The next few months for much of Asia’s television industry could be incredibly ugly, bar the opportunities for anyone with a commercial spot to sell to marketers of hygiene and wellness products, and with some pain-delay for streaming platforms, which are enjoying record lockdown-driven viewing but will have a hole down the line because production pipelines have for the most part been blown up. 

News providers are, predictably, in pole viewing position, the behind-the-scenes strain of keeping news-gathering teams safe masked by record consumption. Kids programmers are also shielded, not least because younger viewers are renowned for their ability to absorb repeats; evidence of this is already emerging in Indonesia, where Nielsen is tracking record ratings among viewers from 5-9 years old.

We’re tracking higher appetite for tape/finished programme sales while the industry waits for productions to restart post-lockdown and for new projects to come off pause. And we are keeping a close eye on repeats, encores and old titles dusted off for new purposes. 

Meanwhile, the first comprehensive market figures that chart the extent of the possible catastrophe come out of Australia, where industry association, Screen Producers Australia, estimates a A$2b/US$1.2b hole as a result of the virus and measures to contain its spread, and has warned that the production industry could collapse. Other industry bodies in the region haven’t been as quick to put a number on the impact, but it’s not a stretch to go, in a few short steps, from indefinite production delays to disaster cascading through the ecosystem. 

The biggest hole will be in the sports space, where live events have been ripped off 2020 calendars entirely or are going forward in smaller or truncated formats, leaving, among a litany of challenges, high-value sports packs unable to deliver on their promises to consumers. 

Analysts at Media Partners Asia (MPA) have shaved US$2b – or 35% – off previous estimates for the region’s sports revenues this year as a direct result of the Covid-19 fallout. Monetisation will recover in 2021, with the new dates for the Tokyo Olympics and Uefa, which will cover 30-40% of the loss, says MPA senior analyst AR Srivathsan. 

Across the rest of the industy, TV companies big and bigger have stepped up with everything from rice benefits for stay-at-home staff and free airtime for public service announcements to opening access to a slew of premium entertainment services at no additional cost to existing subscribers. Which is exactly the good and the right thing to do, not least because the costs of these blowouts are outweighed by the marketing opportunity to captive audiences at home by choice or by government decree.   

The question is what comes next, when channels aren’t able to fulfil their first-run or other programming obligations tomorrow because nothing new is being made today. Our thinking is that the pool of goodwill is going to have to run deep to fill the hole because, really truly, subscribers don’t care about what goes on behind their screens, they aren’t up for excuses, they won’t remember the free stuff if the new stuff is lame, and the slew of saccharine feel-good memes about caring for your fellow human doesn’t extend to commercial service providers. The bigger picture economic impact on advertising and on affordability of subscription services is also a worry. 

Not everyone is, at least not that they’re admitting, suffering equally. In Hong Kong, TVB banned live studio audiences, but told us other productions were on schedule. In Korea, broadcaster MBC says production is on schedule, albeit without live audiences. This includes the massively popular King of Mask Singer. KBS has also banned live audiences, but filming continues. CJ ENM is doing the same, although it has pulled travel reality Thrifters on Tour, which involves traveling abroad, and brought You Quiz on the Block, which involves interviews and interactions with people on the street, indoors. Just like everyone else. For now. 

Stay safe all.