the
channel
|
39
2004 has been good toAsia’s cable, satellite and broadband TV industries.
Thedeployment of digital platforms continues,more channels and compelling
content are coming tomarket, subscriber numbers are growing, ARPU and
pay-TV advertising revenues are rising and regulators are generally reacting
positively to industry needs. The value of digital and broadband platforms to
broadcasters, to subscribers and to the community at large is becoming self-
evident. Of course, the landscape is uneven. Indeed, it’s as various as the
regional geography covered by the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting
Association of Asia (CASBAA), the 130 companies that CASBAA represents
and the needs of the 180million subscribers tomulti-channel services in the
Asia Pacific. But the news is undoubtedly upbeat and the atmospherics are
positive for the rest of 2004 andwell into 2005.
In late 2003, the CASBAACouncil of Governors, theAssociation’s policy-
driving body, set the agenda for the following 12 months, including a call to
significantly ramp-upCASBAA’s regulatory activity.Atransparent and stable
regulatory environment is essential if growth is to be sustained in anymarket.
Thus the battle against pay-TV piracy across Asia has truly been joined with
CASBAA’s lobbying and legal initiatives addressing the issue inmarkets as
diverse as India, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines. To that end, in
October 2003 CASBAA released the first credible estimates of the cost of
piracy to the pay-TV industry in Asia – a gross figure US$1.2 billion – and
new estimates are now being compiled showing no slowing in last year’s
11%per year growth forecast. The 2004 estimateswill be released during the
CASBAA2004Convention inHongKongon27October.
Gettingserious
Just four years ago, most of the then seven-year-oldAsia Pacific pay-TV
businesshadyet topenetratemore than20%of the region’s fourteenmarkets.
While Taiwan could boast of an 80%+ reach for cable TV, the likes of Korea,
Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, Australia, new Zealand, the
Philippines and Singapore were barely in sight of the 20%mark. Pay-TV
platforms were a new and rather impenetrable entertainment option for
hundreds of millions of consumers in the region.
Today, however, vast swathes of theAsiaPacific regionare familiar with cable,
satellite and broadband pay-TV services. Success – and familiarity with the
product – really does breed success. In 2004, the Asia Pacific industry is
producing an annual turnover of close to US$20 billion per year. Such
revenues are bound to attract “bad elements” wanting to crack the value
chain – and they are succeeding partly thanks to a lack of robust regulatory
enforcement, technical weaknesses and a paucity of public understanding
of the implications of widespread intellectual property rights piracy, including
the theft of pay-TV signals either by individuals or, in some cases, by multi-
million dollar corporations.
While the deployment of digital pay-TV platforms has created technical
hurdles for the pirates, inmany cases such barriers have been proved to be
only temporary and regulations and enforcement are clearly required as
support. That proved to be the case in Australia where it was estimated just
12months ago that more than 10%of all pay-TV subscriptions were pirated.
Today, that figure is believed to have dropped dramatically as the authorities
have stepped in to address trading in illegal equipment and end-user liability
has been introduced for those found with unauthorised equipment.
A less satisfactory position has emerged in Thailand, where thanks to lax
regulation and enforcement, there are nowmore illegal connections to pay-
TV services than legal connections. The result? A 2003/2004 gross revenue
leakage in Thailand that will easily top US$30 million. At times the problem
has been so acute that growth of the licensed cable operator has stalled in
the past 12 months and was at one point declining. Today, there are about
500,000 legal connections to the pay-TV platform in Thailand. Unauthorised
connections are estimated to top 1.5million subscribers.
Addressingtheproblem
As with other IPR issues the solutions are piecemeal, but taken as a whole
can at minimum control the problemand can even roll back the tide of theft.
Technology is the back-end of the solution to pay-TV piracy in an Asian
environmentwheredigital ingenuity isnowagiven,and labourcostsremain low
byglobalstandards.Thedeploymentofdigitalandbroadbandconditionalaccess
systemsarenowseenbyallpartiesasessentialtoretainingcontrolof intellectual
propertyrightsforallkindsofpay-TVandvideo-on-demandservices.Thevendors
ofthesesystemsoftensupporttheirclientswithon-the-groundspecialistswhose
task is to identify security breaches and their perpetrators.
Clear and flexible regulation is another
pillar of the fight against piracy. Certainly,
governments across theAsiaPacific have
a far clearer conception of the
consequences of inadequate regulations
for the pay-TV industry, just as they
developed them for the traditional
telecoms industry. Without a robust and
transparent regulatory environment
investment levels remain low, taxes
remain uncollected and the development
that should inevitably follow improved
communication systems fails to emerge.
Pressures brought from
the outside can also help
with trade negotiations
(such as those for WTO
entry and Free Trade
Agreements with the US
and the EU) increasingly
being predicated by a
strong IPR environment.
Community education is
probably the poor relation in the fight against pay-TV piracy in Asia. While
governments and the industry itself occasionally undertake public campaigns
highlighting theperniciouseffectsof stolensignals, thecampaigns todatehave
been intermittent and require significantly higher investment if they are tohave
anything close to a genuine effect on public perceptions. CASBAA, working
with its network partners, will roll out its first anti-piracy TVC in early June.
Meanwhile, CASBAA remains engaged on specific anti-piracy issues with
regulators, legislators and IPR enforcement agencies in regional markets:
India
– InMay 2004, undertook a second industry-endorsed submission to
new regulator, TRAI, on the parameters of a new pay-TV regulatory
structure for India. Most importantly CASBAA and its member
organisations recommended the market-driven deployment of digital
conditional access technologies to regularise the Indian pay-TV industry
which currently suffers an estimated loss of US$600 million per year
thanks to the under-reporting of pay-TV subscriber revenues by local
cable operators to content providers.
Thailand
– InApril 2004, CASBAAmadea submissiononpiracy issues to the
USGovernment’s trade office (USTR) on behalf of the industry. InMay
2004, the Association scheduled a CASBAA delegation of senior
executives to Bangkok tomeet withministers, regulators andUS trade
officials. Bangkok-based cableoperator, UBC, amember of CASBAA, is
investingmore than US$2million per year in fighting piracy in Thailand
with the help of the Association.
Hong Kong
– CASBAA has been in long-term dialogue with Hong Kong
government on regulatory environment and anti-piracy measures,
including follow-up civil actions against traders in illegal equipment and
public venues unlawfully screening satellite TV services. This will be
supported by an up-comingmedia campaign.
Philippines
–CASBAA iscurrentlycoordinatingcivilandcriminalprosecutions
of pirate cable operators and the distributors of unauthorised pay-TV
equipment, plus an upcomingmedia campaign.
Vietnam
– Follow-up on recent ExecOffice visit to Vietnameseministries on
IPR and other issues. It is notable that, while new IPR legislation was
passed into law in late 2003, in recent months a DTT pay-TV platform
has been launched in Vietnam which has approximately 100,000
subscribers and distributes 18 international channels – but currently
pays no fees to content providers.
In upbeat mood
CASBAA
in action -
above
Marcel Fenez
,
Chairman, CASBAA with
Michelle Guthrie
,
CEO, STAR Group on the CASBAA Panel
at FICCI FRAMES, India in March;
below
representatives of Channel News Asia and
Synovate at a CASBAA networking event
in Hong Kong
CASBAA Chief Executive
Simon Twiston-Davies
reports on the cable
and satellite industries in Asia
The
CASBAA Convention 2004
- 27-29 October - is the
largest pay-TV (and related) industry gathering in the Asia
Pacific, including three days of conferencing for 400 CEO/
decision-making regional delegates. This event is used by
many companies as their annual opportunity to meet
clients and associates. Media coverage is extensive, and a
high priority for the organisers.
w w w . c a s b a a . c o m
