HONG KONG- As Media Partners Asia predicts that pay-TV penetration in Indonesia will rise from its current position of less than 7% of TV homes to 18% by 2017, Bakrie-owned media group VivaAsia Media has announced its new pay-TV play, Viva Sky, will capitalise on the 2014 Fifa World Cup, interactive education content and local language programming to woo a target of 2.5 million customers.Major market moves are afoot in China after speculation intensified that Qihoo 360 Technology Co. is in early talks to buy Sohu.com Inc’s Sogou unit. If successful the move would effectively consolidate the country’s number two and number three internet players into a combined force. The deal would give the companies a greater chance of competing with Baidu, which last week further strengthened its position after swooping on mobile app store operator 91 Wireless in a deal thought to be worth US$1.9 billion – the biggest in Chinese internet history.
Meanwhile, Asia Pacific is leading the rise in the number of pay TV households with the region accounting for 126 million additional users (two thirds of the rise seen globally) in 2012, according to new industry analysis by Digital TV Research.
Where Next? Online video streamer Hulu is set to sit tight after ruling out a series of takeover and investment bids. Commentators say the move reflects a degree of uncertainty about exactly what the firm wants to be: a free-to-air service supported by advertising or a premium pay-TV platform – a question its controlling owners 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney Co. will have to answer having decided to shelve the sale for now.
Meanwhile the digital TV market could be set to get more cut-throat following well sourced reports that Google has kicked off talks with major media companies to launch its own internet based cable TV service. The web giant is said to be in direct negotiations with content providers to license TV channels as it bids to displace traditional cable TV operators which it increasingly views as unnecessary middlemen in the era of digital TV.
But despite the scramble into online TV, a new US report sends mixed messages to potential providers around the globe. Claims that YouTube’s paid-for channels have got off to a slow start are being cited as further evidence of the significant challenges involved in turning the web from a free space to a premium space. While current content partners are not allowed to disclose subscriber numbers, sources told Variety that the take-up had been “modest at best”.
Competitive Edge
As pressure mounts on Google over competition issues in Europe, the firm has had a reprievein Asia after South Korea’s competition watchdog dismissed claims that the search giant was seeking to take control of the market by forcing mobile vendors to include its search engine in their Android-based devices. But in Europe the firm is not finding regulators to be so benign after the European Commission formally said (for the first time) that its proposals to address anti-trust concerns did not go far enough. Brussels has demanded that that the web giant develops more far-reaching solutions to its concerns or risks a fine of up to US$5 billion.
Harsh Words: The British Way...
British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans to compel web and telecoms companies to force their clients to opt into - rather than opt out from - websites containing adult content. Aggressively facing down the search industry, which still profits from porn despite commitments to self-police the web, Cameron said search engines also had a "moral duty" to use their code-wizardry to shut down access to images containing child pornography.
Threatening legislative action to put online content rules on the same legal footing as physical video material (moves which which will be watched closely by governments globally as they are framed) David Cameron read the search industry its rights. “If there are technical obstacles to acting on this, don’t just stand by and say nothing can be done; use your great brains to help overcome them. You’re the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the earth from space. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it," he said in a widely reported speech.