U.S. studios and everyone else with a show to peddle have a new best friend forever in Asia. Actually, call that a whole lot of new BFFs.

Malaysia-based regional streaming SVOD platform iflix – with US$50 million of new investment – is but one of a seemingly never-ending stream of fresh-and-raring-to-go direct-to-consumer platforms, hungry for programming, and hell-bent on super-serving Asian viewers with every kind of content and love-you-to-bits customer service.

For rights holders in Asia right now, it’s around-the-clock Christmas, Golden Week, Hari Raya and Channukah rolled into one.

Is the streaming boom in Asia real or bat-bleep-crazy? Some think both, and that the current madness will settle down to a few superstars driven in equal measure by content and tech savvy, underpinned by the big-bang ability to be bold, innovative and to move fast.

What does the shiny new attention from European juggernaut Sky really mean, for iflix and for the rest of the industry?

For starters, Sky’s involvement in iflix is the biggest vote of confidence in the streaming platform since its launch in Malaysia in May 2015 and the Philippines the following month, and gives it the ability to fast-track expansion beyond its current three markets – Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand – and one million members (the number of paying subscribers has not been disclosed). A launch in Indonesia, mentioned even before Emtek joined the current funding round, is said to be imminent. Sky’s group chief financial officer, Andrew Griffith, described iflix as “Southeast Asia’s most exciting and fastest-growing streaming TV service”.

More broadly, the new money – particularly from an acknowledged market leader such as Sky – also lends legitimacy to rampant OTT/on-demand ambitions in Asia, with hot-and-cold running wannabe streaming platforms vying for viewers and subs dollars no one is sure yet that consumers will spend.

There are 1,001 other questions, including: What does it mean for Fox Networks Group to have sister platform Sky back a rival to its own rumoured OTT ambitions in Asia? No one is saying, but it’s no secret that Fox has for a year or more been on the hunt for content to drive some sort of regional OTT play to add to its India success with Star India’s Hotstar.

One of the consequences of iflix’s turbo-charged expansion is that the race for talent and digital experience in the region will get even more fierce. iflix is said to be planning to almost double its headcount by the end of the year and other players are scrambling to fast-track their own digital strategies.

The competition for rights will continue to intensify, and it’s anyone’s guess what this does to pricing. Right now, average OTT license fees for new Korean drama titles – a must have on any self-respecting platform in most Asian markets – start at about US$600 per episode in Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia, rising to US$800 per episode in Singapore and Malaysia, and US$1,300 in Thailand. High-end drama can go for US$10,000 an episode.

Library drama episodes start at US$200 in markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The Philippines pays about US$300 per episode for library content and Thailand starts at US$400. Variety/entertainment shows are half that.

Other Asian titles, with some exceptions, go for less.

For now, subscription pricing and affordability of OTT services is being hotly debated.

iflix charges RM10/US$2.44 a month in Malaysia (or RM8/US$1.99 a month with a one-year sign up), where the service is also offered to consumers at no additional cost as part of broadband sign-up incentives with dominant telco Telekom Malaysia (TM) and certain mobile plans with Digi. Netflix costs four times as much – RM33/US$8 a month – in Malaysia. PCCW’s Viu, currently available in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and India, is free, with a premium option; in Malaysia, for instance, Viu’s ad-free streaming with access to additional premium content is available for RM10/US$2.44 a month. In the Philippines, iflix costs Php129/US$2.77 (Php1,308/US$28 for an annual subscription), and is bundled at no additional cost with certain services offered by local telco, the Philippines Long Distance Telephone (PLDT). Hooq (a platform backed by Singapore’s Singtel, Sony and Warner Bros and offered through Globe Telecom in the Philippines) costs Php149/US$3.20 for the lowest tier service, and Netflix’s basic subscription costs Php370/US$7.94.

For all the other questions swirling around European media company Sky’s US$45-million investment in iflix in March, there is certainty that the one-year-old iflix has been good news for rights holders and distributors from the get go.

The new funding will only accelerate the already gung-ho approach to international and local content acquisition, and the aggressive expansion of its offering. A common comment from the rest of the industry was that iflix needed to “move faster and go bigger” to head off competition. Now it can.

Even if iflix has lost out to PCCW Media’s Viu on Korean content, there are few holes to be poked in the year-old platform’s commitment to content, and particularly Hollywood content. At the beginning of this year, iflix said it had 900 TV seasons and 16,500 movies and television episodes from more than 60 content partners, including some from Asia.

The new international titles and episodes iflix will offer between now and June come from a who’s who of global studios and content partners, including Disney, Fox, CBS, Warner Bros, NBCUniversal, Paramount, MGM and BBC.

Twentieth Century Fox’s Fresh off the Boat, Disney/ABC’s Modern Family and Nashville, A+E’s Vikings, Fox’s Empire, NBCUniversal’s Mr Robot 2 (exclusive), Warner Bros’ The Big Bang Theory, CBS Studios’ The Good Wife, Lilyhammer, and Web Therapy. Plus every season of Lionsgate’s Weeds, Two and a Half Men, The Flash, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Witches of East End, The Strain, .... whew. More. From now to June, Asian SVOD streaming platform iflix will also be adding Boss, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, You’re the Worst, Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23, Futurama, Merlin, Family Guy, Prison Break, Lie to Me and White Collar.

The rush to high-profile titles is by no means new, and follows iflix’s exclusive premiere of Starz Original Black Sails season three, which premiered in Malaysia at the end of January this year less that 24 hours after the U.S. premiere. Ditto with Fox’s Minority Report in Malaysia. Last year’s first and exclusive releases in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines included season one of cyber thriller Mr Robot and Fargo seasons one and two.iflix also had exclusive rights to Aquarius with all 13 episodes available at once from release last December.

And then there are movies. Less than two months ago, in February, iflix said it was pushing new releases to 30 films a week following the acquisition of a significant number of Hollywood movie titles. These include Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, The English Patient, Life is Beautiful, There Will Be Blood, The Hours, Finding Neverland, Chicago, The Whole Nine Yards, Sin City and Shaolin Soccer, among others.

iflix hasn’t been sleeping on tech upgrades either, adding a download/watch offline feature in October 2015.

Yet, on Korean and Chinese content, iflix continues to trail PCCW’s Viu, which is also tipped as one of the platforms that will be left standing after the inevitable shake-out.

So far, Viu reigns over the regional Korean OTT space. When Viu launched in Hong Kong in October last year, it had clear branding and a simple message about Korean and Asian content first and foremost and a strong free ad-supported offering. Central to Viu’s edge over competitors in the Asia space are its relationships with Korean content leaders – KBS, MBC, SBS and, to a lesser extent, CJ E&M.

Viu, which says it has relationships with 250 studios and production houses around the world, has promised to deliver 10,000 hours of premium Asian content in 2016, including 3,700 hours of the latest Korean drama and variety series such as Descendants of the Sun, Please Come Back, Mister, Marriage Contract and Infinite Challenge. Early titles at launch in Hong Kong in October last year included Oh My Venus, Moorim School and Six Flying Dragons, along with classic library shows such as My Love from the Star, The Heirs and The Running Man. At launch, Viu offered 1,000 new-library shows from 2014 and 2015. This is being followed in 2016 by simulcast rights for all new releases across the region.

The simulcast rights deal has a few exclusions, notably Malaysia, where there is a three-month hold back on SBS and MBC content because of existing rights deals with Sony Pictures Television Networks, which operates linear service One, and Turner, which operates the Oh!K channel. Both are carried on dominant pay-TV platform Astro. KBS content is simulcast, as are about 60% of CJ E&M’s drama).

Viu has also ramped up its Chinese content for Hong Kong, where parent company PCCW Media also operates dominant pay-TV/IPTV platform now TV. India is a different story entirely, which a focus on local content and original content production is already under way. Original cricket comedy series, What the Duck, created with the CA Media-backed digital content creator Fluence, premiered in India in March. Viu’s Indian premium tier costs Rs99/US$1.50 a month.

Viu’s Korean dramas are available subtitled in English and Chinese within eight hours of their Korean telecasts, followed in local markets with local language subtitles within 24 hours.

Viu’s position at the head of the Korean/Chinese pecking order is unlikely to change until at least renewals roll around – and even then PCCW’s close ties with Korean leaders will be difficult to tear apart.

iflix may have been disadvantaged while it bought piecemeal rights for specific markets; as it rolls out, this impediment will disappear. But Netflix, and who knows who else, may also join the Korean fray at renewal time, complicating the landscape.

iflix’s message, with all its high-profile Hollywood titles, is a much broader one. As of mid-March, the Asian slate included 100 Korean titles (including Running Man, I Can See Your Voice, Boys Over Flowers and Coffee Prince), about a dozen Chinese dramas and about 40 Malay titles in Malaysia.

iflix is clearly going after something Indonesian with the US$5-million investment (an amount iflix has not confirmed) from Emtek Group/Surya Citra Media (SCM) and the addition of former Fox Networks Group/Emtek exec, Cam Walker, as the head of Indonesia. SCM is one of Indonesia’s leading content creators, powering free-TV stations Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV) and Indosiar. At presstime, no details about an Indonesian venture of any shape or form had been disclosed.

Calling their new relationship a “strategic partnership”, the newly minted partners said only that they would “work together to identify areas of future collaboration across the high-growth emerging markets in which iflix operates”.

iflix co-founder and group chief executive, Mark Britt, talked about accelerated expansion plans “sooner than expected... in response to both the rapid growth and customer adoption in our existing markets and strong demand from new markets”.

There’s little disagreement that iflix has to move faster and go bigger. But not all agree that Asia’s streaming rush, as exciting and disruptive as it is, is a good thing. “It’s a “f#$%^&k-fest. There are too many players, with too many options, and too much confusion. Companies are just leaping in, they’re scared they’re going to miss out if they don’t,” says one insider with interests in both old and new media.

Could this lead to rash judgements? Unnecessary risk? Right now, who’s to say...

Published on ContentAsia's Issue One 2016, 23 March 2016