IN BRIEF
FTA IS TOP
According to Freeview,
Australia’s free-to-air
networks continued to
dominate Australian viewing
in 2013, reaching a daily
audience of 15.2m and
capturing an 83% share of
the prime time metropolitan
audience. Australians
watched more than three
hours of live TV every day
last year. In the first half of
2014 Freeview is expected to
launch FreeviewPlus, the
Hybrid Broadcast Broadband
TV (HbbTV) which will
seamlessly deliver catch-up
programming to TV screens
via the on-screen guide.
50 YEARS ABU
The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting
Union is celebrating its 50th
anniversary in 2014. Its new
president Gil Hwan-Young,
President and CEO of Korean
Broadcasting System, took
office in January. Speaking
during his first official visit
to the ABU headquarters in
Kuala Lumpur, Mr Gil said
the Union was progressing
in the right direction in
helping members face the
challenges of the digital
revolution and platform
conversion, and in launching
co-productions and
establishing content
exchange programmes.
ULTRA HD UPTAKE
According to LG Electronics’
director of innovation R&D,
Stuart Savage, UHD will take
a long time to become a
mass-market proposition.
Recalling the ‘perfect storm’
a few years ago when HD,
analogue switch-off, flat
panels all arrived and
provided multiple reasons
why people wanted to
replace their TVs, he said
that TV buying trends have
now slipped back into a
roughly seven-year cycle.
And while UHD has a wow-
factor for consumers, the
industry is still working out
UHD parameters to
eventually “arrive at the
same place.”
English flagship language for DW
AUB discusses
switchover and rights
THE CHANNEL
|
MEDIA MARKETS
Phoenix Satellite TV has
launched new HD services on
AsiaSat for viewers across Asia-
Pacific.
Phoenix TV signed a contract
for one C-band transponder on
AsiaSat 3S to deliver a bouquet
of up to 3 HD and 3 SD TV
channels.
The bouquet includes HD and
SD services of Phoenix TV’s
flagship channel ‘Phoenix
Chinese’, information and
finance news channel ‘Phoenix
Infonews’, and Cantonese
language HD channel ‘Phoenix
Hong Kong’, to be joined by
family movie entertainment SD
channel ‘Phoenix Movies’ from
May 2014. CEO Changle Liu said
the launch of these new HD
services marks a new era of
Phoenix TV’s broadcasting in
Asia.
Phoenix HD
on AsiaSat
Deutsche Welle’s Director
General Peter Limbourg who
took office last October has
outlined reform plans as part of
DW’s 2014-2017 strategy which
At the 7th General Assembly of
the African Union of Broadcasting
(AUB) in Yaounde in January,
over 100 participants discussed
digital switchover in Africa and
the issue of acquisition of
broadcast rights for major
international events. The event
was hosted by Cameroon Radio
Television (CRTV), a founding
member of AUB.
AUB is a continental
organisation with the mission to
develop broadcasting in Africa.
Created in 2006 as successor to
URTNA (Union of National Radio
and TV Stations of Africa), AUB
today has its head office in
Dakar, Senegal, and counts 40
members across Africa.
Although the AUB was
created as a grouping of public
broadcasting organisations, it has
opened its doors also to private
broadcasters. The liberalisation
of broadcasting in many African
countries has led to a multiplicity
of privately owned radio and TV
stations in the continent which
also need to have a voice in a
continental broadcasting
organisation such as the AUB.
aim to make DW a leading global
information provider. Limbourg
said DW aims to increase the
relevance of its content to global
decision-makers and political
opinion leaders by extending
DW's reach on all its platforms,
thereby raising the number of
regular DW users from the
current 101m to 150m by 2017.
English-language content will
be extended and will play a
central role in all DW offerings.
In early 2014, DW will set
regional priorities and optimize
its television, internet and radio
content accordingly. To further
streamline its operation, DW has
already merged its two
programming departments
under the new leadership of
Director of Programming Gerda
Meuer and Editor-in-Chief
Alexander Kudascheff.
The theme of DW’s annual
Global Media Forum in 2014 is
"From Information to
Participation - Challenges for the
Media" (30 June- 2 July).
14
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ISSUE 1 2014
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THE CHANNEL
Mobile advertising
As an average 15% of digital
budgets is allocated to mobile in
2014, mobile is rapidly becoming
a strategic channel for advertisers
and programmatic is rapidly
becoming the technical
foundation for the majority of
transactions. In its Analytics
Report, mobile advertising
exchange Nexage indicates that
this trend is well underway,
creating some important markers
in the industry. Agency (via
trading desks) and buyer pref-
erence to buy programmatically
is changing the landscape and
increasingly motivating
publishers to move more and
more premium inventory to
programmatic.
Publishers are increasingly
using private exchange
functionality to drive their
business forward and control
more closely to whom and how
they sell.
Analytics are enabling both
publishers and buyers to see
clearly and adapt to a rapidly
changing and growing market.
Nexage is seeing significant
RTB (Real Time Bidding) growth
as bid volumes grew more than
500% in 2013 and revenue grew
569% in Q3, driven by CPM and
volume growth.
