ATF Online + 2020: APAC opportunities

As it has happened with most of the regional events, but not with the big global ones during this (special) year, ATF Online + managed to offer ‘all in one’ with encouraging results, based on Prensario conversations with the participants. ‘We were able to meet the people we’re looking for. We got messages, while we received many of them. We felt comfortable and the APAC companies were opened to discuss about different lines of businesses’, remarked a key player from the Americas.

Another one from the Europe, added: ‘It was my first time and I believe it's a market to build over the years. There is much to do in APAC, and the local/regional players are very active looking for generating strategic alliances: coproduction is strong, and we are exploring many alternatives’.

From the five finalists of ATF Formats Pitching, held yesterday, Two Island (Indonesia) Blog Wars was the winning entry. Judges agreed: ‘The format is appealing because it is like a microcosm of our everyday life surrounded by social media. Factors that determine the election were the inclusion of social media, sponsor friendly, scalable budget, and the returnability of the series’.

Kids programming was a significant topic during the December 3 panels. “Buyers Speak: Oogling At Kids” offered a vision of the realities and opportunities for kids content, described by buyers from India, Indonesia and China. These three territories are among the five countries with the best opportunities for audiovisual content and merchandise for children: they are growing year on year 3-6% as opposed to the more mature markets such as USA and UK. India and Indonesia have 27% of the population under the age of 14 years, and more and more of these children are migrating to online consumption.

Vivek Bhutyani, Founder and CEO of Lattu Media Pvt Ltd. (India): 'We have over 125 million children, so the most important thing for this segment is content safety and parental controls. Platforms such as Disney+ and Netflix have done very well in that territory, offering quality content that represents our culture. In that sense, there is a lot of interest in learning content for preschoolers’.

Lena Ni, Director of Acquisitions, Animation at Shanghai Senyu Media Co., Ltd. (China): 'The digital market is changing very fast, and the price of the animation acquisition is actually decreasing; so I think the budget of the digital platforms to acquire completed shows is also decreasing, so it may be more difficult for us to buy high-level programs, because high-quality studios may have high expectations for the market. We will see more pre-buy and investment projects than in previous years. The live-action shows are the main titles that perform better on Senyu'.

Hendy Lim, VP, Content & Channel at Indonesia Entertainment Group: ‘Basically children's shows perform well on all platforms at Indonesia. The age segment that consumes most children's content is under 6 years of age, making Indonesia a market for preschool content’.

On the other hand, Evelina Lye, Media Partnerships Asia Pacific on Facebook, spoke about how the leading media in Asia are using Facebook Watch. She remarked that each month 1.25 billion people spent at least one minute watching some content on Watch and more and more media companies are driving audiences to their original content on this Facebook tool.

'They use popular personalities in Asia to collaborate on original content. In South Korea, they ally with influencers. Recently, a collaborative contest drove more than 200 thousand new followers in 7 days, more than 1.5 million reactions, and more than 9 million views’, she added, and concluded with a case of success: ‘MTV Asia’s original You Bought What? achieved a very good reception on the service, and Facebook Watch offered an exclusive view of Taiwan's Golden Bell Awards, which attracted more than 1.6 million views’.

Nicolas Smirnoff, Fabricio Ferrara and Alberto Buitron