ON THE RECORD

Share and share alike... or not

2011-08-08T11:53:00.002+08:00

4 July 2011: So, the long-awaited D-day for mandatory cross carriage in Singapore is 1 August (SeeContentAsiaInsider, 1 July).

Our bet is that the mainstream pay-TV industry, which has had 16.5 months to digest this regulatory turn, isn’t going to skip any more beats.

No one is going to call friends at the WTO bleating about IP infringements, or demand guns-blazing global intervention. And they won’t downgrade (or upgrade) Singapore on their priority lists as a result.

If Singapore does come up in conversation, it’s much more likely to be how to get kids into school (www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/international-students/ or www.singaporeexpats.com/guides-for-expats/international-schools.htm); to ask whether Singapore is really as boring to live in as some say it is (no); and where to buy stuff (Marina Bay Sands’ Shoppes, ION, Tiong Bahru Market...).

It’s a whole other story on the consumer end of this new arrangement, which has given QC a uniquely Singapore meaning.

QC (qualified content) channels are all the channels (we don’t know how many yet) that signed exclusive carriage agreements or have implied exclusive arrangements with any platform since March 12 last year, when the Minister announced the with-immediate-effect news.

We have it on fair authority that there aren’t any, but there must be because, surely, the authorities wouldn’t risk all this fuss only to have no one show up at their party. We just don’t know what they are yet.

More importantly, how are Mr/Mrs Average Singapore going to know what’s QC and what’s not? And what are they going to say when they find out that they’re not, after all, going to get everything they want for the same low price they pay now?

By some accounts, Mrs Average Singapore needs a lot of help just getting her Mio box to work. We didn’t say it, SingTel did in a quite funny training video (http://mio.singtel.com/miotv/default.asp#quick-guide).

We’re dying to hear conversations with SingTel/StarHub’s already challenged service hotlines about QC, ECAs, SQLs, RQLs, and whatever else these new measures are adding to an environment already crazy with entertainment choice. And, by Motion Picture Association accounts, filled with more illegally downloaded content per capita than anywhere else in Asia. Clearly, no one needs an incentive to go elsewhere for their entertainment... what will confusion and complication do? Guess.

The Holy Grail is that all platforms carry everything, that new operators are given a fair crack at the market, and that all operators compete on service quality. That’s the nice clear bit that’s easy to understand.

The challenge is, as always, in the execution. For one, there are still exclusive contracts in place that predate 12 March. So those channels won’t be available.

And all the channels that have carriage deals with one platform but haven’t closed deals with the other won’t be available. Given the imbalance between subs numbers on different platforms, there could be some interesting conversations over pricing and value.

Will the MDA try to force programmers to sell their channels at knock-down prices to the other side? We don’t think they will. And how many times will a platform be able to march to MDA HQ, soggy weepy tissues in hand, cry babying that programmers aren’t being nice to them and giving them quality channels for pennies on the dollar?

Back to Singapore’s big customer service issue: what to say to customers who have one subscription, have bought the consumer-comes-first line, and want channels and sports events they can’t have?

While we think of a suitable answer to that one, we’re on the hunt for QC channels. So far, we’ve pored through whatever documents MDA made available from 6pm on Friday night and can’t find the list. [But, by the way, we love the suggestion from an unnamed industry source to introduce a “whistle-blowing scheme” to rat out anyone plotting to undermine the system? MDA says it will “review” the necessity of such a scheme but, in the meantime, there are other ways and means to ensure compliance. Who do you think could have suggested it?].

Meanwhile, in the great hunt for QC, we found a whole lot of previously undiscovered fabulous things. Apart from the training video, there are behind-the-scenes clips on SingTel’s Exclusive Video section. Dirty word? No. The cross carriage doesn’t apply to exclusive online content. There’s Glee’s Try a Little Tenderness, plus The Making of Castle and No Ordinary Family. SingTel also has a sms reminder for when a new episode is available on its on-demand platform (of which we have always been, unashamed fans).

Whatever the sites do carry, there is not a peep about QC channels. We will bring them to you the minute we find them. Just like we’ll be on the hotlines on 1 August, pressing lots of buttons and listening to a voice tell us how important our call is, to see what they say. Promise.

Update: self-packaged pay-TV channels forced into new Singapore regulations

2010-07-23T10:12:00.000+08:00

We've just found out (better late than never, I guess) that Singapore's new cross-carriage regulations apply too to in-house self-produced, "we're putting together channels tailor-made for our subscribers" channels and services. Huh? So much for product innovation.

For the moment, we're trying hard to get our heads around the concept of building unique services for your own subscribers and then being forced to supply them (and pay for the privilege of doing so, if our intelligence is correct) to the competition.

If I was the competition, I would just sit there and wait, wouldn't you? Why spend time and money making anything good for little or no apparent benefit? Unless, of course, there's magic in the implementation (which hasn't been announced yet).

And all this time we thought that the regulations really did apply to only those third-party channels with "exclusive" contracts. I guess we were wrong. Or being too literal. To us, it seems like a fully fledged and concerted effort to commoditise content.

Right now, here's what we're thinking: why, as a programmer (and that includes programmers of in-house channels at pay-TV platforms), spend money on anything special in an effort to build a robust, rounded, coherent, well-packaged and balanced product?

The one platform isn't going to pay you anything extra, the other one isn't either... interesting business model. Am dying to hear more...

But am even more impatient to hear how the new regulations are going to be implemented. We hear there might be a related announcement next week, although the Media Development Authority says it is studying all the results of its industry consultation and will make announcements over the next two months. Either way, our eyes are peeled.

We will, of course, keep you posted.

Hot Summer for Singapore regulators

2010-07-19T15:09:00.001+08:00

Over the next two months, Singapore’s media policy makers expect to announce their preliminary decision on implementing controversial regulations that force the cross-carriage of exclusive channels/content on the country’s pay-TV platforms.

This follows months of consultations with a wide range of stakeholders. We’re dying to hear how it’s all going to work (and, among a million other things, how the difference between an “ex- clusive channel” and a “non- exclusive one that simply hasn’t been acquired by the other side” is going to be explained to consumers)....

Meanwhile, our guess is that policy makers will, on the whole (and with lots of conciliatory and diplomatic language), stick with the regulations as announced, with a commitment to ongoing review in case some of the forecasts of doom actually pan out.

Why? For one, the regulations are four-and-three- quarters minutes old and they haven’t been given a chance to work (or not to). Right now, it’s all just prediction, expecta- tion, forecasts, opposing agen- das. Plus pressure from the left, the right, above, below..

Other than admitting that they might have been too hasty, what, exactly, would the regulator achieve by scrapping or significantly changing regula- tions so soon after their birth. Is this likely to happen? What do you think?

Plus, there’s enough local pressure and support (including from local academics and others who think that the only people getting rich are the international chan- nels) for authorities to stick with their declared path – for now.

We think there will be some effort made to placate deeply unhappy pay-TV channels, upon which Singapore’s media-hub status was built 10+ years ago. But we would never count out the immense power of SingTel, which has exclusive access to the Barclays Premier League and wants to build a more robust linear TV offering around that.

So, is there going to be a gigantic change of heart? No.

Will the regulator decide that it’s worth setting aside the framework in favour of a wait-and-see approach? Probably not.

Has the claim by multichannel body Casbaa about breaching global copyright commitments sent the regulator scurrying for its eraser for fear of global ire and broad trade sanctions? No.

Will there be a commitment to a review down the line? Yes.

Stay tuned.

Battle of the month: Hary vs Tutut

2010-07-05T12:38:00.002+08:00

The BIG Asia broadcasting intrigue out there at the moment involves Indonesian broadcaster TPI... and who will win the increasingly ugly battle over control of the free-TV station.

At the heart of the latest tug of war are newly risen (or maybe just newly public) ambitions of Siti “Tutut” Hardiyanti Rukmana, the eldest daughter of former president Suharto and a one-time Indonesian media queen.

And it looks like the queen wants part of her empire back...

Standing firmly in her way is media king Hary Tanoesoedibjo, who, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, gathered together Indonesia’s thriving, ailing and headed-for-dead media properties over the past few years and fashioned the Rp3.9 trillion/US$429 million PT Multimedia Nusantara Citra (MNC) empire.

And the king shows no sign of giving in to what he says are “unwarranted and invalid” claims.

The ownership tussle has, apparently, been brewing behind the scenes for ages. The argument has its roots in 2002, when Tutut appointed PT Berkah Karya Bersama to help her deal with TPI’s debts. She is now claiming that the appointment was misused to appropriate a 75% ownership of TPI.

In a statement at the end of June, MNC said PT Berkah Karya Bersama legitimately acquired a 75% stake in TPI in 2005. The following year, Berkah Karya Bersama’s stake was acquired by MNC. No one then or since had disputed MNC’s stake in TPI, MNC said.

So why has it gone all public and so ugly now?

Well, it looks like Tutut might be emboldened by a separate graft issue the Tanoesoedibjo family are fending off.

The charges relate to a website owned, and allegedly fraudulently operated to the tune of about US$45 million, by Tanoesoedibjo’s brother Hartono. Hartono and former Justice Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra were charged at the end of June... and Tutut made her move.

There’s little question that, whatever else is happening, MNC is at the top of its broadcast game in Indonesia.

Under Hary’s reign, MNC’s three free-TV stations audience share rose to 35% last year, up from 32% in 2008. Revenues for the first three months of this year were up 16% to Rp1.01 trillion/US$112 million over the same quarter in 2009 on the back of a 37% increase in advertising revenues.

Terrestrial station Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI) led Indonesia’s free-TV broadcasting rankings in May this year, with a total audience share of 15.5%, according to The Nielsen Company’s latest data for Indonesia.

TPI maintains a respectable place in the rankings of 15 terrestrial channels. In May, TPI’s audience share was 11.4%, which put it in fourth place after RCTI (15.5% share), SCTV (15.4% share), and Trans TV (11.8% share).

MNC also says it has the country’s largest content library, including entertainment and news, and is adding more than 10,000 hours a year split between in-house production, commissions and multimedia.

MNC is also the country’s most active buyer, including, among other acquisitions, significant deals with Disney and MTV.

Who is likely to give way first? We’re not putting any money on any outcome other than the bets we’re placing that this is going to be long-running, legally winding and very very nasty.

Sharing is caring in Singapore sports

2010-06-29T18:01:00.003+08:00

Update, Update... In the fabulous spirit of brotherly love and good neighbourly relations, Singapore's rival pay-TV operators have agreed to "share" three sports services until 6am on 5 July - five days after its licensing deal ends and ESPN Star Sports shifts over to telco SingTel.

The arrangement means Wimbledon fans can, after all, continue to watch the finals on StarHub even though, officially, StarHub no longer has rights to all the sports channels it used to have.

StarHub says the cross-over deal is "a result of a customer-friendly arrangement between SingTel and StarHub".

Originally, ESPN, Star Sports and Star Crickets were scheduled to go dark on StarHub at 12.01am on 1 July.

Sports TV $$ debate alive & well in Singapore

2010-06-29T11:28:00.003+08:00

As Singapore heads for the 1 July switch of major sports properties from StarHub to SingTel (we're listening for the roar of protest from Wimbledon fans who have been watching on StarHub...) early bets are being made on what‘s going to happen in Singapore when the next round of Barclays Premiere League bidding opens.

After all, just look at what happened to StarHub and SingTel’s maiden efforts to work together on the World Cup. Nice thought, brotherly love and co-operation to bring prices down...

The results? Not so much. Ask the 25,000 irate fans who joined the Facebook protest to boycott World Cup subscription because of what they view as outrageous subscription prices, and applied for (and were granted) a license for a public demonstration. Protestors turned up full of red card fury, wailing about the almost-seven-fold increase in fees from US$7 in 2006 to US$48 this year. And that’s for the early birds. The others had to pay US$64.

If, between them, the two platforms get 100,000 World Cup subscribers by the time the last whistle sounds next month, they’ll be lucky. And there’s no advertising revenue because the deal was signed so so so late. The rights are rumoured to have cost close to US$20 million. Lowball and put the final figure at US$17 million. Say half the subscribers paid the early bird rate of $66/US$47, that’s US$2.4 million. Add the other half who paid the full rate, S$90/US$64, and you get another US$3.3 million. It’s still only a total of US$5.7 million. There might be a few hundred thousand in commercial venue subscription.

Free-TV broadcaster MediaCorp probably put a large chunk down on the table for free-TV rights to the opening match, the semi’s and the final. Add US$2.5 million to US$3 million. At the top end, that’s still only US$8.7 million in the pot. Even if Singapore Pools put in a few million, StarHub/SingTel are still woefully short of where they need to be to even dream about break even.

It’s very likely to go down in Singapore broadcast history as the Big Bleed, and it doesn’t bode well.

The current anti-exclusive regulations in Singapore don’t cover SingTel’s existing licensing deal, which runs for the next three seasons. If prevailing regulatory sentiment prevails, there’s no way BPL will escape the must-share rule. Even if the regulations are changed to exclude the majority of regular linear channels, sports – the biggest culprit of rocketing content costs – is unlikely to be excluded.

On the other side of the table, English Premier League negotiators know now exactly what the Singapore rights are worth, even if they recognise that the stakes next time around are likely to be lower and that SingTel (like PCCW in Hong Kong) will have secured its subs base and won’t need to bust the bank again.

At the same time, they’re unlikely to go back to former levels set when the country’s had one pay-TV player. Even if a joint bid is mandated, the price could be pretty much the same.

More about all kinds of TV stuff in Asia at www.contentasia.tv

You can also find us on Facebook (just look for ContentAsia) and follow us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/contentasia).

Inwards bound

2010-06-28T21:55:00.001+08:00

As Singapore’s controversial new anti-pay-TV-channel-exclusivity regulations enter their fourth month, sentiment on both sides shows no sign of tapering off. On the contrary, opinions for (regulators, academics and, by many accounts, telco SingTel) and against (pay-TV programmers, regional multichannel association Casbaa, industry analysts) are as polarised as ever.

The pay-TV business, meanwhile, goes on. And, we predict it’s going to move faster, given the current embroglio, in a direction that other markets, including Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, are already well into – in-house channels.

Here, the feast of exclusivity abounds, and there are hot and cold running programme distributors ready and willing to open their catalogues, libraries, and anything else that will earn them an extra dollar in a pay-TV channels’ market that looks like it’s on the skids. If exclusive has become the Singapore pay-TV industry’s dirtiest word, in programme distribution land it’s alive, well, and looking forward to boom times.

There are examples of local channels in Malaysia that warm Astro’s heart. In Indonesia, Indovision loves its in-housers & is planning more. Ditto SkyCable in the Philippines. In Singapore, our poster child for the in-house channel movement is the 15-year-old VV Drama (including the three-hour time shifted VV Drama+3, and on-demand version, VV Drama On-Demand).

VV Drama has just signed its biggest, hottest (think temperatures like Beyond the Realm of Conscience hot) and heartiest deal with Hong Kong’s Television Broadcasts (TVB), still the world’s most powerful Chinese television programmer.

VV Drama, which prides itself on bringing many of Asia’s top productions to Singapore for the first time, also buys ratings hits from Taiwan (A Place Called Home), China (A Better Tomorrow) and Korea (Queen Seon Deok).

The TVB-StarHub exclusive, three-year agreement smashes licensing windows, promises first-run dramas every day of the week, offers TVB content on-demand in Singapore a month after its Hong Kong release, and, if all that isn’t enough, the long-time partners are moving into local production for the first time.

Will the new regulations push StarHub (or SingTel for that matter) down the local-channels route faster than it may otherwise have gone? We think it will (although the regulatory delay on StarHub’s Racquet Channel shook our confidence a little).

There’s little question that all platforms everywhere are looking for differentiators to help fend off rivals from every quarter. Regulations, generally, play a minor to no role in that equation.

Being forced to offer exclusive channels to the other side is going to be a hassle and it’s going to cost money. It’s also unlikely to make pay-TV any cheaper; subscribers still have to pay for what they get. Once, that is, it’s decided how they get it. A la carte? Do they have to buy the whole pack, even if other channels in the tier are not exclusive? Plus it’s tough enough for customer service teams to deal with their own company’s stuff; bless the person with the patience to try to get them to explain the competition’s.

We believe the book on the new rules is far from closed. Meanwhile, there’s an amazing new world of in-house channels to explore.

Happy discoveries.

Singapore's Sling: exclusive vs cross-carriage

2010-03-28T20:24:00.004+08:00

The announcement of Singapore’s new mandatory pay-TV cross-carriage regulations was a lesson in how to create chaos in 1,425 text characters.

The scurrying about trying to wrest sense and advantage from every comma will last at least until the 22 April deadline for industry consultation.

The goal seems clear: to create an environment where one box will deliver all pay-TV content. Consumers won’t have to cross the road and back chasing a football (or any other) content.

This is a good technical solution that may create a back-end/service headache for operators, but it’s great for consumers.

There may also be an advantage for channels who have network access to everyone without anyone meddling with their commercial agreements. Maybe.

The country’s two pay-TV platforms – StarHub and SingTel – were given ample opportunity to get it together by themselves. But they couldn’t. So they’re being made to.

It’s fabulously, wonderfully Singaporean: if you can’t sort things out by yourselves and play nicely together, the gov-
ernment will step in whether it wants to (or you want it to) or not.

The line between technical logic and involvement in pricing blurred with the minister’s anti-exclusive/cost remarks in Parliament.

Acting minister for information, communications and the arts, Lui Tuck Yew, said the country’s exclusive carriage-centric competition had “negatively impacted” the industry and consumers, and that the practise had driven content costs beyond in- ternational benchmarks. For instance, StarHub’s content costs-to-revenue ratio was up from 40% prior to rival SingTel’s launch in 2007 to 70% today.

Only seven of 179 channels offered are common to both platforms. 131 of the carriage agreements are exclusive.

Here’s what chilled programmers, who didn't necessarily know that the system (or at least not this bit of it) was broken and weren't in the market for a fix: “MDA’s review has concluded that this situation is unlikely to self-correct in the near future, and steps need to be taken to address this market failure,” the minister said.

What do the new rules mean? Numerous phone calls on different days to the MDA to clarify all came up with the same answer: the regulatory body is not meddling with commercial issues. Content owners are free and clear to sign whatever they like as long as the same service (branding, packaging, promotion) is available across the road. Presumably across- the-road subscribers have to pay for the new subscription, but those details are yet to be worked out.

Then what’s the issue? As long as they get their money, why should platforms or programmers care about the delivery system?

The big HOWEVER in all this is that if the MDA thinks there are too many exclusive deals, which it clearly does, then whatever it says means less that the “in-effect” effect. There is also, clearly, a drive to drive prices down, although the MDA is standing solidly behind its support for market forces. Where do programmers stand? As this issue went to print, they’re unhappily all over the map and not saying what they really think.

0 characters on that one.

A3 ways, happy faces and :) things

2009-06-14T15:02:00.001+08:00

In the old days, real women could slaughter, pluck and put a cooked chicken on the family table. There were horses and carts and pens and quills and letters with stamps and wind-up clocks and coal stoves and typewriters and a whole lot of things most of us wouldn’t use – or know how to – today.

Why should we? With all the faster, sexier, more fabulous, infinitely more functional and just plain better ways of doing things, what would the point be in clinging to the dusty and outdated?

The growing-up-now anytime-anywhere-anyplace (A3) generation is going to have even faster, even more hi-tech access to new wonders (and dangers), whatever they are. Choice will continue to explode. Just like every generation since the Garden of Eden, they’re going to access whatever’s offered to them in ways that suit them, with their own short-forms, phrases and reference points.

It’s as it should be, and, indeed, always has been. So the grumbling about how young people can’t spell, how they do too many things at once, how sms is ruining language, how email is destroying face-time, and how twitter is pointless, is, well, pointless and unlikely to have any meaningful effect other than making older people feel okay about being part of the past.

On the other side of the dinosaur-divide, I’m going to tune out when the subject of new technologies and their “evil impact” comes up in conversation, as it so often – too often – does.

The only thing that’s staying the same is the 24 hours in a day. Why waste it moaning about the generation that is making the world their own... especially when, among other things to do, there’s so much great TV out there to watch and so much new stuff to discover. And there’s more coming, in standard and high definition, on demand, on mobile, in 3D...

I’m taking The Style Network’s Clean House approach. Keep what’s absolutely essential, and get the rest out of your face so that you can move forward in a beautiful, uncluttered, tidy space. Remember the past by all means, but keep it small (like on a thumb drive small) and in it’s proper place so that it doesn’t hold you back from the here and now.

The future will always be, for better or worse, different. Even if you hate the idea, put on a happy face (POAHF) anyway; the world has enough sour grumpy people complaining about how things aren’t the way they used to be (and if you need some help with all the new short forms out there, here’s where you need to go: www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp). MTFBWU.

Invincible and holey… Asia’s formats race picks up

2008-03-14T13:12:00.002+08:00

Formats are running fastest in Asia yet again, with news out of China that a US$21-million local version of Colombian telenovela, Ugly Betty/Yo Soy Betty La Fea, is in the works at global rights holders’ new BFF, Hunan TV.

And then there’s Sony Pictures Entertainment, which has put a US$232-million hand up for Dutch company 2waytraffic. If the deal goes through as planned, Todd Miller and his Asia team, who’ve just put away their party hats after celebrating the addition of Strix titles to their box of tricks (think The Bar and The Farm), could break out the party favours yet again for formats like Who Wants to be a Millionaire and You Are What You Eat.

Meanwhile, nutty Japanese format, Hole in the Wall (contestants either squeeze through a series of approaching “holes” or get dumped in the water), is a winner for FremantleMedia Productions Asia, which has signed deals in at least five Asian markets.

In Indonesia, the show, dubbed “human tetris”, has pushed up RCTI’s average share for its slot by 22%, FremantleMedia said. A second season launched on RCTI at the end of January, this time in a morning slot for housewives. RCTI commissioned the series as a 30-minute strip (Mondays to Fridays) for 90 episodes. The housewives season is stripped across weekday mornings for 18 weeks.

There’s also a pilot for China and local versions in pre-production or about to air in Australia, India and Hong Kong.

• Good news on the SingTel Mio TV front. My Mio is fixed thanks to a tech guy and a new cable, and SingTel promises it’s working on its customer service. We live in hope. There’s a lot riding on the success of this platform, not least a whole lot of fabulous programming and EPL rights holders looking forward to the next round of soccer bidding. Thanks to all of you who sent in suggestions as per last issue’s request. Loved the ones about bathtub. The machine gun, not so much. Tempting as it was...

Choice Encounters: Why subscribers in Asia aren't buying on-demand

2008-02-21T11:49:00.009+08:00

On-demand entertainment seems to be a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t want what they want when they want it? Except it’s not exactly working out that way.

What’s proving to be a whole lot harder is leading people – people with loads of money, men and women who drive fast cars and buy Prada – to what’s on offer for them to demand.

These are not people to whom demand is a foreign concept. They already have flat screens in every room and universal remote controls linked to myriad players, boxes, screens, gadgets... Among these I-want-and-I-gets, why are so many telling me they aren’t buying anything on-demand?

“I’ve never bought VOD because I’ve never found it,” said one subscriber to multiple pay-TV services in Hong Kong. Has she looked? Actually, no. “There’s already too much choice,” she says, adding that her Now TV electronic programme guide, which she thoroughly enjoys, is packed to the brim and “there’s nothing popping up at me going ‘buy now, buy now’.”

“On-demand is interesting, but I wonder how much choice people really want,” said another subscriber to every service going but not a VOD buyer. “You can overdo the choice, make it too hard, too complicated. I don’t want to be told too much.”

In Singapore, a snap poll about Mio TV among known early adopters turned up, "I don't want another box and I don't want to rewire anything". And this from a person who already has a S$600 a month relationship with SingTel (which launched Mio TV at the end of July 2007 and had 27,000 subs by the end of the year) and spends a couple of hundred at least with StarHub.

Clearly it's still too easy for people to say no. What will make them say yes? The gazillion dollar question in a world of too much everything and the same 24 hours to do it in.

My guess is simplicity (or the appearance of simplicity). Put the remote in people's hands and tell them, in bold and uncluttered messages, who and what they can watch this week. Make it content they can't get anywhere else and, for heaven's sake, say NOTHING about technology. Let users touch and feel and squeeze the service with no pressure and no obligation. They will talk, their friends will talk. And a real, viable, fantastic business will be born. Hopefully.

Choice is usually a beautiful thing. The secret is making people believe the world of choice is at their fingertips, and then giving them only what they're going to buy, packaged and marketed so that they find it impossible to say no.