"By building a factual entertainment pipeline, “we help grow the market as a whole. So we’re not just building talent and IP from India, we’re partnering with people in Southeast Asia, in the U.K., in the U.S. We’re working with global talent, local talent, talent that can cut across. We’re working with anyone and everyone who has ideas that could work in the market, but it is in the effort to build out the whole region, not just for ourselves. So there’s more for everyone and that helps build the category.”
Sai Abishek, Head of Factual & Lifestyle Cluster, South Asia, Warner Bros Discovery

"The biggest impact for us is not the exit of Fox or Star, it’s the new [tech/entertainment] world… consumers will always want more, newer, sooner, even something uncut. In a linear world, that’s impossible. Our app, launching in the second quarter of 2024, will be 100% dedicated to Chinese content from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore… content audiences have never seen before, something a little edgier.”
Ofanny Choi, CEO of Celestial Tiger Entertainment, on the significant forces shaping Chinese video entertainment.

"We’re looking for content that’s distinct in the way that it’s almost like content plus. So whatever genre we’re working on, like romance or horror, it should be romance plus, horror plus... it has to have that X factor, where it feels familiar, where the Thai audience would be like, ‘I’ve kind of seen this before, but there’s an interesting twist that I haven’t seen anywhere else’... Thai audiences are so incredibly savvy. If you just churn out a regular romcom, they’re going to know exactly what is going to happen. But what will get them to become a Prime subscriber? What will get them to become part of the Prime family is, ‘oh, this is something with a little nuance that is so interesting, that I haven’t seen anywhere else’. So that’s the thing that we look for. And that’s always really hard to put your finger on. But once you read a concept and you’re like, wow, I haven’t really seen this anywhere else... that’s the Prime brand.”
Darin Darakananda, Head of Originals, Thailand, Amazon Studios

"A big mission always starts off with a very small step…Four to five years back we started with a combined vision of wanting to break through in the factual entertainment space… people want alternatives. In addition to scripted and unscripted, what’s a third pillar we could build? The first big dib we took was a show with [India’s] Prime Minister Narendra Modi [Man Vs Wild with Bear Grylls and Prime Minister Modi, 2019]. And then it was for us to carry this forward, to really build it out, with big Indian legends like Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar. Obviously this was a great start, but it’s just the start… we are creating that bandwidth, we are creating an ecosystem to encourage people.”
Deepak Dhar, Founder & Group CEO, Banijay Asia & Endemol Shine India

"We have a 360-degree strategy where investments are not just in content per se but in fan events. Bringing the biggest stars, regional and local, closer to fans, mobilising the fandom. That’s the added value we bring to our partners... the way we see our partnerships is like a marriage. The kind that doesn’t last just for a year but that lasts and is rooted in respect and love... our approach to production and partnerships is really about building a solid relationship, about being present. We’re very well entrenched in markets and the way we interact, the way we deal with our partners... it’s about having the same values, shared values. It’s about being aligned in providing premium Asian entertainment, Filipino content that is on par with the best of the world. It’s about bringing out the best in each other, learning from each other, working together, finding creative solutions to achieve our target. When it comes to partnerships... that’s how we create premium Asian entertainment. It’s really partnering with the best of the Philippines on camera and behind the camera.” 
Garlic Garcia, Head of Content Partnerships, Viu Philippines

"We’re not fighting with people changing channels, we’re fighting with the remote control’s fast-forward button… We’re not talking about a 16-episode series for TV. We’re talking about six episodes, eight episodes, content that’s fast-paced and more intense… if we’re talking about new trends, we’re talking about audiences from streaming. That’s the trend.”
Apicha Honghirunruang, President, BEC Studio (Thailand)

"We do lots of local content and we support the local ecosystem... Yes, we have the umbrella Korean content. We also have Chinese content that can reach a number of markets, but at the same time, we really dig deep into local markets, supporting the local system, acquiring and also producing our own... So that’s both regional, local and of course at the same time we hyper-localise through subtitling and dubbing... [On content that ticks our boxes] We’re looking for positive happy entertaining content. Most of our viewers in the Philippines and Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia love positive, cathartic entertainment. It cannot be sad, gloomy, dark all the time. There has to be some sort of happy ending. Genre-wise, we used to love romantic comedies a lot and we still do. Revenge themed dramas work very well and I think the third genre that we love is what Koreans called ‘makjang’ content. So makjang is a very sensational type of content, crazy plots, everybody trying to kill everybody else... So those three genres work very well for us.” 
Marianne Lee, Chief of Content Acquisition & Licensing, Viu

“We are all in the entertainment channel space but we are not in the ‘I live and you die’ kind of environment. We understand that services and platforms face many challenges. We get that and we support them however we can… the linear space needs diverse and varied content, so we don’t want any channels to go away, because frankly, that means viewers have one less reason to stay on the platform. So we try very hard to see what we can do to improve our channels. We don’t play tug-of-war. In fact, we even recommend shows to one another… we need to make sure that viewers have something to watch any time they turn on the TV, that’s the most important thing.”
Sandie Lee, EVP & Channel Head, Rewind Networks, on the competitive environment for U.S. studio programme rights among channels.

“Every year the U.S. studios produce an abundance of high-quality TV series. There’s a lot of supply in the market to meet our needs. Ultimately, what the three of us [Rock Entertainment, Rewind Networks/Hits, KC Global Media Asia] want to do is to choose the best programme, the best content, for our viewers. Although there might be some overlap sometimes, eventually each channel has its unique personality and DNA that drives our decisions.”
Celine Ong, Director, Program Planning & Strategy, Rock Entertainment Group

"How do we continue to remain relevant to the audience, especially in today’s landscape when content consumption is just growing fast and so aggressively. That has influenced our commissioning process and the thought processes that go into the commissioning. It’s also about seeding content beyond the Mediacorp platforms. That means beyond free-to-air and [online/streaming platform] meWatch onto third party platforms such as YouTube, socials, whether it’s TikTok or Spotify or Instagram. So it’s about getting out there to where the audience is. And to that effect, we’ve successfully started commissioning content that would be native to the audience of those specific platforms. So it’s not just ‘I commission content for free-to-air’ or ‘I commission content specifically for digital’. It’s about how we pivot our mindsets, and up the ante and evolve and make our content work harder so that it gets across and nicely, seamlessly cuts across all platforms.”
Sabanitha Shanmugasundram, Head, Content Commissioning and Commercial & Community Engagement, Mediacorp Singapore

"There is enough room for all the current channels to make the general entertainment scene dynamic and appealing to viewers. There’s no tug of war between us for rights… I don’t need to acquire every show I’m interested in... I believe all content deserves a good spot in the schedule. If I don’t have the bandwidth to acquire anything new during that period, I would rather share it with the others [Rewind Networks/Hits or Rock Entertainment].”
Denise Tham, Director, Programming and Acquisition, KC Global Media Asia

"The three most significant forces shaping Chinese video entertainment are: platforms of course, government funding and talents… Government funding is a key element nowadays. It’s possible to get 30% to 40% funding from the government in Taiwan, either in investment or grants. There’s funding from Singapore’s IMDA, from Malaysia, and lately even the Hong Kong government has realised that they must invest more in content as well… governments in Asia are one of the key investors in the content industry now.”
Cora Yim, Chief Content Officer and Co-Founder, Sixty Percent Productions (Taiwan)

▶ The full conversations at www.contentasiasummit.com