8 December 2014: One year into a new era, Turner's Asia-Pacific operation has re-connected with affiliates and started acting on a three-priority plan. Can lost glory be regained? Or a different one found? Janine Stein spoke to regional president Ricky Ow.Last year this time, veteran Asia pay-TV boss Ricky Ow was packing for Hong Kong, heading into one of the region's biggest channel challenges – turning around Turner.Today, almost a year into the job as president of Turner International Asia Pacific, Ow says the biggest achievement has been that "Turner now has a much stronger sense of connection with the marketplace and the consumer. That's the basis on which everything can grow and develop. Without those two elements, you can't do anything at all".TV everywhere is one of Ow's three key goals, outlined soon after he arrived at Turner. The other two are "to fix Turner's weaknesses" and to develop an Asian content strategy, which he's started delivering with the Korean Oh!K channel."We have to push for TV everywhere," Ow insists. "Today, the TV set is just another device. If you pay for television, you want to be able to watch the content on every device," he says. Although the industry has been talking about TV everywhere for three years, it's still not a reality. "As an industry, we don't do as well as we could to market this as part of a pay-TV subscription," Ow says, warning: "We do not want a situation where the legal TV service is on TV and the illegal service is on mobile devices. That mindset will be hard to overcome"."The consumer today consumes TV programming everywhere, on any device. If the subscription model is going to work and remain protected, it has to follow viewer consumption patterns," he says.Ow is a strong supporter of a multi-pronged approach to everywhere services, including branded stand-alone apps offered on an authenticated basis via pay-TV platforms. He acknowledges that platforms may prefer to consolidate content within their own everywhere environments, and says there is space in the ecosystem for both."My view is that TV everywhere is there to protect the pay-TV ecosystem, and we have to use it as a weapon. I’m very happy to give anyone my TV everywhere rights, but there also has to be the ability to offer my own app in a dedicated environment on an authenticated basis depending on what the consumer chooses. It's still authenticated but it's a dedicated environment," he says.Ow talks about 14 things that have happened in 2014 that he's happy about, stopping short of grand declarations of sweeping success (except maybe the success so far of kids channel Boomerang Thailand, the one-year-old free-sat channel that tops local cable and satellite charts with 72% audience share among kids and total individuals 4+. General entertainment service WarnerTV also remains a top-rating channel, holding onto its number one spot in Singapore for 12 consecutive months).Perhaps most critically though, Ow has his own, hand-picked management team in place. In January, Turner appointed Greg Ho as vice president of communications and marketing. Discovery stalwart Shitiz Jain joined in February as senior vice president, finance. Marianne Lee, who worked with Ow at Sony Pictures Television Networks, shifted back to Hong Kong to join Turner after a few years at Universal Channels International in Singapore. Lee came on board in May as vice president, content, general entertainment. Phil Nelson, who was part of the old Turner guard, has, meanwhile, been given a bigger role as senior vice president and managing director, Southeast Asia Pacific and North Asia. Another achievement has been building an entertainment portfolio to add to Turner's kids and news strengths. So far, this has involved closing a content supply deal with Korea's Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and launching Korean channel Oh!K channel in October. That came six months after Turner Broadcasting took operational control of the region's leading entertainment channel, WarnerTV, from HBO Asia in April. The goal was – and remains – to create another pillar of revenue. The programming strategy includes more first-run shows from Warner Bros along with first-run content from Turner, such as The Last Ship, which was executive produced by filmmaker Michael Bay (Transformers) and aired on TNT in the U.S. Ow also talks about short licensing windows and fast-tracking premium programming. Korean drama Pride & Prejudice, for instance, premiered on Oh!K one day after Korea, with language options in both English and Chinese. This is the fastest delivery for Korean programming on record, Ow says. New Warner Bros drama, Gotham, was on WarnerTV in Asia within three days of its U.S. release.Other notable entertainment moments of the past year include launching WarnerTV Encore catch up service on Hong Kong pay-TV platform NowTV in October, Ow says.On the kids side of the business, Ow ditched Cartoonito and streamlined the Asia bouquet to three brands – Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Toonami. "Kids is one of pay-TV subscription drivers," he says.Refreshed kids channel, Boomerang, has already started rolling out across the region, beginning in Australia in November. Boomerang will make its way across Southeast Asia in 2015.Kids highlights this year so far also include the opening of Cartoon Network Amazone Waterpark in Thailand in early October and the launch, also in October, of the Cartoon Network Watch & Play authenticated service on Thai pay-TV platform TrueVisions. Also on Ow’s watch, although they were in the works well before, are Monster Beach, an original movie that premiered on 31 October, and Cartoon Network Original animation productions made in Asia for a global audience. Currently in production, Exchange Student Zero, the first Cartoon Network animated series made in Asia Pacific for a global audience, is scheduled to air in mid-2015.Turner has also licensed the CNN news brand to local partners in Indonesia and the Philippines. The CNN Indonesia website has launched, and will be followed by the TV channel in 2015. CNN Philippines, announced on 14 October, also has plans to launch in 2015.By this time next year, Ow says he will deliver expanded distribution, improved penetration, a rebranded WarnerTV, much more first-run and exclusive content, and many more catch-up and TV anywhere rights.His biggest challenge? "The biggest challenge for the whole industry is to find new growth that makes sense to the consumer and to the plat- form," he says, adding that "Asia has an opportunity still to continue to grow the ecosystem... which is not the case in many parts of the world"."The second biggest challenge, again not just for us, is that we have to go back to the old model where platforms and channel content providers are better partners, rather than one versus the other. As a whole, we need to do better cooperating with one another," he adds."Last but not least, ad sales for pay television has never taken off in the way it should have. There has been enough talk about it but nothing has moved the needle... it doesn't matter whether this is local or regional, it hasn't taken off in the way it should have". The solution? Maybe in Year Two...ContentAsia Issue 6, 2014