Singapore has put the brakes on digital migration plans, pushing back analogue D-day by 12 months. Turns out that not all local homes are as quick to shift as they might be. On the other end of the scale, the country’s Android box trade looks like its thriving. There’s also lots happening in the middle.

Singapore closes 2017 with a one-year reprieve for analogue TV. The funeral bells will – finally – toll at midnight on 31 December 2018, and the country enters its all-digital environment from 1 January 2019. Right now, 75% of the country’s homes are digital ready, according to the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), which has been running a nationwide digital assistance scheme for low-income homes. The decision to give the other 25% time to migrate was announced in early November, along with the guarantee that monopoly broadcaster Mediacorp would carry on simulcasting its free-TV channels in both digital and analogue right until the switch-off. Mediacorp has been simulcasting all seven channels since December 2013.

A second promise is that authorities, not keen to cut full reach of public service broadcasting, are working on enhancements to the switch-over scheme, initially introduced in 2014. Announcements on the nature of the sweeteners are expected early in the new year. Currently, the scheme offers free digital set-top boxes, indoor antenna and installation. About 160,000 households qualify as low income. Notification letters have been sent out to about 139,000. As of 17 October 2017, the take up rate was about 46%.

The one year delay is justified on another level. “The end-2018 date will also be more aligned to our neighbours’ (i.e. Malaysia and Indonesia) plans for analogue TV switch-off. This is relevant because the full benefits of freeing up spectrum from analogue TV switch-off can be reaped only when the region moves on this at the same time,” Minister for Communications and Information, Yaacob Ibrahim, told Parliament in November. Spectrum freed up will be used to provide better quality/higher speed mobile broadband.

Will the thousands of Singaporeans who have eagerly embraced the world of Android boxes care about digital pictures and sound from Mediacorp? Who knows. There’s a lot of griping in the industry about the negative impact of the lively trade in Android boxes, but no one seems to be doing much that’s having an impact. We hear there’s activity behind the scenes that may result in action. For now, at the tail end of 2017, what is glaringly obvious is that the Android-box trade is out and proud in malls all over the city-state, offering access to movies, drama, TV series, sports, news, documentary and kids content for a one-time fee of S$200/US$148. So that’s happening.

Elsewhere in Singapore, the industry moves into the new year wondering who’s going to take the reigns of telco/pay-TV platform StarHub when chief executive Tan Tong Hai exits at the end of April 2018 after nine years. The company, which announced Tan’s departure in the middle of November, said a global hunt had been launched. Whoever takes over will have to deal with a pay-TV base that shed over 30,000 subscribers in the first nine months of 2017, entering the last quarter of the year with 467,000 pay-TV subs (10,000 less than end June, when it reported 477,000 and 20,000 fewer than at the end of March, when the figure reported was 487,000). Subs numbers started dipped below the 500,000 mark towards the end of 2016, closing last year at 498,000. Pay-TV ARPU is flat at S$51/US$38 (Q3 2017).

Singtel, meanwhile, is experimenting with aggregator app Cast, a mobile platform that offers everything from PCCW’s Korean-focused streaming service viu, FOX Networks Group’s FOX+, Singtel/Sony/Warner joint venture HOOQ, Malaysian services tonton (Media Prime) and Tribe (Astro), on various contract/no-contract terms.

Although it has not said anything yet, signs are that the telco might be considering some sort of merger between Cast and its other mobile product, Singtel TV Go (hint: traditional channel thumbnails, including HITS, Warner TV, Sony GEM, Sony ONE, Turner’s Oh!K, Celestial Tiger Entertainment’s cHK, National Geographic and others were on the Cast app in November). What is clear that the telco is starting to back away from its insistence on a 12-month contract lock in. Cast is offering no-contract monthly options for, among other packs, a skinny variety bundle of 26 linear streaming channels for S$14.90/US$11 a month. This puts the channels pack 36% higher than Netflix’s S$10.98/US$8. The 16-channel Asian pack, also offered with a nocontract option, is similarly priced.

Whatever they’re doing, right or wrong, something seems to be working for Singtel, which says sign-ups to the two apps – Cast and Singtel TV GO – increased by 19,000 in the three months to end September. The two apps now have 86,000 customers. Usage details have not been disclosed. StarHub has its own everywhere platform, StarHub Go, which is mostly linked to traditional pay-TV subscriptions but also offers standalone mobile only products. It’s this space that we’ll be watching most closely in 2018.

Published on ContentAsia's Issue Seven, 27 November 2017