NEWS & VIEWS
November 2018
Singapore makes
its presence felt at
MIPCOM 2018
CANNES – At last month’s MIPCOM 2018
held in Cannes, France, Singapore’s Info
comm Media Development Authority of
Singapore (IMDA) left the biggest ever dele
gation of 19 Singapore media companies.
Collectively, these companies presented
over 460 hours of compelling stories from
Singapore and Asia across some 70 titles.
For instance, First Man Out is a large-scale
survival series in 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) format,
produced by Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific
(DNAP) and Singapore’s Beach House Pic
tures as part of a partnership between DNAP
and IMDA. Other highlights included Wasted
Earth, a three-episode virtual reality (VR)
documentary by Singapore-based produc
tion company Sorahouse (Sora Media).
Wasted Earth takes viewers on an immer
sive 360-degree experience of spectacular
places in Asia, which have now turned into
wastelands at the hands of men.
Supported under a partnership between
IMDA and HBO Asia, Singapore production
house Zhao Wei Films produced Folklore,
a horror anthology gathering six well-
known directors — including Singaporean
filmmaker Eric Khoo from around Asia to
bring to life haunting tales based on Asian
supernatural beliefs.
IMDA will also be organising the Singa
pore Media Festival (SMF) in Singapore from
Nov 28-Dec 9 this year. A flagship annual
event, the SMF is South-east Asia’s leading
international media event that serves as a
platform to showcase and recognise the best
of Asian storytelling, bringing Asian talent
from around the region to network, connect
and collaborate.
According to IMDA, SMF has established
itself as a must-attend event, gathering influ
ential, promising and prominent names from
the region. In 2017, the festival welcomed an
attendance of more than 20,000 delegates
and festival attendees from over 50 countries.
Over the past four editions of SMF, more than
US$1 billion worth of deals and partnerships
have been made.
In line with the festival’s aim of driving
investment opportunities into the region
through collaborations, SMF 2018 will be
spotlighting the Philippines as its Country-
of-Focus, in celebration of the 100th year
of Philippine cinema this year. SMF 2018
will also highlight the country’s rich stories,
talents and achievements across all of its
constituent events.
White Paper @ www.apb-news.com
v The missing link
To cater for increasing bandwidth needs, more and more operators
have started to build fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks. According
to NetComm, connecting the last part of the network provides the
greatest challenge; there are a significant number of homes that are
currently underserved and looking for higher speed alternatives.
Reverse Powered Gfast Distribution Point Units (DPU), said
NetComm, offer the missing link between the fibre running in the
street and the copper lead-in, resolving all major concerns and
challenges operators have with other Gfast deployment options.
In this white paper, this new solution is introduced to cater to a greater number of
subscribers, and ultimately, increase the market share by winning more loyal customers
through offering high-speed broadband services in a quicker, most cost-effective way.
n NOVEMBER n MARCH November 14 - 16 March 4 - 7 NAB SHOW 2019
Royale Chulan Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
www.abu.org.my n MAY
March 12 - 14 COEX Exhibition Centre, Seoul,
South Korea
www.kobashow.com
INTER BEE 2018
Makuhari Messe, Tokyo, Japan
www.inter-bee.com
n DECEMBER
December 6 - 7
IABM ANNUAL
INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS CONFERENCE &
AWARDS 2018
Hilton Metropole,
Birmingham, UK
www.theiabm.org
2019
n FEBRUARY
February 26 - 28
BVE 20189
Excel London, UK
www.bvexpo.com
ABU DIGITAL
BROADCASTING
SYMPOSIUM 2019
CABSAT 2019
Dubai World Trade Centre
The UAE
www.cabsat.com
n APRIL
April 3 - 5
VIETNAM INT’L
BROADCAST & AV SHOW
(VIBA 2019)
Hanoi International Exhibition
Center, Vietnam
www.vibashow.com
April 6 - 11
Las Vegas Convention Center,
Nevada, USA
www.nabshow.com
May 22 - 25
KOBA 2019
n JUNE
June 18 - 20
CONNECTECHASIA2019
•BROADCASTASIA2019
Suntec Singapore
•COMMUNICASIA2019
Marina Bay Sands,
Singapore
www.connectechasia.com/
9
How can pay-TV
operators truly
capitalise on
the Android TV
opportunity?
A short time ago, I wrote a blog about
the impending digital denouement for
the pay-TV industry.
By that, I meant the tipping point
where operators sink or swim based
on the truly digital capabilities of their
backend, back-office, CMS, data ana-
lytics and cloud platforms.
The point where digital transfor-
mation stops being just a buzzword,
and where accelerated improvements
to the product and service portfolio,
technology, commercial and operating
models really start to happen.
This is all occurring in a context
where the very content bundle is be-
ing reinvented, likely evolving into
a platform-agnostic combination of
inherently skinny baseline packages
with a collection of OTT add-ons —
and presenting a clear opportunity for
TV operators to reinvent themselves
as super-aggregators, converging it
all back into one coherent experience.
And naturally, as part of this con-
versation, one inevitably comes across
leading client device ecosystems such
as Android TV, a newly emerging level
playing field upon which diverse con-
tent sources through their respective
apps naturally blend in the consumer’s
home.
Because it’s true that Google, in fine
tuning Android TV along the way, has
progressively addressed the concerns
of the market and created something
more flexible for operators.
And it’s true that, for some, it’s
already proven a watershed moment
— the opportunity to have an Operator
Tier branded user experience, Google
TV services, and direct carrier billing
to name a few, rolled into one. With
more than a million devices activated
every two months the momentum is
hard to ignore.
Of course, its broadening appeal to
operators of all sizes doesn’t necessarily
mean that it yields a perfect solution
without any further ado.
Operators using Android TV still
need to ensure any service built on the
platform is secure, protecting both the
content owners and consumers’ data.
There have also been concerns
that Google requires service providers
Ivan Verbesselt,
Senior
Vice-President,
Marketing,
NAGRA
to follow a fixed three-year update
scheme, with no support offered after
that. What does this imply? Perhaps
that a built-in obsolescence of the most
important Capex driver of any pay-TV
deployment may kick in earlier in the
deployment lifecycle. However, in a
BYOD model this may become less of
an issue since it more naturally matches
the device renewal cycle in consumer
electronics.
Ultimately, as Android TV contin-
ues to extend its reach across major
markets, operators will be shrewd to
first consider what it is that they will
have to give up.
For example, all of these benefits
might well be kept in check by the
idea of Google advancing into their
territory.
However, the risk of not exploit-
ing Android TV’s cost savings, fast
time-to-market, easier access to third-
party OTT apps de facto facilitating
a pragmatic super-aggregation role,
direct carrier billing, deep linking
for additional search benefits and
advanced voice-driven technology, is
increasingly deemed to be greater by
many operators.
But a TV ecosystem entails much
more than that. Operators must still
work with solution providers to find
those service-defining ingredients
that make a compelling pay-TV ser-
vice — including end-to-end multi-
device and multi-network content val-
ue protection such as NAGRA’s Security
Services Platform, and an engaging user
experience, as provided by NAGRA’s
OpenTV Signature Edition, a ready-
to-deploy, always evolved OTT TV
ecosystem driven by a business back-
end with the data analytics that enable
active content and service monetisa-
tion with Android TV . Only then can
pay-TV operators truly capitalise on
the Android TV opportunity. q