3 October, 2014

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Oct 3rd. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

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Christopher Slaughter CEO	It’s a bit of a technical story, but it could be precedent-setting. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission is reportedly considering changing the way it deals with OTT video providers, to treat them more like cable and satellite providers. The caveat seems to be that the OTT services must provide linear, not on-demand viewing. The move would help online services get cheaper access to network programming to become more competitive with pay TV operators. It’s not exactly a new debate, it’s been going on since the summer, but if the reports are correct, there are a lot of ramifications. Watch this space.
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	Governments around the world continue to try to cope with the growth of OTT television by extending broadcast regulatory nets to try to cover internet broadcasting. And the tech industry is conducting several guerrilla wars of resistance. This week brings two examples: in Canada, the regulatory commission is trying to order Netflix and Google to comply with its rules. And closer to us in Asia, Chinese tech companies are bellyaching about new regulatory strictures on OTT and set-top-boxes. In both of these countries, the pay-TV industry is already burdened with heavy political and “cultural” regulatory burdens, and the tech industry hopes they can find an umbrella to keep those particular brands of poison pepper spray off their heads…
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	By the way, the story about China above has an intriguing bit of info, about government efforts to force China’s industry to use a domestic-standard smart TV operating system (called TVOS). According to the TechinAsia blog, the Chinese government “has apparently chosen to push TVOS as China’s universal standard for video streaming on televisions.” TVOS seemed rather more mundane when it was first mooted a couple of years ago. So, I wonder what effect this policy direction will have on the Android-based ecosystem, which is the home of the exploding pirate TV app economy. Stay tuned.
Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore	FierceOnlineVideo brings us, “Retrans wars may break the pay-TV model, boost OTT as small operators go Internet-only”. About a year ago I was at a BBQ talking with an un-named employee of an un-named pay TV platform who indicated that his/her company didn’t really care too much about selling cable tv channels. As long as they were able to keep the broadband business with the consumer, they were happy. As a previous distributor of said channels this kind of talk was unsettling. Changing pay-tv models and changing technologies make for interesting times.
Desmond Chung Associate Director, PR & Communications	Big brother is watching us… or at least Big Marketers are. According to latest reports, Facebook has launched its Atlas advertising service, enabling it to better track its 1.3 billion users’ web browsing activity. This is a strategic move as new research reveals that interactive digital ads are yielding viewer engagement. But really, do you want ANYBODY to know you’ve been clicking on those Snuggie ads?
Sara Madera Director, Member Relations & Marketing	File this under truly creepy. Not only is Facebook’s new platform, Atlas, monitoring its own service but it is using the data to push targeted ads to other websites that you frequent. While ad firms believe this will make mobile advertising more effective, others think it may be the final straw for those tired of private information being sold. Enter Ello, a new site for engagement with promises of no ads. At 35,000 requests a day for the private site, they must be doing something right.
John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer	Meanwhile in London, Virgin Media has decided to take on the Premier League, asking UK regulatory agency Ofcom to force changes in the way the League slices and markets its live broadcast rights. This comes as the next contract cycle for Premier League broadcasts is expected to be launched a few months from now. Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockridge is coming to speak at the CASBAA Convention at the end of this month, and I’m sure he’ll be asked about this particular hot potato. (Shall we invite the Premier League to come, too?)