Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF) is Asia’s one of the leading entertainment content event. It is the premier stage in Asia to engage with the entertainment industry’s top players from around the world. It’s where the best minds meet and the future of Asia’s content is shaped, with a calibre to acquire knowledge, network, buy, sell, finance, distribute and co-produce across all platforms.
For industry players looking to strengthen their presence in Asia and regional businesses seeking to broaden their global reach, ATF is a must-attend event where the global entertainment industry’s top players will congregate. ATF offers the opportunity to discover vital trends, crucial statistics and significant foresight in TV’s digital, kids and formats arenas. Its business matchmaking opportunities open doors to some of the best new offerings in the region, presenting valuable business prospects for top of the line benefits.
The 19th edition of Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF) has seen tremendous success with 58 countries and regions, 19 pavilions, more than 5,600 executives and over 313US$ million deals made during the four-day event. The market was equally vibrant and rich this year, with the latest content for multiple platforms from content sellers and buyers from over 60 countries. Additionally, networking activities on the market floor provided opportunities for buyers and sellers to meet their desired counterparts.
The ATF and ScreenSingapore commenced with a conference-the ATF Leaders’ Summit focusing on ‘The Next New’ on 4 December. The sessions delivered forward-looking strategies and featured prominent players in the industry.
The Leaders’ Summit began with Huawei Technologies global content cooperation head, Ju Jian addressing the audience about ‘Building a Global Content Ecosystem: Driving the Video Industry Development’. His session informed:
- Huawei holds the fifth position in China in video services and has a wide range of partners from TV producers to OTT players and others.
- Huawei has introduced Chinese content to Italy and Spain, being the first ones in China to take their local content beyond the barriers.
- They’re building a global video content ecosystem for which they have deployed a local team in Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria and so on.
- Huawei has 200 content partners across the world, both international and local to aggregate and distribute content, connecting consumers across the globe.
The next session focused on ‘The New Buyers’ that had Jian, MX Player CEO Karan Bedi in the panel, moderated by Blue Hat Ventures founder and CEO Rob Gilby. This session focused on content strategy in the new ecosystem involving players who are tapping massive consumers by going out of the box. Highlights:
- MX Player has over 270 million active and diverse users. They have lot of market shares in smaller cities of India as well.
- Their coverage market is unique as the focus is mainly on the size of the market and Indian internet – “Data led but programming driven”.
- Catering to larger audience on TV, specifically, the younger generation. Planning a slate of 20-30 originals in the next few months.
- Huawei has long term plans for smartphone users keeping in mind the territorial requirements.
- Continuing to innovate and develop their local and global content library by focusing on video business operation.
The third session looked into the ‘Growing and internationalising the Chinese content market’ with iQIYI senior VP Yang Xianghua and Asia Society Policy Institute content strategist Jonathan Landreth as the moderator.
- With China’s online streaming platform reaching high, iQIYI is one of the market leaders who’re expanding their horizons with multicultural content.
- 70 per cent users across the world watch content streaming online through 600 million userbase.
- Though most of the chinese consumers prefer local content, Hollywood movies are quite popular.
The following session found Turner Asia Pacific president Ricky Ow, HBO Asia CEO Jonathan Spink along with Infocomm Media development chief industry developer officer Howie Lau, talking about ‘Market Leaders: Managing change in the dynamic market’ where they discussed how they have been able to maintain their short-term goals while keeping an eye on the big picture, amid the ongoing massive market re-alignment and a fast-changing digital space. Pointers:
- Explosion in Asian content in the global market as story-telling continues to grow on SVOD platforms. The trend will possibly get more popular in 2019.
- Indian, Korean, Chinese and so on are very popular content hubs in Asia.
- Kids content is gaining momentum with every passing day. Especially short form content.
- Localisation is done in the manner suitable for particular format and brand.
Among the Keynotes were Curiosity Stream CCO Steve Burns, QYOU India media industry advisor Andy Kaplan and QYOU CEO and co-Founder Curt Marvis. With programming distributed on six continents to millions of customers, QYOU is emerging as a leader in the rapidly expanding global distribution of premium short form video.
On the other hand, the world’s first streaming service dedicated to curating and delivering premium factual content was also represented at the Summit by its chief content officer, Burns, who is responsible for Curiosity Stream’s entire library of more than 2,000 documentary features and series. Curiosity Stream source from broadcasters, content producers, across Europe, Asia, Mexico, US and produces 20 per cent of it in house.
And as digital platforms continue to transform the way audiences consume content, a new breed of companies coined as the second wave in digital, were well-represented by their executives. A survey that was shown informed that people prefer 17-20 minutes short form content the most.
In the keynote by Propagate Content USA founder and co-CEO Howard T Owens giving key insights on local production and new platforms in today’s next legion of platforms in the world of entertainment.
Two key personnel from another Chinese online video giant, iQIYI, also delivered insights at the ATF Leaders’ Summit – Senior Vice President Yang Xianghua and Vice-President Chen Xiao.
This year’s ATF Leaders’ Summit also saw the presence of Twitter (APAC) head of Sports Partnerships, Aneesh Madan, ABS CBN Corporation CEO and president Carlo Katigbak, Cignal TV CMO Guido Xavier R. Zaballero, HOOQ CEO Peter Bithos, Globecast CEO and chairman Philippe Bernard and Vincent Reyes and Philippines’ TV5 president and CEO discussing about the transcending the traditional in Live Sports. Live sports compliment the broadcasters and in such an instant Fox earned quite a good amount with every game being tweeted during World Cup. Adding to that is, social media platforms like Twitter was very popular during these tournaments.
