improving the thai television sector in the face of asean economic community
TRANSCRIPT
Special Seminar and Focus Group on “Improving Thai Television Sector in the face of ASEAN Economic
Community”27 March 2015
Conference Room 1, Conference Building Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications
Commission (NBTC) Bangkok, THAILAND
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Dr John Ure
Director, TRPC Ltd (Singapore)
Director, TRP
Social Science Research Centre
University of Hong Kong
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AGENDAAGENDA
• Technologies, access and delivery systems
• Business models and regulatory challenges
• The economics of AV and copyright issues
• The audio-visual market, services and trade
• The digital dividend
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Not too much for Muchie!
This is Muchie, a two-year old girl from the Philippines
She taught herself •Numbers•Colours•Names of animals and how they sound •Parts of the human face
at the age of 1½ years on
YouTube
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The AV JigsawThe AV Jigsaw
Broadcast TV
Internet
Social mediaSmartphone
Multi-platform
Apple TV
Web TV
Amazon TV
Netflix
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The AV Evolution
Fixed telephony
WirelessBroadcast
Fixed backendFixed backend
Wireless frontendWireless frontend
Radio spectrum issuesRadio spectrum issues
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AV Technologies, Access and AV Technologies, Access and DeliveryDelivery
Technologies Digital + HDInternet + HDMI
Access TV setsPCs Wireless devices such as tablets, smartphones, games consoles, etc.Linear vs. non-linear
Delivery 1. Broadcast vs. streaming2. Linear vs. non-linear3. OTA broadcast, cable/Satellite, VOD,
IPTV, Web TV, Mobile TV, OTT, CDNs, social media/YouTube, DVDs, etc.
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Business models and regulatory challenges
Regulatory How to define the market?•By audience?•By revenue sources?•By cross-elasticity? (what are the close substitutes?)
Linear Broadcast (subs + ads) + syndication + sales (DVDs, etc.) + re-broadcast rights
Non-linear Broadcast (subs + ads) + IPRs (how easy to monitor/enforce especially across jurisdictions?) + ratings to cover all views? + merge, partner, sponsor social media? 7
• Globally, on average around 50% of TV revenues come from ads.
(Ref. ADB (2012) Audio-visual Services: International Trade and Cultural Policy)
• Domestic TV Regulation based upon social impact? (or social influence by
powerful interests? Economic, cultural, political, ideological factors) = what impact non-linear access and distribution?
Is competition seen as good or not-so-good? = choice? Innovation? Race to the bottom? Cultural marginalization?
Converged regulation? = real or not?• Global TV
Import market – by commercial agreement vs. cross-border spillage vs. Internet and the cloud?
Export market – need economies of scale and/or innovation
Business models and regulatory challenges
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Summary of regulatory issues
Regulations vary considerably across Asia – what is the criteria?
• Is there an independent regulator• Copyright protection• Restrictions on retransmission of
foreign channels/advertising• Uplink/downlink policies• Licence fees• Authorization of alternative
distribution platforms (can they be regulated?)
• Regulation of wholesale and retail rates
• Cross-media ownership restrictions
• Is programme tiering allowed?/a la carte programming mandatory?
• Pay TV ads allowed or not• Pay TV ad mintuage• Content control• Local content quotas• Regulations on language, dubbing,
subtitles• Exclusivity, ‘must provide’ and
‘must provide’• FDI limits on Pay TV wholesale or
distribution
See Casbaa Regulating for Growth 2012 (2014 for members only) http://www.chinagoabroad.com/sites/v2/files/article/attachment/Regulating%20for%20Growth%202012%20Chinese%20and%20English.pdf 9
The economics of AV and copyright issues
“… audio-visual services are non-rival and partly non-excludable. The latter characteristics imply that markets must be created through the establishment and enforcement of intellectual property rights. Cross border trade in audio-visual services is essentially transactions related to the right to distribute, view or listen to audio-visual content.”
Ref: Nordås, H. K. et al. (2014), “Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI): Audio-visual Services”, OECD Trade Policy Papers, No. 174, OECD Publishing http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jxt4nj4fc22-en
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Technology and Copyright
• Broadcast vs. streaming: Nielsen has agreed to revise audience ratings system to include non-linear audience estimates
Important for setting ad tariffs & therefore revenues Can copyright be enforceable over Paul Goldstein’s ‘Celestial
Jukebox’? (Copyright’s Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox – 2003) – the public-private use distinction remains critical
“… it would be a serious mistake for policy makers (and I include the courts) to reflexively reach for a new exemption or an expanded fair use any time copyright appears to stand in the way of the roll out of some new technology. It would be a mistake because the characteristic impediment in all of these cases is not copyright, but the transaction costs associated with securing licenses under copyright. The proper target, then, is not copyright, but transaction costs, and digital facilities, including the Internet, offer dramatic possibilities for reducing these transaction costs to close to zero.” (Paul Goldstein’s Copyright’s Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox – 2003 - see: http://www.sociallyawareblog.com/?s=Paul+Goldstein)
The economics of AV and copyright issues
“Despite international agreements, the will to actually implement and uphold copyright at ground level is not shared with equal enthusiasm in all territories around the globe. Countries such as, for example, the PRC and the Philippines have been characterized by weak enforcement of copyright related to audio-visual works and by high levels of piracy in recent years (Cocq and Levy 2006: 79; Edgecliffe-Johnson 2011). Digital piracy has been prevalent in Korea where levels of connection to an exceptionally well-advanced internet infrastructure are high (Ibid.) “ADB (2012) Audio-visual Services: International Trade and Cultural Policy
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Copyright Issues: Content & Control… Digital Media Project (Harvard)http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/techade/pdfs/Gasser2.pdf
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Audio-Visual services and Audio-Visual services and tradetrade
“Audio-visual services account for a relatively small share of GDP, between 0.5 and 1% in the countries for which information is available. Nevertheless audio-visual services are among the most globalised of all services industries and a sector where cross-border trade is vital. The proliferation of broadband internet services has brought new opportunities and challenges to the industry as well as to policy makers and regulators.”
Ref: Nordås, H. K. et al. (2014), “Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI): Audio-visual Services”, OECD Trade Policy Papers, No. 174, OECD Publishing http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jxt4nj4fc22-en
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Audio-Visual Services and Audio-Visual Services and TradeTrade
• “The STRI (Services Trade Restrictiveness Index) indices take values between zero and one, one representing a totally closed and zero a fully open sector. The results show that the overall index level is low to moderate with an average of 0.16 for sound recording, 0.18 for motion pictures and 0.28 for broadcasting. Limitations on movement of people account for a large share of the index value for most countries in sound recording. Motion pictures are relatively liberal on average, but there is substantial variation among countries. The highest scores are found in countries where there are foreign equity limits for movie theatres, producers or distributors; where there are quotas for local films in theatres or on television, or where national treatment is not granted for foreign suppliers.” 15
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The Digital Dividend
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ASO/DSO – Several factors influence the pace of adoption of DTT, and analogue switch-off
Consumer resistance to, and the cost of, upgrading TV receivers, buying DTT decoders or adopting Internet-connected devices
Technology developments in digital broadcasting, NGN mobile broadband, devices, advances in cognitive radio, etc.
Legacy issues, such as past allocations of bands to particular services or users, such as the military, government departments, emergency services, private users, etc.
Recommendations of the WRC12, WRC15, regional bodies such as ASEAN, and the outcome of bilateral and trilateral consultations between regulators, etc.
Future market demand for services which may vary
The progress of convergence, for example will emergency services require bandwidths to support future broadband apps such as streamed video?
Harmonization of frequency requirements to support regional roaming of services across compatible platforms
Other local conditions may play a part. For example, currently the Philippines are considering adopting the Japanese ISDB standard for DTT rather than the DVB standard
Source: IIC Asia Forum, The Digital Dividend in Asia – www.trpc.biz/forum
Penetration of Digital TV by OECD country as % TV households, 2011
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ASO in ASEAN
Economy Analogue Switch Over (ASO) ASEAN 2015-2020 – DVB-T 2 standard to be adopted and the ABU will collaborate on a
‘Colours of ASEAN’ HDTV programme initiative by 2013 http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/micacrd/speech/S-20120301-1.html ; the ASEAN Digital Broadcasting (ADB) meetings are chaired by Brunei Darussalam. The 10th ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Information meeting endorsed: 1. ASEAN adopts a phased approach towards ASO from 2015-2020 2. A common set of technical specs for standard digital STB for ASEAN 3. ASEAN Member States to co-produce digital content and promote exchanges of
content. http://www.mda.gov.sg/International/Pages/ASEAN.aspx
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