SINGAPORE: Executives from Hulu Japan, HOOQ, AwesomenessTV and LeTV talked about their programming strategies in a panel at Asia TV Forum, where digital disruption has been a key theme of the conference schedule.<\/p>\n
The panel included Kazufumi Nagasawa, chief content officer at Hulu Japan, which has racked up about 1.5 million paying subscribers since its launch five years ago. Today owned by leading free-to-air broadcaster Nippon TV, Hulu Japan\u2019s lineup is about 50 percent international, 50 percent local, Nagasawa said. It is largely library fare, but the platform is buying some first-run content. The platform is also producing about ten original shows\u2014100 episodes\u2014each year. \u201cWe are focused on U.S. content,\u201d when it comes to international acquisitions, Nagasawa said, \u201cbut we do acquire European content. We are open to acquiring content from anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
HOOQ is a newer proposition. The SVOD platform, a JV of Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment and Singtel, launched about 18 months ago and is now present in five markets in Asia: Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, India and Singapore. Krishnan Rajagopalan, co-founder and chief content officer at HOOQ, said that partnering with telcos has been a key strategic priority as it expands. \u201cWe are constantly looking for ways to find partnerships to extract revenue from the ecosystem while maintaining the premium ad-free content experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rajagopalan is focused on scripted, acquiring largely from the U.S., supplemented with local content in individual markets, and kids\u2019 fare. It has just embarked on an originals strategy, gearing up to launch On the Job<\/em>, produced in the Philippines.<\/p>\n AwesomenessTV operates under a different model, producing short-form content, TV shows and feature films for the 12 to 24 set and partnering with digital platforms, among them Hulu, YouTube Red, Netflix and Verizon\u2019s go90. \u201cWe are about creating premium content for a very specific audience,\u201d said Rebecca Glashow, head of worldwide distribution at AwesomenessTV. She noted that half of AwesomenessTV\u2019s usage comes from outside of the U.S. \u201cLocalizing our content and our presence is key for us.\u201d<\/p>\n LeTV is an online platform in China whose rollout model is largely based on being bundled with the company\u2019s own hardware. Hao Fang, chief executive producer at LeTV, said that the combined acquisition and production budget is about RMB4 to 5 billion a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SINGAPORE: Executives from Hulu Japan, HOOQ, AwesomenessTV and LeTV talked about their programming strategies in a panel at Asia TV Forum, where digital disruption has been a key theme of the conference schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":4170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[633,91,272,159],"class_list":["post-4169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-atf-2016","tag-hooq","tag-hulu-japan","tag-letv"],"yoast_head":"\n