Television supply is moving online and policies regulating Asian pay-TV and over-the-top (OTT) services currently disadvantage local operators, a CASBAA study has found.
The situation is “unsustainable”, according to the authors of the new publication, released to coincide with the multichannel association’s third annual OTT summit in Singapore.
“Regulators have an incredibly difficult task ahead of them. Root-and-branch reform is needed ... the pay-television industry environment today is radically different from what it was only five years ago, and the hard work of adapting policy instruments and practices has only gotten underway in a small number of markets,” said John Medeiros, chief policy officer, CASBAA.
Licensed pay-TV companies in Asia face sharp competition from legal and illegal offshore media ventures, even while their hands are tied behind their backs, as a result of heavy burdens from taxes and government mandates on content, advertising, competition and social policy, says CASBAA.
Pirate syndicates, operating outside all legal constraints, also deliver a lot of OTT content to many Asian markets.
CASBAA is urging governments to review their pay-TV rules “and determine whether existing burdens are still required given the evolution ... of the television market in recent years”. The industry association went on to say that governments should seek to “stem the growth and proliferation of illegitimate OTT services”.
The new publication details each government’s regulatory policy on OTT video, on content censorship, advertising limits, copyright protection, and consumer protection.