ATF gathers Asia’s entertainment market leaders to shed light on business paths into 2015 and beyond. This includes the evaluation of growth opportunities in different territories. The competition for rights has become fiercer than ever and many have also raised their stakes in creating original content.
Leading the proceedings was moderator Venture Consulting MD Asia Virat Patel who led the discussion of a star studded panel consisting of FIC Hong Kong SAR president, APAC & Middle East Zubin Gandevia; The Walt Disney Company (SEA) Singapore MD Robert Gilby; Turner International president APAC, Hong Kong SAR Ricky Ow and HBO Asia Singapore CEO Jonathan Spink on ‘Focus on Asia’s growing content business’.
“Localisation is very important to be relevant in the region; thus we at Turner simply don’t just dub the content for a different region but also re-work on the scripting as well as hire voice artists to identify with the characters. Our Indian brand Pogo has completed a decade and has proven that even local content can do a world of good for the channel,” explained Ricky, on how content needs to cross boundaries and be region relevant.
Jonathan from HBO Asia seemed to nod in agreement with what Ricky had to state as even HBO Asia has dabbled with ground breaking content in the recent past with ‘Serangoon Road’. Zubin however begged to disagree as he argued: “It is not necessary that a product made for Market A will also work similarly in other markets,” and to support his argument he gave a simple example of sports. “I can’t possibly expect Rugby to be shown in India with a Hindi commentary and expect it to give me similar numbers to when India is playing Pakistan in a Cricket match.”
Earlier, Virat in a very comprehensive presentation had shown some emerging trends visible in the Asian content market. “At Disney we look at ‘transcreating’ shows which are relevant for that particular market. And with the advent of Maker Studios it has only further pushed that message,” informed Robert.
Further exploring the option of co-producing, Jonathan felt that was an option worth trying as it will not only encourage bringing in more thinking hats together but also help in raising funds without burning a hole in one’s pockets.
Ricky added: “The pay-TV audience will continue to spend if there is the right content on offer. Thus, our goal is to continue creating and co-creating compelling content. We will also use the power of social media and our TV everywhere app to encourage kids to consume more and more of our content.”
Jonathan pointed out the evil of piracy also stunting the growth of the OTT platform as it becomes difficult to monetise something that is already available for free through rouge sites on the World Wide Web.
“Piracy is certainly a major spoiler for content distributors and creators like us. For example ‘The Walking Dead’ got downloaded 25 times more in Manila than it was in the US, so that’s about it for the argument that content doesn’t travel,” stressed Zubin.
The panel settled on the fact that ‘content is indeed king’ and will continue to be the factor for deciding the future of the industry at large in the coming year as well.