FEATURES
Platforms: TrueVisions Anywhere
03 September 2014
3 September 2014: Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there's clearly no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a go. Malena Amzah spoke to 19 online/OTT platforms in the region about what they have, what they would like to have, and the biggest things they think are standing in their way. Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there’s no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a good go. This includes established free- and pay-TV broadcasters, who are moving lock, stock and tech barrel into non traditional delivery, leveraging the rights they own in new spaces and creating – or hoping to – original content for online services. Channels and acquisitions execs are also pushing hard for as many rights as possible, hoping to drive online viewership, engagement and revenue. What are these and their stand-alone online platform rivals most concerned about? Interviews with 19 platforms* in Asia showed that piracy is the top concern along with access to and cost of rights, and censorship, which drives users away. Priorities include presenting a simple and easy-to-use entertainment service, available everywhere with broad content choices at the right price models and designs that serve multiple user groups’ needs. Here’s what else they said...TrueVisions AnywhereTrueVisions Anywhere is an online TV service, carrying live-TV streaming, catch-up services of local and international channels and transactional video-on-demand offering Hollywood movies, via web browsers and mobile iOS and Android apps."The people in Thailand are so used to pirated services that are either cheap or free. We need to find an appropriate business model to win this competition." Soothi Na-Ranong, Senior Manager, Product Developm...
3 September 2014: Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there's clearly no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a go. Malena Amzah spoke to 19 online/OTT platforms in the region about what they have, what they would like to have, and the biggest things they think are standing in their way. Analysts might not be over the moon about the short/medium term profit prospects of OTT, but there’s no shortage of companies in Asia willing to give multi-screen options a good go. This includes established free- and pay-TV broadcasters, who are moving lock, stock and tech barrel into non traditional delivery, leveraging the rights they own in new spaces and creating – or hoping to – original content for online services. Channels and acquisitions execs are also pushing hard for as many rights as possible, hoping to drive online viewership, engagement and revenue. What are these and their stand-alone online platform rivals most concerned about? Interviews with 19 platforms* in Asia showed that piracy is the top concern along with access to and cost of rights, and censorship, which drives users away. Priorities include presenting a simple and easy-to-use entertainment service, available everywhere with broad content choices at the right price models and designs that serve multiple user groups’ needs. Here’s what else they said...TrueVisions AnywhereTrueVisions Anywhere is an online TV service, carrying live-TV streaming, catch-up services of local and international channels and transactional video-on-demand offering Hollywood movies, via web browsers and mobile iOS and Android apps."The people in Thailand are so used to pirated services that are either cheap or free. We need to find an appropriate business model to win this competition." Soothi Na-Ranong, Senior Manager, Product Development, Business Development, True Visions GroupLaunched...TrueVisions Anywhere was touched by Thai communications and media company, True Visions Group, in 2012, with live streaming of 40 local and international channels. The service relaunched in May 2013 with 120 channels. Targeting... All demographics Pricing... TrueVisions Anywhere is accessible for free to TrueVisions’ pay-TV subscribers via web browsers and mobile iOS and Android apps. Non- subscribers pay THB200/US$6 a month for the basic package, consisting of 53 local and two international channels. Five TrueVisions-branded channels are offered for free to the public. Who’s driving the initiative... Nantanee Wongumnitkul, business development director, and Soothi Na-Ranong, senior manager product development, True Visions Group Available right now in... Thailand and hopes to extend to Burma, Vietnam and Cambodia. The offering... Live streaming of more than 150 local and international channels, which include RTL CBS Entertainment HD, Food Network HD, Travel Planet HD and Motor Visions HD. Features include time-shift (rewind live TV up to two hours) and catch-up TV (two days archive). The platform launched its transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) service in February, offering about 140 Hollywood movies. The TVOD slate includes The Rise of Planet of the Apes, The Devil Wears Prada, Need For Speed and Rio 2. Titles cost from THB90/US$2.80 to THB100/US$3.10 each. The plan is to have 10 new, current titles each.What’s the goal? “The goal is to minimise piracy and ultimately be the sole legal online TV application provider in Thailand.” [Soothi Na-Ranong]What kind of rights do you buy? “We’re hoping for first and exclusive.” [Soothi Na-Ranong]The biggest challenge... “The greatest challenge for us is piracy, because the people in Thailand are so used to pirated services that are either cheap or free. We need to find an appropriate business model to win this competition. Business model in terms of the right pricing and exclusivity (content), accessible everywhere in Thailand and a user interface design that is simple and easy to use by all ages.” [Soothi Na-Ranong]Why did you call it TrueVisions Anywhere? “It is straightforward and simple to understand by all.” [Soothi Na-Ranong] How many subscribers or registered users do you have? “There are currently about one million downloads and 160,000 registered subscribers (watching the channels they subscribe to).” [Soothi Na-Ranong]What are your take-up expectations for 2014? ”We are targeting about 180,000 registered subscribers by end 2014.” [Soothi Na-Ranong] What’s the average viewing time? 10-15 minutes daily The biggest surprise? “We found that our users are mostly children.” [Soothi Na-Ranong]How are you using social media to expand your online presence? “We have our own social media team consisting of six people. We have about 890,000 likes to our Facebook page, where we also promote our content to watch on Anywhere. We are also on TrueVisions’ official Twitter and Instagram.” [Soothi Na-Ranong] * All information and opinion was supplied by the platforms themselves and fact checked for accuracy as far as humanly possible. ContentAsia has not road-tested all the platforms and offers no opinion on how well any of them work or what the strengths and weaknesses are from a consumer perspective.Issue Three 2014