Video industry sees optimism amidst rationalisation, the continued importance of Asian content and AI everywhere

The Asia Video Summit, the marquee conference for the video industry, kicked off in Hong Kong this year from 13 – 14 March, as part of the HK Entertainment Expo.

The Summit opened with an overview on the state of video in Asia, and how scale had redefined the industry. Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Media Partners Asia, shared that the ecosystem had changed, and a new pecking order was in place, with the global digital giants dominating video action in APAC, with a total video and screen revenues of US$24.4B coming out of Asia in 2023.

Global demand for premium Asian content continued to grow substantially, with 1.4B active unique users worldwide consuming almost 14B hours of Asian content in 2023, equivalent to a global average of 9.9 hours per user. Asian content also drove significant viewership and acquisition in APAC, with Korean, Anime and Chinese content coming up tops. Couto also shared that Chinese short form drama may be the next big thing, with the domestic market having grown to half a billion in 2023.

For Karen Fu Binxing, CEO of Huace Group, one of China’s largest content producers, the increasing interest in Chinese content overseas filled her with optimism on the rise of Chinese content, with a view to focus more on international cooperations. Fu also added that AI was unstoppable and would bring changes to all aspects of production and broadcasting trends in the content industry.

Wang Yangbin, CEO, Vobile, similarly added that generative AI was a new frontier but believed that the core value of the ecosystem were the rights and the intellectual property, both of which needed to be protected effectively for the industry to grow. However, for Michael Kwan, Senior IP Enforcement Advisor, TVB, AI was very much seen as a double-edged sword, with both pirates and companies using AI to achieve their goals, and infringers using AI to automate piracy and bypass site blocking mechanisms.

AI as a topic came up organically throughout the summit. Kelvin Yau, President, APAC and Overseas Marketing, International Business Department, iQiyi, talked about the use of technology across the company to help the business. By listening to social trends, AI enabled social media posts to be done quickly, to help promote their shows and satisfy what people were curious about. “It was a sprint race before, now it’s a marathon. How do you win the marathon in keeping the pace, changes the whole game,” said Yau.

James Gibbons, President, Asia Pacific, Warner Bros. Discovery, stressed the importance of focusing on both growth and profitability for streaming in APAC. Gibbons also added that the reason the pay TV model worked so well was due to its dual revenue streams, and this needed to be recreated for streaming. The fact that advertising in a premium video environment lagged so far behind social and UGC video platforms was a huge issue for the industry, and hence it was incredibly important that people who had an investment in premium video came together to solve this issue.

Phil Hardman, SVP & General Manager, Asia, BBC Studios, highlighted the need for curation and aggregation of content, and felt the term pay TV was becoming redundant. Avi Himatsinghani, Founder & CEO, Rewind Networks, also said that it was all converging together, with linear services aggregated alongside streaming services. “We have to reinvent and work harder to make the narrative come alive,” added Himatsinghani.

For sports platform, beIN Media Group, now was a period of rationalisation. “It’s about carving out your niche and finding a sustainable model which can be profitable, and building scale through partnerships,” said Mike Kerr, MD, Asia. “The players that are left standing understand the value of sports and how to manage it from a consumer perspective.” However, with piracy taking US$30B out of the ecosystem it was not sustainable, and the industry needed to come together to combat it, added Kerr.

Closing off the Summit, Alexandre Muller, MD, APAC, TV5MONDE, said that the region needed to listen to local audiences and deliver what they want, and not listen to all the noise coming out of the US. “Asia is Asia, we need to follow our own path and find the right equilibrium among ourselves,” said Muller. “The world is just waking up to the great content that is coming out of Asia,” added Phil Hardman.

The Asia Video Summit 2024 is proudly sponsored by Lead Sponsor Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Gold Sponsors AsiaSat, Bango, InvestHK, Publica, TV5Monde, Vobile, Warner Bros. Discovery; Silver Sponsors France24, Paramount and Bronze Sponsor A+E Networks.
BCS Bureau