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The APOS conference in Bali ended yesterday after a series of talks from the biggest players in Asia, and the main theme to merge was a cry for collaboration in streaming.
The likes of Warner Bros Discovery, Prime Video, U-Next, Viu and Canal+ all talked up partnerships as a key route to engaging and attracting subscribers during their sessions at the luxurious Ayana Resort in Indonesia.
Gaurav Gandhi, Vice President, Asia Pacific & MENA for Prime Video, told delegates that the APAC region was one where Amazon is at “different stages,” meaning “strategies differ depending on where the journey is.”
In a session also including Yosuke Ishibashi, Head of Content for Prime Video Japan, Gandhi talked through Amazon’s path from being a goods provider to a content provider. He said that in Japan, it was “super important to think about partnership and collaboration.”
Among the six key “pillars” of Prime Video Japan was the channels business, which had brought more popular anime platforms on to its service and noted that original manga series adaptation Oshi No Ko had first been released on the service, with its sequels going out theatrically first through a partnership with Toei. Similarly, he noted The Silent Service, its first original Japanese movie, was first released as a film through Toho before a longer-form series went out on the streamer.
Warner Bros Discovery President of APAC James Gibbons was equally keen to talk collaborative efforts. Earlier this week, it was announced Max would rollout in five territories across the APAC region, including in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia following its debut on Wednesday in Japan through a deal with local streamer U-Next.
“We believe strongly that content is not only essential to audiences in APAC, but also it plays a key role with audiences globally,” said Gibbons. “We want to make sure we either have the content or have an adjacency with the content. In the U-Next case, the Max service sits alongside a very broad U-Next service.”
In tandem, WBD and U-Next will acquire content from Japan that will sit on Max globally. “It’s a two-way street,” said Gibbons. “We’re working with partners to take content global.
He noted that the Southeast rollout would be achieved through “a combination of the direct service and also working with partners in a range of models.”
U-Next COO Toshi Honda explained the deal from his company’s point of view during a keynote address. “It not only allows us to deliver to serve some of the best premium content from Hollywood, but we can introduce Japanese content around the world,” he said.
U-Next, which has around 4 million subscribers in Japan, is following a strategy of “total coverage,” said Honda. This meant owning the “largest volume of content by a wide margin, especially for local and U.S. films and anime,” and adding services such as news, including the recent launch of BBC News on the platform. He also pointed to an exclusive, seven-year deal for the English Premier League and FA Cup soccer that was struck over the summer.
India ‘does not reward global models’
Viacom18 execs Kiran Mani and Kevin Vaz used their session yesterday to urge international players to understand the Indian market before they attempted to enter, or risk failure. The likes of Netflix and Prime Video have both established themselves the market, while Paramount, which sold its stake in Viacom18 to Reliance earlier this year, opted not to launch Paramount+ in the country.
“For anyone coming in, global models don’t apply to India,” said Mani, Viacom18’s CEO of Digital Ventures. “If you try U.S. dollar pricing and don’t show commitment to India, India does not reward. We will bring the audience, but we need partners who are in it to win it together. That is a 5-10 year partnership.”
Vaz, CEO of Viacom18 Broadcast Entertainment, noted India was a market of “22 local languages and about 58 social/cultural regions,” adding: “You cannot look at that as one. You could look at it [more] as the European Union.”
Mani said Indian subscription streaming remains in its infancy, despite the explosion of streaming in the country over the past five or so years.
“There are a billion-plus people [in India] and the entire subscriptions market is about 50 million,” he said. “People walk away thinking it’s not a subscriptions market. The one thing India across industries has taught you is Indians take four, five or six years to get comfortable and willing to unlock their wallets.
“Entertainment is in that phase where people are experimenting, but even the payment gateways are not the most trusting. Many of the reasons holding back subscriptions are not to do with content, but people trusting payment systems, trusting the platforms. Many of the platforms in the OTT space, ours included, I don’t think have earned the right of that trust in terms of content variety, stability, making sure security features are coming in and finally pricing. This is not a market you can skim and then go away. I don’t think collectively we have done justice to this.”
All the talk of collaboration and partnership seemed apt, given that Vivek Couto, APOS host and Executive Director and co-founder of analyst Media Partners Asia (MPA), told delegates in an earlier address: “Never before has Asia been more exciting, but, also, never before has Asia been more diverged from the rest of the world, as billions of consumers go on their own journey.”
APOS ran from September 24-26, attracting hundreds of the biggest companies from entertainment and technology in the APAC region. Run by Couto’s MPA, it has established itself as a forum for the top players in the region to openly discuss their strategies, challenges and goals. Many top global execs, including James Murdoch and Warner Bros Discovery international chief Gerhard Zeiler have spoken at the even over the years. This year, names such as Raine Group partner and co-founder Joe Ravitch, Canal+ International CEO Jacques du Puy and Paramount licensing chief Lisa Kramer all spoke on stage.
