FEATURES
Platforms: Youku Tudou
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...Youku TudouMainland Chinese online video platform Youku Tudou was formed by the merger of China's rivals Youku and Tudou in 2012. The services continue to operate separately and cater to different audiences and advertisers. Youku targets the more "mainstream and positive" users while Tudou focuses more on the "young and eggy" users. The two multi-screen video apps and website platforms are available via PCs and all internet-enabled devices, including tablets and ...
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...Youku TudouMainland Chinese online video platform Youku Tudou was formed by the merger of China's rivals Youku and Tudou in 2012. The services continue to operate separately and cater to different audiences and advertisers. Youku targets the more "mainstream and positive" users while Tudou focuses more on the "young and eggy" users. The two multi-screen video apps and website platforms are available via PCs and all internet-enabled devices, including tablets and smartphones. Users of Youku Tudou made up of approximately 80% of China's online video users.Who's in charge.. Victor Koo, chief executive officer/chairman of Youku Tudou Inc; Dele Liu, president of Youku Tudou Inc; Frank Wei, senior vice president of Youku Tudou Inc and president of Youku.com; Weidong Yang, senior vice president of Youku Tudou Inc and president of Tudou.com Geo-blocked Some shows that don’t have international rights are geo-blocked for China 'Youku' is “What’s best and what’s cool” in ChineseMonthly subs rates RMB20/US$3.2 (Youku) and RMB10/US$1.6 (Tudou) The offering Youku is a free on-demand platform with pay-per-view and subscription-based services on premium tier Youku Premium. Programming is a mix of licensed content + in-house production + user-generated-content. Tudou’s offering is the same as Youku's, but differs in content focus. Together, Youku and Tudou offer 25,152 titles at any one time.Content rights Mostly of the content rights on Youku are non-exclusive. Content partners Licensed content are mostly from TV and movie studios in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korean/Hollywood studios/distributors such as Warner Brothers and Disney Media Distribution. In-house are user-generated- content (UGC)Hours of new content on Youku Tudou One million hours are added monthly (including UGC)Users/subscribers Youku Tudou has 380 million users on PC and 115 million users on mobile according to iResearch. Three most-watched shows on Youku: Chinese TV series Special Forces - Phoenix Nirvana and Let’s Get Married, as well as South Korean TV series The HeirsAverage viewing time 73.6 million hours a day, Youku and Tudou combined Biggest surprise “The number of users on mobile devices has exceeded that on TV, mobile contributes to more than 65% of the total video views, and on average, a user’s video view count on mobile is 2.5 to three times of that on PC. Long-form content like TV shows, variety shows, and animations make greater contribution to total video views on mobile than PC.” [Victor Koo]Outlook on the on-demand business in China in the next 12 months “On-demand business in China is in its early stage, it’ll double or triple in terms of subscribers in the next 12 months.” [Victor Koo] Priorities “From a content perspective, Youku Tudou’s main priority is to develop differentiated original content for each of our platforms: Youku and Tudou, and also to explore different genres of content that capture the mindshare of Chinese audience.” [Victor Koo]Social media “In July 2013, Youku Tudou’s content has been promoted throughout Weibo. The promotion takes multiple forms including through personalised recommendation section embedded between micro-blogging posts. Search results for movies and TV dramas will provide direct thumbnail links to watch the title instantly. ‘Home page’ for each title will be set up to provide direct links to watch it on Youku or Tudou platforms and feature reviews, mentions of that title from other Weibo users, and other information that users might find useful.” [Victor Koo]The best thing that has happened to the OTT industry in Asia so far this year is... “Continued technology improvements and upgrades in internet-enabled devices to connect different screens together, which in return increase the adoption of OTT by the users.” [Victor Koo]The best thing that has happened to Youku Tudou in Asia so far this year is...“The further penetration of mobile internet in China has broadened the scale of Youku Tudou platform, which increases Youku Tudou’s media influence and enhances our value with our partners.” [Victor Koo]* 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