The Asian broadcast market is diverse, dynamic and full of opportunities for IP to change how video content reaches viewers
Asian broadcasting on the verge of an IP boom
(writes Aale Raza, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Asia-Pacific region at KIT Digital).
Asia is home to over 60% of the world’s population with broadcast markets that range from some of the most advanced in the world to some of the least. Its diversity highlights both unique opportunities as well as the universal challenges Asian broadcasters strive to reach the region’s enormous addressable market.
While this is only the beginning of the IP revolution in Asia, its ever-growing appetite for video content makes it ideally suited for the advantages of IP. According to Cisco Systems, IP traffic in the Asia Pacific region will have a CAGR of 35% from 2009-2014 with 87% of that IP traffic coming from the consumer market by 2014.
As broadcasters look at reaching new and existing viewers across platforms, IP offers the flexibility to deliver video content across PCs, mobiles, tablets, traditional TV as well as other device to viewers that want local and relevant content wherever they may be. As 3G and internet penetration increases, Asia’s demand for video content is not going to slow down. IP will be the key to unlocking the market’s potential and driving broadcasting revenues.
When discussing Asia as a broadcast market, it is important to note just how diverse the landscape is. China and India are the well recognised emerging economic powers, which sit alongside some of the most underdeveloped countries in the world like Nepal, Bangladesh and Laos. Coupled with these emerging economies are the extremely advanced markets of Japan, South Korea and Singapore, which have some of the most advanced communications infrastructure in the world.
To add to the complexity of the Asian market, even within these countries there are still large gaps between services in rural and urban areas. In some of these regions, there is still a lack of basic infrastructure like energy and roads not to mention communications infrastructure.
The first stage of the IP revolution
It is within this varied broadcasting landscape that IP is helping to reshape and build out business models. Asia’s market complexity, while challenging to make generalisations about, means that there is a wealth of content that is being created and an audience that is hungry for it. Chinese, Indian and Filipino diasporas, to mention just three, drive demand for enhanced broadcasting services and an appetite for content that goes far beyond borders.
IP is an emerging force in the Asian broadcast market with its diverse market landscape, which plays into the flexibility of delivering video content. IP offers broadcasters reliability and a sharp decrease in cost while leveraging the dramatic increase in memory and processing capacity of IP-enabled consumer devices and the proliferation of publishing points that only accept IP for broadcast—like smartphones on rich media-capable mobile networks. From a cost perspective, it is truly disruptive - negating the need for complicated and expensive workflow and infrastructure while reducing human resource requirements.
From a revenue perspective, it is opening up a more efficient, centralised way to manage pay-per-view, advertising and subscription-based revenue models on PCs, mobile devices and set-top boxes. There is a huge amount of content being created within Asia and IP offers broadcasters new delivery mechanisms that can help them provide geo-targeted and socio-demographic content to increase viewership and in turn drive advertising revenues.
Traditional broadcasters have the opportunity to revamp their existing legacy satellite-based uplink and delivery models and quickly integrate IP with their traditional broadcast distribution systems to deliver programming via these new web-based channels.
IP offers broadcasters in Asia the chance to take their content to new viewers on the web while ensuring that existing viewers can always access the content they want no matter where they are live or on demand. This can be critical to maintaining and growing viewership in a competitive broadcasting environment.
In a country like India there are 16 official languages with individual content for each language grouping. While Hindi is a predominate language there are still 15 other languages with their own content and programming. Drama, films, news services are all carried in their own individual languages with small but dedicated target audiences. This is in contrast to a market like the US, which has a single primary language with Spanish following close behind.
There are also over 800 TV stations in India all delivering programming to their unique viewership. This abundance of content can work in two ways. From the viewer side, they want content that is relevant and caters to their own unique interests. From a broadcasting perspective, they are in a highly competitive market and need to differentiate their offerings. They want to grow their viewership and need to pursue every opportunity to do that.
There is a huge amount of content being created within Asia and IP offers broadcasters new delivery mechanisms that can help them to increase viewership and in turn drive advertising revenues. This gives broadcasters as well as other content owners the opportunity to realise new revenue with lifecycle management, billing and advertising built into the core capabilities.
Broadcasters have the opportunity to deliver their content online and see their viewership grow beyond their limited traditional audience to a limitless and international audience online. It has been estimated that in India alone the number of PCs is doubling every three years. This is really changing the market landscape and driving the need for new models to be explored.
New opportunities, new challenges
Although PC penetration is growing, the availability of bandwidth remains a challenge for IP broadcasting in the emerging economies of Asia. Thankfully this is changing as network build outs are driving internet penetration deeper into Asian economies. Viewers in rural areas face slow bandwidth speeds that hamper the enjoyment of video content on the web. Bandwidth costs are a concern for broadcasters but as network build outs continue costs will come down and uptake in IP broadcasting will follow.
In addition to the challenges offered by bandwidth availability, broadcasters are still examining how they approach this new IP world and what business models suit this delivery format. They want to deliver high quality content via as many routes as possible and allow viewers to have choice in the content they access while guaranteeing a return on investment.
In today’s market, adopting an IP-based multi-screen strategy has so far been used for programming that local markets are passionate about. That has meant exploring opportunities to deliver cricket highlights to mobile phones and keep cricket-mad South Asia connected to their favourite sport 24 hours a day.
It is understood that this is the next wave of development in the broadcasting space but in the emerging economies of Asia are still refining their approach to IP video. Broadcasters understand the benefits but are trying to rationalise it in terms of getting the model right and defining their businesses within the context of IP.
The golden age of IP in Asia
The golden age of IP in Asia is just on the horizon. Over the next 18 months, emerging economies of Asia will see further infrastructure development which will help to build the business case for IP broadcasting as more potential viewers come online via their PCs or newly deployed 3G services like mobile broadband. Government spending in this area will also begin to shape these markets and allow for rural communities to get enhanced communications services that will again highlight how unique audiences can take advantage of IP video and access niche and targeted content.
Some of the most exciting opportunities in Asia are hybrid solutions for network operators, traditional broadcasters and content syndicators to leverage their aging infrastructure while increasing their reach through IP-based play-out. Corporates and not-for-profit customers also have an opportunity to discover that they can be broadcasters and heavy users of video with relative ease and at much lower price-points than they ever thought possible.
IP is transforming the broadcasting landscape in Asia and helping broadcasters to tap the seemingly limitless potential of the market.
Asian broadcasting on the verge of an IP boom
(writes Aale Raza, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Asia-Pacific region at KIT Digital).
Asia is home to over 60% of the world’s population with broadcast markets that range from some of the most advanced in the world to some of the least. Its diversity highlights both unique opportunities as well as the universal challenges Asian broadcasters strive to reach the region’s enormous addressable market.
While this is only the beginning of the IP revolution in Asia, its ever-growing appetite for video content makes it ideally suited for the advantages of IP. According to Cisco Systems, IP traffic in the Asia Pacific region will have a CAGR of 35% from 2009-2014 with 87% of that IP traffic coming from the consumer market by 2014.
As broadcasters look at reaching new and existing viewers across platforms, IP offers the flexibility to deliver video content across PCs, mobiles, tablets, traditional TV as well as other device to viewers that want local and relevant content wherever they may be. As 3G and internet penetration increases, Asia’s demand for video content is not going to slow down. IP will be the key to unlocking the market’s potential and driving broadcasting revenues.
When discussing Asia as a broadcast market, it is important to note just how diverse the landscape is. China and India are the well recognised emerging economic powers, which sit alongside some of the most underdeveloped countries in the world like Nepal, Bangladesh and Laos. Coupled with these emerging economies are the extremely advanced markets of Japan, South Korea and Singapore, which have some of the most advanced communications infrastructure in the world.
To add to the complexity of the Asian market, even within these countries there are still large gaps between services in rural and urban areas. In some of these regions, there is still a lack of basic infrastructure like energy and roads not to mention communications infrastructure.
The first stage of the IP revolution
It is within this varied broadcasting landscape that IP is helping to reshape and build out business models. Asia’s market complexity, while challenging to make generalisations about, means that there is a wealth of content that is being created and an audience that is hungry for it. Chinese, Indian and Filipino diasporas, to mention just three, drive demand for enhanced broadcasting services and an appetite for content that goes far beyond borders.
IP is an emerging force in the Asian broadcast market with its diverse market landscape, which plays into the flexibility of delivering video content. IP offers broadcasters reliability and a sharp decrease in cost while leveraging the dramatic increase in memory and processing capacity of IP-enabled consumer devices and the proliferation of publishing points that only accept IP for broadcast—like smartphones on rich media-capable mobile networks. From a cost perspective, it is truly disruptive - negating the need for complicated and expensive workflow and infrastructure while reducing human resource requirements.
From a revenue perspective, it is opening up a more efficient, centralised way to manage pay-per-view, advertising and subscription-based revenue models on PCs, mobile devices and set-top boxes. There is a huge amount of content being created within Asia and IP offers broadcasters new delivery mechanisms that can help them provide geo-targeted and socio-demographic content to increase viewership and in turn drive advertising revenues.
Traditional broadcasters have the opportunity to revamp their existing legacy satellite-based uplink and delivery models and quickly integrate IP with their traditional broadcast distribution systems to deliver programming via these new web-based channels.
IP offers broadcasters in Asia the chance to take their content to new viewers on the web while ensuring that existing viewers can always access the content they want no matter where they are live or on demand. This can be critical to maintaining and growing viewership in a competitive broadcasting environment.
In a country like India there are 16 official languages with individual content for each language grouping. While Hindi is a predominate language there are still 15 other languages with their own content and programming. Drama, films, news services are all carried in their own individual languages with small but dedicated target audiences. This is in contrast to a market like the US, which has a single primary language with Spanish following close behind.
There are also over 800 TV stations in India all delivering programming to their unique viewership. This abundance of content can work in two ways. From the viewer side, they want content that is relevant and caters to their own unique interests. From a broadcasting perspective, they are in a highly competitive market and need to differentiate their offerings. They want to grow their viewership and need to pursue every opportunity to do that.
There is a huge amount of content being created within Asia and IP offers broadcasters new delivery mechanisms that can help them to increase viewership and in turn drive advertising revenues. This gives broadcasters as well as other content owners the opportunity to realise new revenue with lifecycle management, billing and advertising built into the core capabilities.
Broadcasters have the opportunity to deliver their content online and see their viewership grow beyond their limited traditional audience to a limitless and international audience online. It has been estimated that in India alone the number of PCs is doubling every three years. This is really changing the market landscape and driving the need for new models to be explored.
New opportunities, new challenges
Although PC penetration is growing, the availability of bandwidth remains a challenge for IP broadcasting in the emerging economies of Asia. Thankfully this is changing as network build outs are driving internet penetration deeper into Asian economies. Viewers in rural areas face slow bandwidth speeds that hamper the enjoyment of video content on the web. Bandwidth costs are a concern for broadcasters but as network build outs continue costs will come down and uptake in IP broadcasting will follow.
In addition to the challenges offered by bandwidth availability, broadcasters are still examining how they approach this new IP world and what business models suit this delivery format. They want to deliver high quality content via as many routes as possible and allow viewers to have choice in the content they access while guaranteeing a return on investment.
In today’s market, adopting an IP-based multi-screen strategy has so far been used for programming that local markets are passionate about. That has meant exploring opportunities to deliver cricket highlights to mobile phones and keep cricket-mad South Asia connected to their favourite sport 24 hours a day.
It is understood that this is the next wave of development in the broadcasting space but in the emerging economies of Asia are still refining their approach to IP video. Broadcasters understand the benefits but are trying to rationalise it in terms of getting the model right and defining their businesses within the context of IP.
The golden age of IP in Asia
The golden age of IP in Asia is just on the horizon. Over the next 18 months, emerging economies of Asia will see further infrastructure development which will help to build the business case for IP broadcasting as more potential viewers come online via their PCs or newly deployed 3G services like mobile broadband. Government spending in this area will also begin to shape these markets and allow for rural communities to get enhanced communications services that will again highlight how unique audiences can take advantage of IP video and access niche and targeted content.
Some of the most exciting opportunities in Asia are hybrid solutions for network operators, traditional broadcasters and content syndicators to leverage their aging infrastructure while increasing their reach through IP-based play-out. Corporates and not-for-profit customers also have an opportunity to discover that they can be broadcasters and heavy users of video with relative ease and at much lower price-points than they ever thought possible.
IP is transforming the broadcasting landscape in Asia and helping broadcasters to tap the seemingly limitless potential of the market.