Astro Malaysia’s group chief executive, Euan Smith, wants to continue driving a slate of quality Astro originals, and says the platform may not be spending enough on content yet.

Astro currently spends 32-35% of its television revenue on content, but Smith says the percentage can be higher.

“To get a good benchmark to other parts of the world, we’ll have to be two to three points more than that,” he told delegates gathered in Bangkok for the 15th annual ContentAsia Summit.

He highlights the success of recent original drama, “One Cent Thief”, as well as Double Vision’s adaptation of All3Media’s “Liar” for Astro, among a growing slate of originals.

Syndication efforts are also central to Astro’s growth strategy, with scouting teams exploring content opportunities in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

Additionally, Astro is already involved with co-production with Indonesia, working with companies like Screenplay Films, and local talent like director Ifa Isfansyah and screenwriter Salman Aristo.

Due to Malaysia’s multi-cultural landscape, Astro develops content across four languages – English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

Smith likens this to running “four content businesses” under one roof.

In this linguistic context, children’s content from Astro has proven to be the “easiest to export”.

Sports programming provides significant reach for Astro. The broadcaster invested in live rights to the Malaysian Football League in February 2023, which includes the country’s top-tier professional men’s league, Liga Super.

“It feels like it’s 1992 with Sky in the U.K. again where we’re building the Premier League. But it’s with a Malaysian flavour and it has huge engagement and passion,” Smith says.

He adds that Astro is focused on building up its streaming platform, sooka, including adding FAST channels and offering both free and paid content.

Astro owns broadcasting rights to other domestic sports competitions, including the SepakTakraw League (STL), Netball Super League (NSL) and sooka Super Series: Volleyball (SSSVB).

By offering audiences access to these leagues, sooka is able to champion and increase online visibility of these niche sports, he says.

Smith strongly supports the FAST channel mechanism, which he says is a “simple and inexpensive way” to get shows up and running, while also allowing Astro to test and see if there is an untapped market for certain sports.

Piracy poses the biggest threat to content in the region.

“There is a lot of good work and money going into funding and supporting films,” Smith says.

“What needs to happen next is a more concerted effort to lock out the pirates like forming a national cybersecurity operation which takes all the telcos or downstream players and creates an environment where piracy simply is not easy to do.”