English Entertainment
Turner names Clement Schwebig CFO for APAC
MUMBAI: Turner Asia-Pacific has announced that Clement Schwebig has been promoted to chief financial officer, in addition to his current role as the SVP- business development licensing in China.
Shitiz Jain, SVP finance, has been leading Turner’s financial growth and planning, as well as assisting the regional management team to maximize financial results across the entire portfolio of Turner’s kids, news and general entertainment brands, and businesses in the region. Jain, who leaves the network on a high, will be pursuing a new opportunity at the end of June 2017.
Schwebig joined Turner Asia Pacific in 2013. Over the last three years, he has successfully led the company’s efforts to grow beyond its core business by creating new local and pan-regional channels, and in developing local content opportunities to further Turner’s presence in the market. He has also led Turner’s growth strategy across the region in the digital space, as well as Turner’s consumer products and location-based entertainment businesses.
Some of his recent notable achievements so far include Warner TV, Cartoon Network Amazone waterpark in Thailand, the acquisition and development of the Tuzki franchise and repositioning Cartoon Network’s consumer product business for growth.
“Clement is a seasoned media executive with substantial experience encompassing all aspects of business operations in TV broadcasting and production, including strategy, finance and sales. With his new responsibilities as CFO, Clément will play an even more active role in shaping the strategy and direction for Turner APAC as it transforms into a data informed, fan-centric media company,” commented Turner Asia Pacific president Ricky Ow.
“As a core member of my management team, Shitiz has provided invaluable strategic and financial counsel for the APAC and Turner International executive teams. We are very grateful for the significant contributions he has made, and his help in evolving the business rapidly in order to meet consumer demand and technological change. We wish him success in his next venture,” he added.
“I have truly enjoyed working with Ricky and the Turner team as we worked on transforming the network and developing new opportunities particularly in Kids and Asian entertainment. It has been a great experience,” said Jain.
“With his strong financial acumen and experience combined with his deep understanding our business in Asia Pacific, Clement is ideally suited to lead the finance operations of Turner APAC. I’m confident the financial management of our APAC business will continue to be very well managed in his capable hands and he will make even greater contributions in driving our APAC business forward,” added Trey Turner, Chief Financial Officer, Turner International. “I would also like to express our gratitude and appreciation for Shitiz’s strong leadership of Turner APAC finance operations over the last three years. He leaves us with very best wishes for his future endeavours.”
“I could not be more thrilled to be working with Ricky and Trey, and the rest of the Turner APAC team, as we chart new growth and opportunities during this exciting period for the industry,” said Schwebig, CFO and SVP Business Development, Licensing and China.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
