Page 26 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 2 2012
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ISSUE 1 2011
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THE CHANNEL
THE CHANNEL
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FOCUS
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when they want it.
What's happening in radio?
Radio is an important medium but
it still has a very low share of
adverting spend as TV has been
such a dominant medium. If you
look at many of the more advanced
markets, the cool content that
people wanted was generally TV
content. When we look at the
numbers of the growth of the
sector, radio more or less tracks
with overall growth, itʹs not taking
share away from anything else.
There are some markets where new
frequency allocations and digital
are helping. Overall, radio will
grow and likely take share from
print over time. It is after all a
mobile media.
In mobile, are operators starting to
work with content owners or is it
other players coming on?
Both. The real game changer with
mobile are the devices. Weʹve been
talking about mobile for seven or
eight years but up until about two
years ago there werenʹt significant
revenues associated with it. The
explosion in smart device adoption
has meant that mobility is now real,
and mobile internet access will be
very important. For example in
Indonesia about 60% of all Internet
users access it through a mobile
device. And Indonesia is
Facebookʹs second largest market.
If you look at the use of social
media it is actually the developing
markets that are embracing social
media more. If you look at the
average number of friends a user
has in the US, itʹs much less than
the average Facebook user in, say,
Thailand or Indonesia. Philippines,
Indonesia, Vietnam – they are all
way ahead of the curve in terms of
once people are on, they are
voracious users.
In some of the Western markets
where there is still some legacy of
traditional, people are still
migrating that way. Obviously the
younger generation adopt it very
quickly.
Do regulators create a level
playing field?
With an industry that is moving so
quickly we often get regulatory
regimes which are outdated, and
unfortunately in a number of the
Asian markets regulators adopt a
heavy touch. So traditional TV
players, whether terrestrial or pay‐
TV, are beginning to operate at a
potential disadvantage compared
with the online players which are
effectively not regulated at all. The
issue of a level playing field is one
that is coming up time and time
again. Every 18 months CASBAA
produces a review of the regulatory
regimes in the region, and itʹs
pretty clear there is a definite
correlation between what I would
call light or good regulation and the
size of the industry.
Which changes do you see looking
ahead?
I believe that the combination
between local and global will
increase significantly, and we will
also be seeing the emergence of
true formats that come from within
the region. We will see more
branded content for sure, and
ultimately I think Asia will be
leading in terms of mobile
consumption. It will be a true
social, local and mobile story here.
Marcel Fenez, thank you.
Asia will lead
mobile consumption
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