuendo. Women of the house feel they can leave it on with their children coming in and out." Ken Lowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive"For us, commercials are not interruptions. We have the highest engagement rate of any cable network because viewers see the commercials as information. It's unique to our brands." Ken Lowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Scripps Networks Interactive"A lot of viewing is happening on other devices. We're not afraid of this horizontal expansion of consumption. We see it powering TV viewership and adding up to more TV viewership. In the end, the driver is quality programming. You either have the goods or..."Rob Sorcher, EVP & Chief Content Officer, Cartoon Network"Kids viewing is about repetition and repeats... there is a correlation between viewing on other devices and ratings on the linear channel. It's unbelievable... All those other devices are marketing the channel. There's nothing to be afraid of." Rob Sorcher, EVP & Chief Content Officer, Cartoon Network"We believe that at the end of the day, the EPG with a matrix structure will change... we're very big on developing search function versus surf function."Allen Lew, CEO, SingTel Digital Life/SingTel Singapore"There are two reasons we launched pay-TV channels [RTL CBS Entertainment & RTL CBS Extreme] with line-ups like free-TV channels in Europe. On one hand, this team wants [and pushes for] great programming. Secondly, there is huge competition... we couldn't come here with a me-too channel. We have too much respect for platforms and audiences in the region to do that." Andreas Rudas, EVP, Regional Operations and Business Development CEE & Asia, RTL Group