The first week of 2018 closed with good, bad & sad(ish) news in Asia’s video industry, laced with an even stronger sense of linear channel upheaval, the dawn of an age of fewer/better services, a rocking Originals space, another ratings triumph for Japanese commercial TV broadcaster Nippon TV, and a Champagne moment for Avi Himatsinghani, whose four-year-old HITS channel crossed the 10 million homes for the first time.
On the whole, Asia’s video industry enters the dying days of the Year of the Rooster crowing about transition, cocksure of the benefits of creativity, innovation and technology, yet filled with uncertainty about, well, everything. And, on top of that, plagued by politics, patchy execution and job insecurity.
Although the Year of the Earth Dog is forecast to be good/prosperous if exhausting, fears are that this Dog’s bite could be worse than its bark.
The reality of the region’s shrinking appetite for shelf-space-hogging ancillary brands was hammered home in FOX Networks Group’s (FNG) new deal with ABSCBN- owned Sky, which moves into 2018 with seven fewer channels in the Philippines than it used to have.
The new carriage deal pares the bouquet 30% to 15 channels (including premium services FOX Movies and FOX Sports) from 15 January.
Out the door are both the standard and high-definition services of FOXCrime, FOX Action Movies and Nat Geo People. Also slipping into the sunset after almost 25 years on air is one of FOX’s longest running channel brands, music network Channel [V]. Although Channel [V] has also been retired in India, it’s not clear whether these channel brands are facing the axe in other markets in Asia.
FNG Philippines has declined to comment on its new Sky carriage reality or the updated shape of its business.
Sky, on the other hand, is out there with a message of bigger and better, not buying (at least not publicly) forecasts of an era of contraction or consolidation. Instead, the platform is telling domestic customers that there will be replacements for the...
The first week of 2018 closed with good, bad & sad(ish) news in Asia’s video industry, laced with an even stronger sense of linear channel upheaval, the dawn of an age of fewer/better services, a rocking Originals space, another ratings triumph for Japanese commercial TV broadcaster Nippon TV, and a Champagne moment for Avi Himatsinghani, whose four-year-old HITS channel crossed the 10 million homes for the first time.
On the whole, Asia’s video industry enters the dying days of the Year of the Rooster crowing about transition, cocksure of the benefits of creativity, innovation and technology, yet filled with uncertainty about, well, everything. And, on top of that, plagued by politics, patchy execution and job insecurity.
Although the Year of the Earth Dog is forecast to be good/prosperous if exhausting, fears are that this Dog’s bite could be worse than its bark.
The reality of the region’s shrinking appetite for shelf-space-hogging ancillary brands was hammered home in FOX Networks Group’s (FNG) new deal with ABSCBN- owned Sky, which moves into 2018 with seven fewer channels in the Philippines than it used to have.
The new carriage deal pares the bouquet 30% to 15 channels (including premium services FOX Movies and FOX Sports) from 15 January.
Out the door are both the standard and high-definition services of FOXCrime, FOX Action Movies and Nat Geo People. Also slipping into the sunset after almost 25 years on air is one of FOX’s longest running channel brands, music network Channel [V]. Although Channel [V] has also been retired in India, it’s not clear whether these channel brands are facing the axe in other markets in Asia.
FNG Philippines has declined to comment on its new Sky carriage reality or the updated shape of its business.
Sky, on the other hand, is out there with a message of bigger and better, not buying (at least not publicly) forecasts of an era of contraction or consolidation. Instead, the platform is telling domestic customers that there will be replacements for the FOX channels.
“We constantly seek to provide our customers with the best variety of content. We are engaging more channel partners to add more compelling content on our platform to give our subscribers the best TV viewing experience,” Sky says.
Most of Sky’s channel pack pricing (between Ps299/US$6 and Ps1,999/US$40) has not been adjusted for the loss of the FOX channels, although the platform says homes that received the channels through Sky Select will no longer be billed for the subscription.
At the same time, the platform is promoting A+E Networks’ Crime and Investigation (CI) channel in place of FOX Crime, Scripps Networks’ Travel Channel in place of Nat Geo People, and HBO Asia’s Cinemax in place of FOX Action Movies.
The note to pay-TV subscribers, which includes live links to CI, Travel and Cinemax, came less than three weeks after the announcement that Disney was acquiring FOX’s international business, including the entire Asia operation... which has given rise to some of the subscription video industry’s biggest questions going into 2018. More about that another time...
For all the challenges of the subscription video business, Rewind Networks’ founder, Avi Himatsinghani’s line about focus and clear propositions paid off in Taiwan on 1 January, when a new carriage deal with Chunghwa Telecom/MOD pushed the four-year-old HITS channel over the 10-million home mark for the first time. A jubilant Himatsinghani says the milestone bodes well for a new year.
Champagne corks popped as loudly in Tokyo as they did at Rewind in Singapore as commercial broadcaster Nippon TV celebrated its fourth consecutive “triple crown” ratings triumph and promised a year of “aggressively” pursuing opportunities across platforms, including Hulu Japan.
The free-TV broadcaster’s all-day ratings (6am-midnight) in 2017 were 8.2%, slightly down from last year’s 8.4%. Prime time (7pm-11pm) results at 12% were level with 2016, and Golden Time (7pm-10pm) at 12.4% put Nippon ahead of 2016’s 12.3%.
Some of the best news moving into 2018 is that original content remains on a roll, driven in the first week by Netflix’s first comedy specials out of Southeast Asia, another Amazon India Original, the premiere in China this past weekend of Sony/iQIYI’s drama co-pro, Chosen, and GMA Philippines’ ongoing affair with online drama under the GMA ONE banner.
Netflix follows emerging markets streaming platform iflix into Southeast Asian stand-up comedy from 19 January, kicking off with Malaysian comedian Harith Iskander’s one-hour special I Told You So, followed on 26 January with Singapore’s Fakkah Fuzz’s Almost Banned and Kavin Jay’s Everybody Calm Down! on 2 February. All three will be available globally.
Original content juices aren’t flowing as fast for Korean broadcaster MBC for the moment, although all should be well by March. The broadcaster entered the new year struggling to get back onto its weekday drama feet after last year’s labour action. Drama pickings are thin in February, once the current series – Two Cops and I Am Not a Robot – end. The schedule is saved only by attention flowing off the Pyeongchang Olympics from 9-25 Feb.
2018 will undoubtedly also be (another) year of waging war on piracy. 2017 didn’t end on a totally fruitless note, with Hong Kong’s first successful prosecution of a piracy syndicate circumventing pay-TV channels. Justice, it has to be said, took three years, and although these were the heaviest penalties ever for internet piracy in Hong Kong, they fall well short of the max. Elsewhere in Asia, including Singapore, vendors entered 2018 happily flogging plug-and-play boxes that offer free access to hundreds of channels for a low flat up-front fee. Fair? Of course not. Will regulators step up? Another big New Year question...