The More Things Change…

This column was originally published in the ATF 2010 issue of TV Asia Pacific.

 

Five years ago, TV Asia Pacific produced its first Asia TV Forum edition. At the time, we reported on two shows that were making lots of noise in India. Indian Idol on SET was generating mass hysteria. And STAR Plus had brought back Kaun Banega Crorepati, its version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? that had, five years earlier, revolutionized Indian TV and catapulted the channel to the top of the ratings heap.

 

In 2005, DTH was an arena to keep an eye on, but was nowhere close to posing a threat to the strong cable incumbents. And while there may have been some international companies waiting in the wings, eyeing India’s riches, few had made any headway into the vast, complex market.

 

Fast-forward five years and India is still a hotbed of activity, solidifying its position as one of the region’s most competitive, and vibrant, TV industries. Indian Idol, which wrapped its fifth season in August, is still one of SET’s highest-rating shows. And KBC is back again, having moved from STAR Plus to SET, with Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan returning to host. As the old adage goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

But Indian TV is a far different business today. STAR, SET and Zee have had to move aside for Colors, a channel co-owned by Viacom that came from out of nowhere to steal the reigning kings’ thunder. Turner is hoping to do the same with its recent acquisition, Imagine. And a host of other Western companies are making moves in India, from CBS Studios International partnering with Reliance Big Entertainment for a slate of networks to AETN International inking a joint venture with the Network18 Group.

 

DTH, meanwhile, is now a serious contender for India’s ever-growing pay-TV base. The DTH pie is expected to rise from 17 million subscribers in 2009 to 45 million in 2014 and 58 million in 2020, Media Partners Asia reports. By 2012, India will become the world’s largest DTH market with 36 million homes.

 

Nonetheless, India is still being battered by pay-TV piracy, as is the rest of the region. The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) recently reported that piracy cost the Asian pay-TV business more than $2 billion last year—double the figure from 2005. Digital TV, combined with the rollout of addressable systems to prevent piracy, are seen as the answer. In Hong Kong, for example, cable platform i-Cable has been able to stop the illegal tapping of its lines by installing new set-top boxes. And yet, the pirates will always find a way to catch up. Across Asia you can buy set-top boxes that will deliver hundreds of international channels over a broadband connection, many of which may not even be available in your home market. Moreover, CASBAA’s latest piracy report doesn’t take into account the revenues lost from content illegally being streamed online, a trend that will continue as high-speed Internet access becomes more prevalent across Asia. Old media, new media, the problems, and challenges, remain the same.

 

In Korea, public broadcaster KBS is approaching the impending 2012 digital transition and rolling out a DTT service while facing a financing crunch brought on by a frozen license fee and an ever-more competitive ad market. In this issue, KBS’s president and CEO, Kim In-Kyu, discusses how the broadcaster is tackling these hurdles with innovative content and a commitment to quality.

 

What certainly has changed, though, is the sheer number of opportunities available for content owners in Asia. As this edition reports, distributors of Latin American novelas, undaunted by the popularity of serialized daily dramas from within the region, are pursuing co-productions and broadening their catalogues. Formats are also gaining favor across the board, as we found in our special report in this edition. More and more broadcasters are willing to pay for the rights to produce international formats (instead of just copying them) and are demanding everything from access prime-time studio-based game shows to big, pan-regional productions.

 

As the content industries in Asia have matured, it’s no longer a one-way street to the region. Japan is a prolific producer of ideas for the global market, and territories like India, Philippines and Malaysia are angling to be the same. Indeed, in Malaysia, DTH platform Astro is plowing investments into local content like Imam Muda, which the company is hoping will have international appeal. And the government-backed Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) is putting its weight behind the creation of a broad slate of programming that has international legs, from animation to documentaries. CEO Badlisham Ghazali explains MDeC’s mandate in this issue.

 

The theme for this year’s Asia TV Forum is Above and Beyond. For a market that is now in its 11th year, it’s an appropriate slogan, reflecting the sentiment that Asia has finally moved beyond the hype of the last decade and is actually translating into serious business for program sellers—if, that is, you have the right content, and are flexible enough to navigate some rapidly changing, yet often still deeply traditional, television markets.