13 June 2014: With a budget of less than US$1 million, a small Malaysian film showed media giant Astro just what's possible with a story that touches a universal chord. And CEO Rohana Rozhan has no intention of letting the learning slip away.Malaysia's Astro travelled to a whole new space this year with The Journey, a tiny Chinese movie that has shined a huge light on the multi-layered magic and myriad business benefits of story telling that touches a universal chord.Chiu Keng Guan's RM3-million/US$934,000 film, released by Astro Shaw this year with exactly one professional actor, a cast of very enthusiastic amateurs, and the green light from Astro to go forth and create, broke the country's box-office records by a long way. The Journey earned RM17.28 million/US$5.4 million in 56 days at the domestic box office with theatrical releases in Singapore and Taiwan and billing on European film festival circuits.The Journey is about a Chinese father who, reluctant to see his daughter marry an Englishman, insists on a traditional Chinese wedding. Along with his would-be son-in-law, Uncle Chuan (played by Frankie Lee) embarks on a nationwide journey to hand-deliver wedding invitations. Among other things, the film's success has showed Astro what can be achieved when a story reaches out across cultural barriers with common values and themes."One of the things we learned is that we can make a movie that resonates not just among Chinese audiences, but among all Malaysians," says Astro Malaysia Holdings chief executive Rohana Rozhan. Suddenly we find that there are good stories that resonate across all Malaysians, that unify people," she adds.The Journey's success has added a valuable dimension to Astro's long-held "vernacularisation" programme, which has prioritised local audience segments, customising content, channels and packages for specific audiences. The strategy has helped drive Astro penetration to 56% (3.4 million paying homes plus 442,000 homes that receive the free Njoi service), with a 47% viewership share for the year to end January 2014, up from 43% the previous year. Average revenue per user is RM96/US$30, up from RM93.2/US$29 at the end of the previous financial year. Revenue for the year was up 12% to RM4.8 billion/US$1.5 billion.Rozhan lists Astro's success at creating vernacular content in a few genres, for example education (Oh My English!), Hokkien (Hua Hee), Tamil (Vaanavil Super Star) and sports (sepak takraw/kick volleyball). Rozhan said in January that 15 of Astro's local productions had topped the one million viewership mark, tripling the previous year's performance."The next level is Asian drama," she says. The Journey has given her a glimpse into that world of possibility, where Malay and Chinese audiences unite and never mind the subtitles. "In movie theatres in Malaysia, Malays were watching a Chinese movie. That hardly ever happens. You just don't see Malays watching Chinese movies and they are 60% of the total population," she adds.If The Journey put its "finger on the pulse of the community", Astro's challenge now is to take that on, to find other stories that will build its library and turn more of the company's 9,000 hours of original production a year into content with a lifespan, legs and licensing potential. Rozhan says it has "become important that whatever we spend on content, we look at our library and ask, ‘how do we build our own IP and translate the 9,000 hours to content that can travel and have shelf life'.""We understand vernacular," Rozhan says, "but we also understand that there's a commonality, a glue, that applies. That's the direction we are trying to evolve in. We have somehow found a formula to make Malaysian premium content and now we are asking ‘what's next?', ‘how do we get scale from that?'.""That's our challenge," Rozhan says. "If we do that well, build on our library, develop content that can travel and appeal to a bigger segment of the marketplace... suddenly it's perfect."In marrying domestic content ambitions with its growing global outlook, Astro is reaching out to the international community in other new ways. This mindset is embodied in the expanded relationship with Mexican media company, TV Azteca, to co-produce telenovelas for Malaysia. Announced in April this year, the three-year deal kicks off with a 120-episode local adaptation of Azteca format Acapulco, Forever Yours by Malaysian production house, Global Station. The local version, A Love to Remember, is in production.While the agreement boosts Astro's drama production by 100-120 hours a year over three years, the deal also packages the Malaysian co-productions on TV Azteca's global licensing and/or channel platforms. This is the first time Astro content will be included in a global catalogue.Astro's vice president of content management group, Agnes Rosario, calls the TV Azteca a deal a "multiplier. It increases our library much more quickly than through organic growth," she says. Other co-production deals with the same end goal are in discussion. The additional advantage is local exposure to international expertise. Rozhan says co-production deals such as the one with TV Azteca "builds and nurtures" capability on the ground in Malaysia. "Our kids are exposed to new techniques and ways of doing things, so they learn and build key and core skills," she says.Expanded co-production relationships run alongside Astro's Astro on the Go (AOTG) TV everywhere push and follows the company's focus in the past few years on getting its tech house in order. "We have brought the technology to where we want to be, now we need to take the next steps," Rozhan says.That means leveraging distribution and other strengths already in place. The AOTG app was headed towards the million-download mark at the end of April and viewership is up significantly from 37 minutes a week in February to about 90 minutes a week at end April."These are good numbers," Rozhan says. Linear channels, catch-up and VOD-type products are driving usage. Astro's ambition now is to make the offering more comprehensive, and to ensure that the RM1.7 billion/US$29 million a year it spends on content goes further and means more. Part of that also involves reaching out to neighbouring Southeast Asian markets for talent such as Philippines' heartthrob, Jericho Rosales (The Legal Wife), for new Malaysian series Love Chef, set in Malaysia, Australia and the Philippines. Astro has similar talent initiatives in Indonesia.The content strategy is already working. Rozhan says the platform trebled its channel sales and content in Asia over the last year, including sales across the region and, indeed, within Malaysia.Driving scale on what Astro already does well is also part of the next step. "One of the things that we are good at is localisation - the dubbing, the subtitling... It's almost sunk infrastructure for us, so why don't we get scale and drive cost per unit down by increasing volume and monetising externally? That has to be the next step for us. Not only in Malay content, also Hokkien and sports," she says, adding: "We are the largest producer of sports content in Southeast Asia today, which means we have scale and expertise and skill, specifically in sports like football and badminton. That is something that can be built on further."Education, driven by Oh My English!, is another opportunity. "Other markets in Asia are approaching us and asking us to localise... we don't mind more partnerships, where we can scale up, enhance and complement our own skills in things that will take a while for Malaysia to build up".Through all the outward focus and enthusiasm for regional and international expansion, Malaysia remains the centre of Astro's world."What works for Malaysia works for us," Rozhan says, adding: "Whatever we do, our main aim is to make it work really well in Malaysia, to make it resonate with the Malaysian audience first and foremost, because only then will it resonate elsewhere. We have a ready market of 3.9 million customers and one million additional users. We have a ready base of consumers who are increasing their consumption of our content on a daily and weekly basis... That's where our focus is. But why would we say no to enabling the content to travel if it's a win win for everyone."