ATF 2016: re-imagining the content models in APAC

Not only from organizers, which is natural, but also for many participants consulted by Prensario during the pre-market conference day held yesterday, with eight high-end panels about the disruptive trends in Asia Pacific.

It is notorious the number of new exhibitors in the show: apart from the traditional US Studios and local indies, there are more European companies, from Spain, Turkey, etc., and the Latin exhibitors remain the same as last year with Azteca new sales team attending for the first time.

Distributors have started to understand that they must bet on this region, as business is up in every segment. This was one of the main conclusions of the C-Level Summit held on December 6 at Roselle Ballroom.

Two keynotes took place during the pre-market day. David Fernando Audy, president director, MNC Group (Indonesia) described the leading media group of the fourth largest populated country in the world. MNC channels, RCTI, Global TV and MNC TV reach almost 30% of the Indonesian audience. The group also comprises Pay TV channels, second screen apps developments, production companies for films and TV (15,000 hours annually) and a talent scouting division.

‘Everybody agree that Internet is a new channel, a new way to reach audiences that are not anymore interested on TV. It also represents a huge opportunity on the advertising side. But in our country, because of our geographical location, the penetration is only 6-7%. We believe digital will continue expanding, but affecting mostly print rather than TV’, he remarked.

In a 260 million inhabitants country, TV is still the #1 media because it is free and easy to access. TV time spending is 5 hours 20 minutes (2016), while Internet is 3 hours. Audy noticed that Indonesia has the lowest net ad spend value and the cheapest TVC rate card per spot (USD 5400). ‘We need to work on this for the future years to improve our industry. There is an enormous potential of growth’.

Yong-Ju Jeon, CEO, D’Live & IHQ (South Korea), said the cable TV group is focusing next year into Smart TV, 4K, Cloud-based services and Home Internet of Things, etc. ‘We have an alliance with Netflix and we plan to launch next year a all-in-one STB for our clients. We aim to take the K-Content impulse to expand our services in Asia Pacific’, he underlined.

“Re-Imagining existing business models” joined two digital players: Viki, the US-based VOD that offers Asian drama series worldwide. ‘We are a truly global company operating in every country: there is a huge appetite for Asian drama worldwide’, said Joanne Waage, SVP. And Big Frame (USA), a talent representation company that provides talent management and influencer marketing services. ‘Our major differentiator is our unique combination of both traditional and new media expertise. Almost 65% of our incomes are from branded content’, explained Chris Erwin, CEO.

In the afternoon it was the time for OTT: “View from over the top” gathered Kazufumi Nagasawa, from Hulu Japan, who highlighted that the company has 1.5 million subscriber (USD 8 a month) that have access to original and global content, in equal parts (50% each); Krishnan Rajagopalan, from Hooq Group, said the SVOD is already available in 5 countries in APAC and its betting on original contents. 

Rebecca Glashow, from the multiplatform entertainment company Awesomeness TV (USA), says they target 12-24 years old consumers: ‘We offer social videos, TV shows and feature films, having produced our first one recently. We have production partnerships with Hulu and Netflix in USA. Over 400 hours are produced annually, and a quarter of them are premium. Half of our consumers are outside USA’.

Nagasawa: ‘We are one of the four leading OTT platforms in Japan. On the original side, we have the catch up programming from our owner, Nippon TV, as well as original content with 10 shows a year. We also developed the drama series “The Price”, broadcast simultaneously in Japan and USA, and “Crown’s Blood” (6 episodes), who is being launch this market by Miramax. In Japan there are more than 10 million OTT subscribers’.

Fabricio Ferrara, from Singapore