Jon Penn, executive VP for the Asia Pacific at BBC Studios, talked about the growing importance of China to the company\u2019s global business in his ATF Online+ keynote.<\/p>\n
Penn was interviewed by former BBC Studios and Netflix CMO Jackie Lee-Joe for the session, titled \u201cThe Need for New Partnerships & Collaborations,\u201d as part of ATF Online+\u2019s series of Q&As with industry leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the Asian century,\u201d said Penn on the region\u2019s importance to BBC Studios\u2019 global business. \u201cThe region is an incredible part of the world. It has the most amazing mix of cultures, languages, countries and markets. It\u2019s over half of the world\u2019s population.\u201d BBC Studios operates seven bases across the region, including in Sydney, Singapore and Beijing. \u201cIt\u2019s a growing, healthy business,\u201d Penn said.<\/p>\n
On the streaming wars, Penn referenced the huge uptick in OTT subs this year across the globe. \u201cThe business model in Asia is more AVOD than SVOD, but OTT itself has grown enormously. In China, just this year, there have been 27 million new OTT customers added. That\u2019s more OTT customers added in China than exist in all of Australia!\u201d<\/p>\n
The D2C shift will continue, Penn noted, citing the restructures that have taken place across the major U.S. media companies as they position themselves for growth in this space. \u201cWe of course need to find our place,\u201d Penn said. \u201cIn essence, we\u2019re a content creator and provider. So we can stand off a bit from all the chaos and confusion and competition. We work with those global streaming companies upstream in terms of production and co-production. We supply content to them in many different ways. But of course, we have our eye on the prize of direct to consumer. As a company that has a strong heritage in maintaining our own branded services, we have a play of our own, and that\u2019s BritBox.\u201d<\/p>\n
A JV with ITV, BritBox has reached 1.5 million subs in the U.S. \u201cThey\u2019ve shown they can carve out a supersized niche,\u201d Penn said. \u201cThe service recently launched in Australia and is exploring other markets, he added. \u201cPerhaps some will be in Asia, we\u2019ll see.\u201d The OTT market overall in AsiaPac will exceed the size of the U.S. market in 2021, Penn said.<\/p>\n
Asked about linear channels, Penn acknowledged that they are under pressure, but far from over. \u201cFor us, in terms of linear pay-TV channels, it\u2019s about the big renewal: when\u2019s it coming up, how are you going to approach it, how much flexibility can you have in partnership terms. But in the back end, we just need to make those services more efficient, and that\u2019s without affecting what customers see and feel and love about our branded services. We\u2019re watching the performance and making sure they live up to the brand promise. But we think they have a good number of years of life left in them. Of course, we need to make sure they are modernized. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve been doing with BBC iPlayer in Asia\u2014building that bridge to the future of what a branded service may look like. How do you curate for a digital-focused audience? So there\u2019s a lot we need to do. And BritBox has our toe in the actual water of streaming itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discussing China, Penn noted, \u201cOur ambition is to become the media and entertainment industry\u2019s largest partner outside of the studio system. It\u2019s a big ambition. We think there\u2019s a very big business to be built there. And we think we can develop a business in China that will be one of the key pillars of growth in the company overall, not just in the AsiaPac region. We do that by operating across all our lines of business. And we have a lot of flexibility there. We can produce original content for Chinese broadcasters and digital platforms. We can do co-productions with the big VOD platforms, CCTV-9 and the other traditional broadcasters. They\u2019ve been investing in our natural-history content and putting up large sums to be co-pro partners in those. And then content sales,\u201d such as the deal with Bilibili covering some 1,000 hours of factual and scripted content. \u201cWe\u2019re working with our customers [in China] in a really sophisticated way and going deep and across all lines of business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about how BBC Studios remains relevant in the future amid a rapidly changing media landscape, Penn said, \u201cWe have a tremendous, well-known brand, renowned for making prestigious, high-end and valuable content in lots of different genres. The diversity that BBC brings is extraordinary. As I said before, we stand off from this slightly chaotic environment. We\u2019re able to position ourselves. We certainly need to be in the ownership of IP game, which is where we\u2019re at. I think the pure-play distribution model where you just represent someone\u2019s rights is long gone. At a minimum, you have to own IP. We have an eye to the direct-to-consumer future, we\u2019re modernizing our branded services, we’re experimenting with BritBox. I think we\u2019re well-positioned. That does not mean that you don\u2019t have to be constantly vigilant. We have to be nimble, we have to be future-facing, we have to be able to spot those things that are changing and adjust accordingly and set ourselves up for a successful future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jon Penn, executive VP for the Asia Pacific at BBC Studios, talked about the growing importance of China to the company\u2019s global business in his ATF Online+ keynote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":6018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[1032,1380],"class_list":["post-6017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-bbc-studios","tag-jon-penn"],"yoast_head":"\n