APAC region update – Q2 2018
Director, APAC
Written by Peter Bruce Director, APAC IABM
This article was originally published in the IABM Journal (issue 105). Click here to view online.
For Asia, is UHD the most important thing or is it OTT?
Fresh back from the KOBA show in Seoul, you could be forgiven if you thought that the only issue facing the broadcast and media industry is the move to UHD; North Asia (S. Korea, PR China and Japan) is all focused on the production, transmission and distribution of 4K content. It seems that the move to IP is just a side issue – particularly when the main four TV stations in South Korea went on air with Quad 3G or 12G SDI UHD systems.
In March, I visited the SportelAsia conference, which was held in Singapore. The event is a content conference with small booths selling coverage of sporting events such as LaLiga, Bundesliga, NBA etc. I headed to the conference with a mission to understand how many sporting events are being covered in UHD now, and what plans there are for wider roll-out in the future.
You may ask yourself, why go to a content sales conference to understand a technical roll-out? The answer to the question is integral to the new IABM BaM™ Content Chain, in which a key component to the broadcast and media content chain is the ‘Monetize’ segment; the roll out of any technology must follow a business model that makes sense, and the commercial guys are ultimately going to make the call on UHD.
The nature of the conversations at the booths resulted in a change of direction for my research. Only two said that they were already running UHD programming, such as UFC on select fights with the pay per view offering. Most of the other programmers explained that they have no plans at present and will react to the demand when it comes. However, what was utterly unanimous was the importance of getting onto all platforms. And they are all questioning if the better way to go was to have a direct relationship with the consumer via apps and internet pay per view platforms – effectively cutting out the cable and TV networks altogether. This is a difficult issue for those events that already have commercial contracts in place via those networks.
The conference had some great speakers, but for me the highlight was the keynote speech by Chatri Sityodtong, CEO of ONE Championship. The title was ‘How ONE Championship became Asia’s largest global sports media property in history’. Mr Sityodtong’s presentation was about his life journey – how he “escaped the clutches of extreme poverty growing up as a young boy in Thailand” and is now running the fastest growing martial arts channel, which is expected to outgrow viewership from incumbents such as WWE and AFC. His story was compelling, however the technology take-away was that he set up at a time when OTT services were coming of age. He could bypass the established cable networks and have a direct relationship with consumers through sign up and viewing via the internet and Apps; this has enabled phenomenal growth within South East Asia in particular. In an interview with me he expressed that “the timing was perfect when I started up. The ability to view on any device has allowed us to become a global broadcaster to over 1 billion homes across 118 countries around the world” – importantly without having those complicated contracts with established TV stations and cable networks.
It is clear that broadcast and media companies’ operating and business models have been changing for years. As we enter BroadcastAsia 2018, there will be many end-users attending from South East Asia to review the technologies on show and set budgets for not only this year, but for the following years too. Even the state broadcasters across the region are feeling the pinch as the old advertising model is no longer the rock-solid proposition it once was. If terrestrial broadcasters want to survive, they will have to rapidly be on all devices to keep the eyeballs. Across the region, the take up of smart devices is still escalating as the growth of the middle class continues, while devices from Chinese suppliers are getting more affordable. This is combined with the growth of Internet penetration within South East Asia, enabling the escalation in the change in viewing habits away from terrestrial TV to mobile devices.
South East Asia is poised to be a leader in mobile internet usage in 2018, according to a report by Google and Temasek. From the report the two focused take-aways are that:
- Consumers in Southeast Asia spend more time on the mobile internet than in any other market; on average, consumers in Southeast Asia spend 3.6 hours per day on mobile internet. Thailand leads the pack with 4.2 hours per day, followed by Indonesia at 3.9 hours per day. For context, consumers in the US spend an average of two hours per day on the mobile internet
- Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing emerging smartphone markets. The region is poised to reach 480 million internet users by 2020, according to TechCrunch. And smartphones make up the lion’s share of South East Asia’s internet population – roughly 90% of South East Asia’s internet users are smartphone users.
It is clear that UHD is coming. However, the business model has to make sense first – especially where consumers are wanting to view on mobile devices. The survivors will be those that can get their content to those devices. As we know, business models will need to change from Capex to Opex, but in the South East Asia region it is clearly a higher priority to address OTT than the drive to UHD we are seeing in North Asia.
KOBA 2018
The 28th annual KOBA exhibition – Korea International Broadcast, Audio and Lighting Equipment Show – was held between the 15 and 18 May at COEX in Seoul, South Korea. The attendance this year was 41,616, which is slightly up from last year. The organizers reported 927 exhibiting companies from 32 countries.
Attendance at KOBA has leveled out in the last few years at just above 40,000. This is mainly a Korean event, with local South Korean vendors and dealers with their own stands and most overseas vendors located on their local dealers’ stands. As many principal companies have been merged or acquired over the years, several dealers/ resellers are now representing the same brands, creating more competition. There were also new companies such as Brightcove and Ooyala attending the exhibition and conference.
KOBA includes both a conference and exhibition and is a joint event co-organized by Korea E & EX and KOBETA (The Korea Broadcasting Engineers & Technicians Association). This year’s theme was “Media Connected Everywhere”; for sure, the industry is converging and both the conference and exhibits reflected this.
The exhibit area was spread across three of COEX’s four halls and covered just under 28,000 square meters. The exhibition is organized on two levels, with the Pro Audio and lighting equipment on Level 1 in Hall A, and Halls C and D on Level 3 housing the production and broadcast equipment exhibits. There appeared to be less LED screens in Hall A, with the space mostly filled with audio and lighting solutions.
In 2017, South Korea rolled out UHD transmission via ATSC 3.0; not surprising then that all the booths in Halls C and D were exhibiting UHD solutions. Local company K2E exhibited its 12Gig SDI transmission solution, of which they have an impressive reference list of over 15 such switchers being delivered. There was a feeling around the show that TV stations will need to invest in UHD. However, this will take time – unlike the previous big move from Standard Definition to High Definition. It was clear that the larger broadcasters such as KBS and MBC had plans for UHD investment, although this will be a trickle. Of course, the road to IP workflows was also being reviewed by many attendees. KBS is currently installing an IP system, so it is clear that, although South Korea has SDI UHD systems out there already, IP workflows are on the way.
KOBETA held a conference under the theme of “Media Connected Everywhere”, which was well attended. Main broadcasters (SBS and MBC) gave case studies that showed the practical moves to 4K. There were also sessions on new media, IP, cloud computing and OTT workflows from AWS.
We should not forget that, to match the higher quality UHD video transmissions, audio also needs to up its game, and the Pro Audio Zone in Hall A was thus showing improved audio solutions from member companies such as Yamaha and Sennheiser. Hall A continues to grow from strength to strength. The area also included lighting and screens for the events sector, which was well attended.
Although some of the booths from the more traditional broadcast suppliers appeared smaller, exhibitors could see real investment in the broadcast sector as the industry moves to 4K and IP.
