iWorld
Avia concludes OTT Summit, gives hope for growth in Asia
Mumbai: Asia Video Industry Association’s (Avia) latest OTT summit has come to an end with much optimism for growth in Asia and a strong focus on content and the consumer.
To make this event a success, Avia hosted over 850 delegates and featured over 80 industry leaders at the OTT summit this year. The panelists were involved in conversations around the subject of growth, from subscriber and revenue growth to increased local content investment and an intense focus on the customer. The adage ‘Content is King’ was very much heard throughout the summit.
Media Partners Asia co-founder and executive director Vivek Couto indicated that there’s a lot of room for growth in the OTT space. “With most markets having an SVOD household penetration of less than 50 per cent, there was certainly an upside for Southeast Asia and some parts of North Asia as well,” he highlighted.
He added, “While the region remained bullish on growth, the average revenue per user remained low, particularly in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and India. As such, some tiers and price increases would be introduced along the way, especially when the premium sport started to be added to the platforms,”
In MPA’s review of share of first-title consumption, premium local content was a key driver for customer acquisition, particularly in Indonesia and Thailand, with local content that showed some travelability, and as expected, Korean content traveling very well, and some Japanese content as well.
This focus on content continued through to the fireside chat with Paramount Global SVP, head of office and streaming for Asia Catherine Park. She reiterated that their “mission is to unleash the power of the content with the belief that content is king.”
“With different go-to-market strategies to unlock maximum value, Paramount Plus planned to launch first in Korea with CJ ENM, then Japan as the next market followed by Southeast Asia in 2023. Park also shared Paramount’s ‘glocal’ strategy – to have global vision but with local execution,” she noted.
The importance of being local was also echoed by many panelists, as Asia could not be seen as one homogenous market. Discover Inc business development associate director Sagar Pandit feels that “when you gun for growth, especially in Asia, it’s about tailoring your approach for every region but keeping your consumer at the front and centre of whatever you are doing. And with increasing fragmentation in Asia, customer obsession became a key part of the strategy, as more platforms leveraged technology to deliver personalised experiences.”
Taking the conversation ahead, Mediacorp chief commercial and digital officer Parminder Singh explained the three things a customer looked at. He said, “Customers look for highly personalised and relevant content, and new virtual interactive experiences, all built into one single experience, with the use of technology that would allow you to bring all of this to the customer.”
“If you are only delivering a straightforward service, you are going to be left behind,” asserted Disney+Hostar head of technology, Akash Saxena.
However, the challenge to integrate it all into an operator’s platform for a seamless experience very much remained, calling for perhaps greater aggregation and bundling for the OTT industry, as we started to see some fatigue from consumers working with multiple services to meet their content needs.
Closing off the summit with bold predictions for the future of streaming Viacom 18 digital ventures COO Gourav Rakshit remained very optimistic, sharing that a large bet that platforms had not fully capitalised on was the area of media becoming social, with the opportunity to build communities. “We’ve really made rapid strides in the last five years, the next five will be focusing a lot more on delivering consumer delight,” Rakshit remarked.
The summit was supported by Gold Sponsors Brightcove, Lumen Technologies, Synamedia, TV5MONDE, Xandr and Silver Sponsors Akamai, Amagi, Broadpeak, BytePlus, Discovery, Encoding.com, Endeavor Streaming, Irdeto, Magnite, Mediacorp, Mirada, NAGRA, Nielsen, PubMatic and Vindicia.
iWorld
Why Peaky Blinders is one of television’s biggest hits that still deserves more attention
Six seasons, multiple awards and the release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man bring the Shelby saga back into the spotlight
In the crowded universe of streaming content, only a handful of shows manage to leave a lasting cultural footprint. Peaky Blinders is overwhelmingly considered one of the biggest global hits of the past decade. Yet many viewers still haven’t fully explored the dark, gripping world of the Shelby family.
Originally produced for the UK’s BBC and later finding a massive global audience through Netflix, the series quietly grew from a British period drama into a worldwide streaming phenomenon.
Created by Steven Knight, the show follows the rise of the Shelby crime family in post-First World War Birmingham. What begins as a gritty street-gang story gradually expands into a sweeping narrative about ambition, politics, power and survival.
At the centre of the saga is Thomas Shelby, portrayed with extraordinary depth by Cillian Murphy. The casting of Murphy is widely regarded as perfect for the role. With piercing eyes, restrained dialogue and an almost hypnotic screen presence, he transforms Shelby into one of the most unforgettable characters in modern screen storytelling.
Murphy’s brilliance lies in his restraint. He rarely shouts or performs theatrically. Instead, a quiet stare, a calculated pause or a subtle shift in expression conveys the emotional storms within the character. Beneath the ruthless gang leader is a war veteran carrying trauma, guilt and loneliness. Murphy captures this complexity with remarkable precision, making Thomas Shelby both terrifying and deeply human.
Beyond its central performance, Peaky Blinders stands out for its unfiltered portrayal of reality. The show does not romanticise crime. Instead, it exposes the harsh social conditions of early 20th-century Britain, from poverty and class struggle to political extremism and the psychological scars left by war.
The series also presents powerful female characters who hold their own within the Shelby empire. Polly Gray, played by Helen McCrory, is the strategic backbone of the family and one of the most formidable figures in the story. Women in the series shape decisions, influence power structures and challenge the rigid social norms of the time.
Across six seasons, the narrative grows dramatically in scale. What begins in the smoky streets of Birmingham evolves into a story involving political conspiracies, fascism and international criminal networks.
The series has also earned significant critical acclaim. It won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2018 and multiple National Television Awards for Best Drama, cementing its reputation as one of Britain’s most celebrated modern shows.
Another defining feature of the series is its iconic music. The show’s opening theme, Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, became instantly recognisable and widely associated with the Shelby universe. Combined with a powerful soundtrack featuring artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, the music helped shape the show’s dark, stylish identity and became hugely popular among fans.
And the Shelby story is not over yet.
In fact, its legacy is unfolding right now. The long-awaited feature-length continuation, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was released on March 6, 2026, bringing the Shelby universe from streaming screens to cinemas and giving fans a new chapter in the saga.
For viewers who have not yet stepped into this world, the timing could not be better.
Six gripping seasons are ready to binge on Netflix. A new film has just arrived in theatres. And at the heart of it all stands one of the most magnetic performances in modern drama by Cillian Murphy.
So if Peaky Blinders has been sitting on your watchlist for years, this weekend is your moment.
So, by order of the Peaky fookin’ Blinders, consider this your cue to finally step into the ruthless world of Thomas Shelby. Pour yourself a drink, clear your schedule and press the play button. Because when the Peaky Blinders give an order, you listen.
