Dennis “Dingdong” L. Caharian, President and Chief Operating Officer, GMA New Media (Philippines)

GMA New Media, Inc is a wholly-owned subsidiary of GMA Network that serves as its digital media and technology arm, and future-proofing agent.

What's the biggest technology challenge you face in adding (or boosting) your online and/or streaming video elements?
"Establishing a GMA-branded over-the-top (OTT) platform was a challenge given the high cost of doing so relative to the potential returns. We found a way to work around it by partnering with OTT/VOD platforms for the online streaming of GMA’s video assets. Of the strategic partnership that GMA-NMI (New Media Inc) has forged, the one with YouTube, specifically for the latter’s Player for Publishers (PfP) programme, was a masterstroke. YouTube PfP enabled GMA to deepen and revitalise its content archive by making full episodes of popular GMA programmes available to users aside from the usual offerings of show recaps, highlights and behind-the-scenes videos, among others. Our YouTube initiatives were crucial to propelling GMA to reach the 10-million subscriber mark: from only 1.6 million subscribers at the start of the YouTube PfP agreement in June 2017, this soared past 10 million in May 2019. As of December 2018, the GMA Network YouTube channel’srank improved from being in the Top 200 in 2017 to being among the Top 50 worldwide. The efforts have made GMA one of the fastest growing channels in Asia."

Is there any one particular technology that has made a radical difference to the way you operate? What is it?
"Cloud services have been a major boon to content creators like GMA. They are the great enablers for database storage and management, analytics, and content delivery, just to name some. It would take an enormous amount of resources for a content creator to make all of those possible. The efficiencies that cloud services provide allow content providers to focus on strategy and content development so that we can be more agile in responding to the ever-changing needs of our target audiences. Worth mentioning, too, is how the communication and information technology landscape has significantly changed with the introduction of the smartphone and its built-in features that make it such an indispensable tool today. For content creators, making access more mass-based is vital. Years ago, the cost of overseas communications was prohibitive and inefficient. But with messaging platforms and VoIP now so ubiquitously available and way more affordable than ever before, this development has been empowering the entire content creation and consumption ecosystem in ways that were not previously possible."

What do you wish broadcast/streaming tech vendors would do (or say or offer) for you that they aren't doing now?
"We have none."

What's at the top of your tech wish list for 2019?
"It’s more an objective than a wish: to diversify our technology portfolio beyond new media. The challenge for anyone is to be ready to ride the wave when it comes, so knowing how to be attuned to the consumers’ preferences through time is important."

Published in ContentAsia Issue Six 2019, 4 November 2019