GECs
MPA: APAC pay TV growth to slowdown 2016-2025
MUMBAI: Slowdown. After years of dizzying speedy growth, the Asia-Pacific pay-TV industry is expected to grow at a very sedate average 5.8 per cent annually between 2016 and 2021, says leading industry analyst Media Partners Asia (MPA in its new report Asia Pacific Pay-TV & Broadband Markets, published today.
MPA projects pay-TV industry sales across 18 major markets in APAC to climb from $54 billion in 2016 to US$72 billion by 2021, rising thereafter to US $81 billion by 2025. The pace of pay-TV subscriber and revenue growth is slowing however, weakened by an economic slowdown and increasing competition from both legal and illegal alternatives. Pay-TV subscriber growth has declined or substantially decelerated in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in particular.
At the same time however, India and Korea remain two of the region’s largest and most scalable pay-TV opportunities. Revenue growth will also accelerate in Australia and the Philippines, largely thanks to subscriber growth.
However, MPA analysts have lowered subscriber growth forecasts across much of Southeast Asia, especially for Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, although ARPU (average revenue per user) should remain resilient in both Malaysia and Singapore.
The pay-TV industry in China, meanwhile, remains the largest in the region and is becoming increasingly digitalized. Pay-TV growth opportunities for broadcasters are limited however, due to increasing regulation as well as competition from free and paid online video services.
Elsewhere in the region, subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) services have had a negligible impact on pay-TV so far, despite the global launch of Netflix earlier this year, in addition to increasing competition among lower-priced regional and local SVOD services.
Most pay-TV subscribers downgrading or canceling pay-TV services are moving instead to illegal services, as well as to free, ad-supported options across both TV and online video.
At the same time, more pay-TV operators are rolling out connected set-top boxes that can incorporate OTT video services. In addition, some operators (telcos in particular) are aggressively hard-bundling video content, including pay-TV channels, with high-speed broadband. This is helping drive subscriber growth, especially in a number of Southeast Asian markets.
Commenting on the report, MPA executive director Vivek Couto said:
“Pay-TV providers are increasingly focused on repackaging and re-pricing both linear and on-demand services. Local and regional Asian programming is also becoming increasingly important. At the same time, sports, kids, infotainment and Hollywood movies will remain mainstays of the pay-TV bundle, although channels offering Hollywood TV series are being disrupted by both legal and illegal OTT. Few pay-TV operators have been able to capture or monetize large-scale online video viewing so far, although early results in Hong Kong and Korea are encouraging. The goal is driving the next cycle of customer growth and consumer spend. Pay-TV user interfaces and data analytics are improving, although often too slowly to effectively compete with legal and illegal OTT rivals. Increasingly, viable pay-TV operators will become drivers and targets for M&A and consolidation, as the worlds of pay-TV, broadband and OTT collide and converge in the wider context of media and telecoms.”
Ex-China, which remains a utility-oriented and highly regulated pay-TV market, Asia Pacific added 9.6 million net new pay-TV customers last year, the slowest pace of growth since 1997-98. MPA analysts project a spike to 10.4 million net additions ex-China this year, driven by government-mandated cable digitalization in India. Subscriber growth should decelerate again from next year onwards, moderating to between 4 million to 8 million net adds per annum between 2018 and 2022.
Including China, MPA sees total pay-TV subscribers in Asia Pacific growing from 567 million in 2016 to 764 million by 2025. Adjusted for multiple connections in a household, pay-TV penetration in Asia Pacific will grow from 55 per cent of TV households in 2016 to 61 per cent by 2025.
Digital pay-TV penetration in Asia Pacific will increase from 80 per cent of pay-TV subs in 2016 to 91 per cent by 2025, as pay-TV networks in most markets go 90-100 per cent digital, with the exception of India (70 per cent) and Pakistan (32 per cent) in the 18 markets covered in the report. HD penetration of digital pay-TV subs in Asia Pacific will grow from 30 per cent in 2016 to 46 per cent in 2025.
The fastest growing segment within the Asia Pacific pay-TV industry over 2016-21 will be value-added services (VAS), driven by VOD, as revenues climb at an 11 per cent CAGR over the next five years. Australia, China, Japan and Korea will be the biggest markets for VOD revenue growth. Malaysia will lead amongst smaller markets.
In standout pay-TV markets such as India and Korea, pay-TV subscription revenue growth will be driven by high volumes and a level of ARPU upside (partially offset by price competition). Higher yields will also boost subscription revenue growth in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
Pay-TV advertising will expand from US$11.6 billion in spend in 2016 to US$16.2 billion by 2021, with growth driven by markets with high levels of pay-TV penetration such as India and Korea, along with China. Meanwhile, pay-TV ad spend in Australia, Japan and Taiwan will remain material, although growth in each of these markets will soften. Malaysia and the Philippines will remain the standout markets for pay-TV advertising in Southeast Asia.
GECs
ZEEL overhauls sales structure to chase growth across TV and digital platforms
New structure sharpens digital push as viewing habits fragment fast
MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. is reshuffling its sales playbook as it looks to keep pace with a fast-changing media landscape, where audiences are scattered, screens are multiplying and advertisers are following the data.
According to media reports, the rejig is anchored in the company’s push to build a more integrated, data-led monetisation engine, one that can straddle both traditional television and fast-growing digital platforms with equal ease.
At the heart of the move is a reworked sales architecture designed to deliver cross-platform solutions. With connected TV gaining ground and digital consumption surging, ZEEL is aligning its teams to move quicker, think broader and sell smarter.
The restructuring is being led by chief operating officer, advertisement revenue, Sandeep Mehrotra, at a time when the company says it is seeing tremendous growth. The idea is simple: match the right talent to the right opportunity in a market that is anything but static.
As part of the overhaul, several long-serving executives have been elevated to chief sales officer roles across regions and content clusters. Sanjoy Chatterjee will head the east market, while Gunjarav Nayak takes charge of the west along with high-margin verticals such as hmg, brand works, intellectual properties and digital sales. Rajnish Gupta will oversee bengaluru and chennai markets alongside the kannada and tamil clusters.
In other key moves, Divjyot Dhanda will lead hyderabad and kochi markets and manage zee tv, zee keralam and the telugu cluster. Roshan Vasu Kotian will supervise a diverse portfolio including Zee Marathi, &tv, Zee Punjabi, Zee Anmol, Big Magic and Zee Biskope.
The company is also strengthening its bench, appointing national sales heads across retail, regional clusters, digital and brand solutions. Ankur Kapila’s appointment to lead digital sales signals a sharper push into a segment that continues to outpace traditional formats.
Behind the scenes, dedicated strategy and operations roles have been carved out for both linear and digital businesses. Nitin Shetty, Rajkiran Shrivastav and Priya Nambiar will take on key responsibilities to ensure the new structure runs with precision.
The broader aim is clear. ZEEL wants a bigger slice of advertising budgets that are steadily drifting towards digital and connected TV ecosystems. By integrating its offerings, the company hopes to deepen client relationships while unlocking new revenue streams.
The new structure takes effect immediately, with Mehrotra continuing to report to chief executive officer Punit Goenka and steer the company’s advertising revenue strategy. Senior executive Laxmi Shetty will support the transition, with her revised role expected to be announced soon.
In a market where content is everywhere but attention is scarce, ZEEL’s latest move is less about rearranging the org chart and more about staying in the game.
