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...acTVilaacTVila is a video portal owned by Actvila Corporation in Japan. Billed as a “no.1 smart VOD” service, acTVila is accessible via multiple internet-enabled devices, such as tablets, PCs, connected TVs and smartphones. The service is geo-blocked for Japan and has no plans to expand into other countries."The challenges we face are almost similar with what the other video portals in this region are experiencing. These range from censorship to content rights.” Hironori Sakashita, Director/Executive Officer of acTVilaWhen did acTVila launch? In February 2007, backed by appliance manufacturing companies Panasonic (56.4%), So-net Corporation (36.4%), Sharp Corporation (2.4%), Toshiba (2.4%) and Hitachi (2.4%).Target users? acTVila was created to be accessible by all demographics in Japan. The offering... The platform offers more than 82,000 titles, including 23,000 karaoke songs and 39 subscription video-on-demand titles from 69 content partners. The offering ranges from Hollywood movies, to local comedy, animation and drama series. There is no live streaming of TV channels. Numbers of new titles added monthly are not disclosed.Biz/pricing models... Monthly subscription rates are from ¥500/US$5 to ¥3,500/US$34. VOD titles cost from ¥100/US$1 each episode (only local drama series) to ¥500/US$5 each episode (lo- cal and Hollywood movie titles such as Captain Philips and Grand Illusion).Who is driving the initiative... Takashi Kozai, president and chief executive officer; Shinji Mitsui, executive vice president and executive officer; Hironori Sakashita, director/executive officer What are you hoping to achieve? “The aim is to provide an exciting service and give the best satisfaction to our customers by providing them with content they want to watch and a wide selection of content. We have also, over the years, adjusted our pricing models to better suit our users’ spending power.” [Hironori Sakashita]What kind of rights do you buy? “Nothing specific, we are open to any rights being offered, including first and exclusive.” [Hironori Sakashita]What have you found to be the biggest challenge?“I believe the challenges we face are almost similar with what the other video portals in this region are experiencing. These range from censorship to content rights.” [Hironori Sakashita]Why did you call it acTVila? “acTVila means ‘open the door’, which also represents the opportunity for viewers in Japan to watch content on our platform. The letters ‘T’ and ‘V’ in the middle are capitalised to emphasise television.” [Hironori Sakashita]Total number of TV, blu-ray disc recorder, set top-box connections...5.38 millionTotal number of internet-connected devices (tablet/PCs/smartphone/ TV)...48.7 millionWhat are the most-watched titles so far? Travelogue How Do You Like Wednesday?. This is one of the famous local TV programmes on Channel Hokkaido and acTVila acquired rights to deliver the show immediately after it broadcast on TV. An early episode was so popular the servers were jammed for more than 10 minutes.How are you using social media to expand your online presence? “We are using Facebook and Twitter to inform our users of the latest video- on-demand titles.” [Hironori Sakashita]* 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