Chinas Media & Entertainment Law: Advertising: 2013 Edition

---

The online and mobile ecosystem is structured around three business models: For each of these models, the online economics are scaling up quickly. In the US, online-advertising revenues increased sevenfold from through , and growth shows no signs of slowing down. This was true for the development of Internet display advertising, it was true during the early days of cable network programming, and it will be true for video streaming and nonlinear viewing.

But that advertising will catch up is inevitable. We believe that the tipping point will occur when online media companies can replicate the time-sensitive reach that big-event TV networks can offer. Advertising technology is quickly advancing toward this endgame. Top-rated, unique content has become essential in the online and mobile ecosystem, and midtier programming is losing ground. Content creators and rights holders are capturing a greater share of value.

Although these changes have been subtle on a global level, in mature video markets, such as the US and the UK, where competition for top-tier programming is robust, the trends are more pronounced. In the UK, the costs for sports content nearly doubled from through A small percentage of these companies produce movies, but most are focused on serialized—scripted and unscripted—drama series, the leading drivers of nonlinear, online viewing.

Some consumers are canceling TV subscriptions, but most use online and mobile services in addition to, not instead of, their existing TV service. Networks are spending more for premium sports and entertainment content. In other words, while online-content networks and aggregators have assumed an increasingly important role in the value chain, many traditional content providers have made investments to stay in the game.

Navigation menu

And the symbiotic relationships among content creators, aggregators, and distributors remain largely intact. It is surprising that a number of industry executives still believe that we will continue along the path of gradual evolution. To be fair, executives in the industry have spoken about ways to achieve this low-risk scenario: Others in the industry, however, believe in the coming disruption, citing the strength of new participants, disruptive content models, and the shift of consumer demand from one-size-fits-all video solutions.

We are in the second camp: We see four disruptive scenarios in the making, and who the winners will be will depend on which industry participants seize the advantage in the battle for market share. These scenarios are not mutually exclusive, and more than one may shape a given market. But this much we know: As viewers embrace new ways to access video, they are challenged to find the specific content they want to watch.

A wealth of compelling content exists in the fragmented mosaic of FTA programming, pay TV, and Internet-based offerings, but nobody has yet solved the discovery problem. The business that can integrate these ecosystems and become the go-to, anytime-anywhere access point for living-room TV, smartphone, and tablet viewing will create a huge competitive advantage.

Cable service providers with broadband infrastructure are especially well positioned to develop such global navigation. By partnering with or acquiring online providers such as video-on-demand services and gaining access to a broad set of online and nonlinear content rights, they can provide one-stop shopping for a comprehensive array of video programming. Certain types of content, such as serialized dramas and top-tier sports events, are becoming increasingly popular with viewers, and distributors and aggregators can capitalize on this trend by locking up exclusive entertainment content.

Large online aggregators such as Amazon and Netflix are already making big bets on exclusives—not just buying rights but also creating and distributing their own original series. Cable providers, too, are locking up exclusive entertainment—especially top sports content. DirecTV paid for the rights to broadcast every out-of-market NFL game, and though the cost of purchase exceeds its direct revenues, the company won big with customer acquisition and retention.

With subscribers choosing distributors on the basis of content preferences, exclusive entertainment content can be a critical strategic asset and differentiator in the competition among aggregators and distributors. For networks with strong brands and top-tier programming—and for those that own the rights to hit content—the ability to reach consumers over the Internet opens the door to new monetization opportunities: Studios and sports leagues can reach fans directly, no longer relying on a TV bundle to carry their content.

The prognosis for this scenario is related to how successfully content owners and networks tackle the challenge of attracting viewers without the benefit of traditional TV bundles. Although it might seem counterintuitive, brands will be more critical than ever in this scenario. TV networks with name recognition and top-rated sports and entertainment content will be the most likely to gain the requisite subscriber numbers and price points to succeed.

If this scenario takes off, traditional TV-service providers could suffer, because successful direct-to-consumer offers enable TV networks and owners of content rights to leapfrog their traditional distribution partners. One of the main reasons viewers do not cut the cord is that traditional TV-service providers still offer live programming and content across all categories not just entertainment, but news and sports as well. Online aggregators that can integrate live content with their own on-demand offerings—and price the package right—will transform their value proposition for consumers, in effect offering the advantages of traditional TV bundles combined with the advantages of a nonlinear online provider.

A growing list of companies—for example, Sony, Dish Network, Zattoo, and Magine TV—already deliver live linear channels online, bypassing traditional cable and satellite providers. But the channel selection each of them provides is more limited than a traditional TV bundle. For this scenario to take hold, online companies need many networks and content owners to license them the rights to live linear programming, but these rights will not come easy—or cheap.

Television

What we are seeing now—online aggregators making content available faster and a growing number of companies delivering live TV over the Internet—makes this scenario one to watch. The questions for all video industry companies are: What steps should we take—and when? What should we defend, and what should we actively disrupt? To thrive amid these changes, companies must determine how to make more strategic use of their content assets, seize the opportunities that can grow value, and tackle the challenges that can put their business models at risk.

Content Creators and Rights Holders. Content creators and rights holders are well positioned to thrive in virtually all scenarios—evolutionary and disruptive.

China Central Television

Holders of sports rights have serious leverage to negotiate with aggregators and distributors, thanks to the unique value of their content. Entertainment content creators and owners, too, have excellent leverage across all scenarios, particularly with serialized dramas. Low-value content used to fill time slots will continue to lose ground in an increasingly nonlinear world. Networks need to get out of the middle. For individual networks, this means building a strong lineup of top-tier or niche content.

Few FTA networks have enough unique content to develop direct-to-consumer offerings. They should instead focus on disseminating their branded content as widely as possible through multiple distribution platforms. For them, online is the new spectrum. Pay TV networks with strong brands and compelling sports or entertainment content are well positioned to pursue direct-to-consumer offerings in addition to their partnerships with infrastructure-based and digital-only aggregators.

Learn More About This Publication

Pay TV networks with little or no top-tier or niche content, however, are poorly suited to thrive in the digital age. Infrastructure-based distributors can be divided into two camps—those with a robust broadband capability and those without—and their optimal strategies are very different. Large pay-TV distributors with high-quality broadband should make aggressive moves to become the single point of navigation for all video content—across pathways and devices. This will require a significant change in the mindsets of distributors, whose business model has thrived on direct and proprietary relationships with subscribers.

They will need to disrupt the walled garden to become an integrated curator of all video, including streaming-video content. The move will generate friction with key companies in the value chain, particularly networks and set-top-box providers, and regulatory issues may arise in certain markets. Nevertheless, large pay-TV distributors that have established strong relationships with consumers are well positioned to make this pivot. Small pay-TV distributors do not have the scale necessary to develop a comprehensive navigation platform for subscribers, so their best hope for survival is the gradual-evolution scenario.

Video-only distributors are perhaps the most vulnerable should any of the disruptive scenarios come to pass. With little or no access to broadband, they are highly susceptible to cord cutting and thinning, and their margins are eroding as content costs eat up a growing share of video revenues.

Given their endangered status, this cohort should either build or acquire broadband capabilities to supplement existing services, compete on exclusive content, or strategically align with broadband players. Online aggregators, such as Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, must continue to leverage their advantages—broad distribution, unbundled access, and strong brand equity—to compete with incumbents. They should continue to invest in original content and leverage data to achieve a better hit rate.

Online aggregators must also make a choice: In , China's television audience rose to 1. The network's principal directors and other officers are appointed by the State, and so are the top officials at local conventional television stations in mainland China; nearly all of them are restricted to broadcasting within their own province or municipality. Editorial independence is subject to government policy considerations, and as a result, it has been charged with being " propaganda aimed at brainwashing the audience" in its history and news programmes in a letter written by a number of Chinese intellectuals who also called for a boycott of state media was posted on a US-based website and has circulated through Chinese websites.

Following this incident, senior editorial staff and journalists were all forced to write self-criticisms. Brady says that while the channel's equipment is state-of-the-art, the employees are not well trained in how to use it, so there are frequent errors during broadcast. A recent study done by the observer of Chinese film and television, Ying Zhu, suggests that "CCTV is full of serious-minded creators who regularly experience bouts of self-doubt, philosophical ambivalence, and in some cases, clinical depression. On 9 February , the Beijing Television Cultural Center caught fire on the last day of the festivities of Chinese New Year , killing one firefighter.

The fire had implications for the credibility of CCTV, which was already unpopular because of its dominance in the media. Pictures of the fire are widely distributed on the internet, as a result of citizen journalism. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification.

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. November Learn how and when to remove this template message. The China Central Television Headquarters. This section has multiple issues.

Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. Learn how and when to remove these template messages.

Internet privacy - Wikipedia

This section needs additional citations for verification. This section needs editing for compliance with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Please help improve it if you can. July Learn how and when to remove this template message. China Global Television Network. Beijing Television Cultural Center fire. The New York Times. Retrieved 1 September Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. Internationalization of the Chinese TV Sector. Archived from the original on 13 September Power, Money, and Media: Oxford University Press US. Media, Arts, and Lifestyle. China launches Arabic TV channel. Forbes , 24 November Chinese Media, Global Contexts: University of Illinois at Chicago.

Chinese Journal of Communication 1: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture. Harvard University Press, Archived from the original on 19 February Retrieved 18 April Retrieved 8 January Archived from the original on 11 January Retrieved 7 January Retrieved 9 January Yangcheng Evening News Online. Archived from the original on 8 January Online Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2 February

• Tras los VISILLOS (Spanish Edition)
• Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei Vol. 1
• Entwicklungspolitik (Elemente der Politik) (German Edition)
• Che tua madre - From Madama Butterfly
• Biddy Bat and the Missing Badge (Biddy Bat related stores Book 4)
• Anastasia and the Mounted Regal Rescue