ContentAsia December 2018 by ContentAsia

C NTENT

Formats 2018: Winners & Losers

Globe Telecom’s Joe Caliro on content & consumers

PLUS: The so-what of Asia’s big deals, Double Vision’s Min Lim, ABS-CBN’s Ruel Bayani, Asia’s best around the world & a whole lot more

‘Tis the season for predictions and these are a few of ours...

u We’re preparing for rapid fire change as Fox leans into (better than subsumed by, right?) Disney’s magic kingdom. Our bet is a giant play for Asian IP as part of a world led by Star India boss Uday Shankar in his new incarnation as a Disney superhero. The other questions are more difficult to answer. What will the leadership team in the region look like? How many bodies will be left behind? How will Disney organise its multiple streaming/ OTT brands in the region? What will the merged channels bundle look like? Never mind all the theatrical and consumer products questions.

u What will AT&T/WarnerMedia Asia look like? One scenario is that, initially at least, three parts of the biz will be run separately: networks (Turner+HBO); Warner Bros Consumer Products will lead all CP; and Warner TV will continue to control programme sales, including Cartoon Network originals.

u Original production in Asia will soar in the quest for IP ownership, a unique product, and, ideally, assets companies can sweat. It’s already happening, as are the new alliances to fund content creation. Are there original stories to feed the beasts? Stupid question: of course.

u Streaming consolidation. Hooq & iflix are the rumour of the week, but it could be any of the players crowding into this space.

u Linear channels will adjust to a different reality. There’s still fierce argument about what this reality looks like, but the pendulum seems to be swinging in favour of channels with clear content propositions and without massive overhead. How will these be delivered? Every which way including Cignal TV, Cast, Hooq, Oona and others. Is streaming ARPU high enough to sustain linear services? Maybe not yet. But here’s what we know for sure: The clock ain’t going backwards to the old days. Happy New Year all! May the Gods of Good Fortune smile on you through 2019.

Editorial Director

Janine Stein Assistant Editor Malena Amzah malena@contentasia.tv Research & Production

CJ Yong cj@contentasia.tv

Editorial

Aqilah Yunus aqilah@contentasia.tv

Design Rae Yong

Published by: Pencil Media Pte

what’s in

what does all this mean?

10 Channels

Sony’s new structure gives L.A. HQ more direct control over Asia channels. Future proofing? Or dialling the clock back?

12 M&A

The scrambling for a 21% stake in Indian media behemoth Zee has begun.

INTERNATIONAL

Associate Publisher (Americas, Europe) and VP, International Business Development

Leah Gordon leah@contentasia.tv

ASIA

Sales and Marketing Manager

Masliana Masron mas@contentasia.tv

14 Streaming

Indonesia’s Telkomsel & Philippines’ Globe have given streaming platform iflix a new lease on life. What happens next is up to iflix...

16 OTT trends

India’s 35 video apps will either find and monetise their niches or...

18 India Talent

A handful of talent agencies is bringing a wealth of method to India’s chaotic entertainment industry.

20 Forecasts

Deep, dark, serious challenges in parts of Asia are balanced by robust growth in others, Media Partners Asia (MPA) says. 12

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Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Essel Group Mark Britt, Chief Executive, iflix

#Onehope 2019

As the lights to out on 2018, media execs with Asian businesses share their single biggest business hope for 2019.

Space race

Zee’s international business/ syndication boss, Sunita Uchil, has the full-blown co-pro bug. And while the strategy kicked off with blue-chip factual, no genre is out of bounds as she explores the space.

Bridge the gaps

Double Vision’s head of production, Min Lim, talks about adapting 10-part thriller, The Bridge, for streaming platform Viu in Asia.

#onehope I want to see the pride of Thai excellence worldwide.”

Anne Jakrajutatip, CEO, JKN Global Media, Thailand page 22

Kingdom come

Netflix has 100+ new and returning originals on its slate for 2019. Content vice president, Rob Roy, talks about asking, listening, Asian creators and trying to remove creative pain points.

34 Globe view

Philippines’ telco giant, Globe Telecom, has 65 million customers and a sharp focus on adding multi-genre content to its playlist. Partnerships and co-productions are a big part of an even bigger play for the hearts and minds of consumers, and not just in the Philippines, says vice president Joe Caliro.

Shop sharp

Drama, movies, animation and formats rule buyers’ shopping lists for 2019, according to ContentAsia’s latest poll. 72% of buyers listed drama as their top priority, followed by movies at 56%. Animation and formats came in third, with 44%.

28

Informer decisions

British Asian actress Sunetra Sarker became an actress by chance and a poster-person for Asian women with attitude by choice. As her latest TV series makes its way around the world, she is also speaking up for greater diversity off-camera.

There are only so many white men who can write [roles] for Asian women.”

Sunetra Sarker page 52

Kingdom

Anne Jakrajutatip, JKN Global Media

Sunita

Uchil, Zee Min Lim, Double Vision Malaysia

Joe Caliro, Globe Telecom

what’s in this issue...[cont’d]

At a premium

HBO Asia’s latest originals strategy is driven by a different kind of Asian storytelling and a wider, deeper approach to production.

SVP for original productions, Jessica Kam, speaks about creating an Asian content pipeline for the premium movie service.

I

try to choose genres that can travel, that Asians are good at. Horror and action are the two that are easy to win.”

Jessica Kam, HBO Asia page 64

Travel guides

Little from Asia can compete with Japanese anime on the global entertainment stage. ContentAsia asked data science company, Parrot Analytics, to look at the top 10 Asian shows around the world this year.

For us to invest in drama,English-language it really has to be the right project because Youku is still a local service. In order for us to recoup all that investment, and, content wise, for it to pass our censorship, we need to be very careful what we select.”

Julia Song, Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group page 70

Drama queen

Youku’s international drama acquisitions head, Julia Song, talks about the new generation of Chinese dramas, shifting audience trends and tastes, her latest acquisitions and the rising focus on giving modern young women stories they can relate to.

70

New tunes

Lots to love about Singapore, which rules December because of the Singapore Media Festival and the ATF programme market. Chicken rice. Mee siam. The white tiger at the zoo. Media, um, maybe. ContentAsia looks at the key players in this tiny market and what they’re facing.

66 Production lines

Philippines’ broadcaster ABS-CBN is likely to spend US$220+ million on production this year, including shows such as long-running drama series Brothers and the local versions of talent/reality formats. Home-grown titles are travelling widely across Asia, with increasing presence in other parts of the world. And, of course, on YouTube. Against this backdrop, Ruel Bayani, ABS-CBN’s business unit head of production and veteran ﬁlm/ TV director, writer and producer, talks about production trends and challenges, inspiration and inﬂuences.

Chart toppers

Fremantle was Asia’s top formats distributor this year, taking #1 spot in ContentAsia’s Formats Outlook leaderboard. Fremantle’s Ganesh Rajaram and Haryaty Rahman talk about the factors behind their lead.

Formats

Outlook 2018

2018 will likely end with Asia’s formats biz up on last year. Thailand and Korea are the big winners, followed by India. Volume is way down in Vietnam, but the market remains the region’s biggest buyer of formats by far.

87

Brothers

Oddbods

channels

Sony’s new structure gives L.A. HQ more direct control over Asia channels. Future prooﬁng? Or dialling the clock back?

Like many others in Asia’s channels space, Sony Pictures Television enters 2019 in different shape. The November re-org – phase two of the mid-year restructure that combined networks, distribution and home entertainment into one business unit – centralises some functions in the U.S., leverages global scale for English-language programming and acquisitions, and refocuses a streamlined channels team on Asian content and original production as well as revenue-generating activities.

Sony’s official line is that the goal of the new centralised services teams is “to deliver channels around the world that are consistent in their branding and operate efficiently by leveraging our global scale,” Ken Lo, Sony Pictures Television’s executive vice president, distribution and networks for Asia Pacific, said in an internal staff memo on 19 November.

What does this all mean?

On the face of it, an erosion of Asia’s autonomy over channels like AXN, which, with its line up of blockbuster Asian originals like Asia’s Got Talent and Hollywood rights, regularly tops entertainment charts on subscription packages. The extreme leap is a return to the early days of payTV in Asia, when decision-making was made remotely by people whose cultural insights were shaped by a visit to the Oriental aisle at their supermarket. For Asian channels like One and Gem, it shouldn’t mean much unless you want to delve into the nuts and bolts of tech ops.

There’s also the dark forecast that this is, for Sony and others, the beginning of the end of international brands’ involvement in pay-TV as it was originally supposed to roll out across – what was that early attitude again? – more than half of the world’s population living in the Far East and gagging for foreign content.

For sure there are the job losses. Sony has not conﬁrmed the number of people in Asia impacted by the most recent changes. Initial speculation is that about 20 roles were involved, with possibly another 27 or 28 to come for a total of almost 50.

Sony Pictures Television operates ﬁve regional channels out of Singapore – AXN, Animax, Sony Channel, One and Gem, which is a jointventure channel with Japan’s Nippon Television.

From now, the Southeast Asia channels team, under Virginia Lim, Sony Pictures Television Networks Asia’s senior vice president and general manager, will take care of Asian content acquisitions, the development of local original productions and sponsored customised productions, as well as sales and marketing functions.

The Asia-based programme planning and scheduling team comes under Anthony Danna, based in L.A., with Pamela Pang continuing to head up the English-language team on the ground in Singapore for Southeast Asia/Hong Kong/Taiwan. L.A. will also take global control of branding/creative service and operations/technical services under TC

The media industry is experiencing changes in unprecedented scale and speed, and these moves, while difﬁ cult, are necessary to compete in the fast-changing and increasingly complex global marketplace . ”

Ken Lo

EVP, Distribution & Networks, Asia Paciﬁc, Sony Pictures Television

Schultz, based at Sony’s Culver City HQ.

The meaning we’re going for is that this is a company trying to make sense of the here and the now. Sony, like others, has decided on a structure that will take it forward. The decision, for better or worse (and of course that remains to be seen), has to be better than pretending everything is just ﬁne thanks. As Lo said: “The media industry is experiencing changes in unprecedented scale and speed, and these moves, while difﬁcult, are necessary to compete in the fast-changing and increasingly complex global marketplace”. And, dare we say it, a much better stocked Oriental aisle.

Five different lives. One unique family.

A Medyapim adaptation of This Is Us for FOX Turkey

The scrambling for a 21% stake – and maybe more – in Zee has begun. What happens now?

Subhash Chandra’s Essel Group wants to ofﬂoad up to half of its holding – and possibly more – in entertainment company Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) “in view of the changing global media landscape” and “to accelerate efforts to stay ahead of fast changing trends”.

Who has put an offer on the table? How will this be leveraged to ﬂush out other potential bidders? And what does this mean for a market of 1.3 billion people with close to 50 million digital viewers and growing fast?

Although there was no shortage of speculation at presstime (Reliance? Chinese platforms? Alibaba? Facebook/Apple/Netﬂix/Google? Comcast?), the answer to the ﬁrst is known only to the Essel inner circle and their advisors.

Picking apart the mid-November public announcement that 21% of Zee was on the block, it’s clear that anyone who puts their hand up will have to bring a strong presence in the global media and entertainment tech space. These are both attributes ZEEL says are missing from its current business. Which very likely means there’s some of that on the table already.

The way the initial offer (and, no, there is no one who believes the 13 November public announcement would have been made without an offer on the table) is being leveraged is bound to emerge in a leaky bucket market crawling with news outlets. And what does this mean? A billion dollar question... maybe US$10 billion or more, according to the Times of India, which in the days following the announcement said this could possibly be the biggest M&A deal in Indian media history.

Zee’s global ambitions have never been a secret, and it has skipped no one’s attention that the stakes in India have never been higher. Like Rupert Murdoch, the 68-year-old Subhash Chandra – billionaire media baron and the grandfather of Indian television entertainment – has looked around and realised he needs to out-drama his most dramatic story line in a media career that goes back to the early 1990s and the very beginning of multichannel TV in Asia.

Zee’s move plays out against a high-stakes background awash with streaming/OTT players large and small, and ramping up already-frenetic content creation to a dizzying degree.

Netﬂix is more than doubling down, with an ambitious Indian original content slate for 2019 and plans to play with its pricing. Disney has more armor in its India war chest than ever as the new owner of Star India/ Hotstar. Amazon has a keen eye on India, with a Rs129/US$1.81 a month offer that covers unlimited access to everything from premium video originals such as Mirzapur to music, books, toys, baby products, dog supplies, whatever, every day of the week including Sundays.

And ZEEL has Zee5, which went live in 190 countries in February this year with multi-genre content in 11 Indian languages and English, and

promises of 100,000 hours of on-demand content, including movies, and more than 60 live television channels. India has about 35 OTT streaming platforms, including the global players, home-grown services such as Reliance’s JioTV, Eros Now, Voot and SonyLiv, and regional services such as Viu and Hooq.

The outcome of the review announced on 13 Nov is expected to be complete by March/April 2019, giving us three or four months of hot- and cold-running commentary and analysis of every Zee breath and blink.

Meanwhile, there are a few things we know for sure because they are in front of us in black and white. In its note to the Bombay Stock Exchange, ZEEL said the sale would pave the way for the company to “pursue disruptive technological development and transform the business into a tech-media company”. The Essel Group, which holds just under 42% of ZEEL, said the proposed sale of half the stake would “allow ZEEL shareholders to capture the full value of India’s largest entertainment broadcaster with an ever-strengthening bouquet”.

The decision to ofﬂoad the ZEEL stake follows a family meeting over the Diwali holidays. Goldman Sachs Securities (India) and Lion Tree out of the U.S. have been appointed to identify possible buyers and to advise on the transaction. Between those few facts and the outcome, anything could happen.

Subhash Chandra

TRX

Giving Buyers premium access to the world’s leading distributors See Instant avails and screen over 70,000 hours of great content all in once place

Red Arrow Studios

LIONSGATE

All3Media International

Sky Vision

OFF the Fence

Global content hub by ZEE

BETA

BBC Studios

Primeworks Studios

Studiocanal

TCB Media rights

Lightning International

streaming

Indonesia’s Telkomsel & Philippines’ Globe have given emerging markets streaming platform iﬂix a new lease on life. What happens next is up to iﬂix...

Emerging markets streaming platform iﬂix has just done two telco deals in Southeast Asia that could make a life/death difference.

“This is a massive milestone for us, an enormous step forward,” iﬂix chief executive Mark Britt said a few minutes after new alliances with Telkomsel in Indonesia and Globe Telecom in the Philippines were announced on 15 November. He would, of course, say that, after at least three years of putting a brave face on negotiations that never seemed to go anywhere.

“These partnerships unlock a huge growth opportunity for iﬂix, giving us access to 230 million consumers previously out of reach. They represent years of hard work, long nights, exciting discussions and tough negotiations on both sides of the fence. For us, they are the new standard of commitment, where you will see us collaborating broadly and deeply across all areas of our business from content creation, feature and app innovation to data bundling,” Britt said.

Other than some deserved headlines mashed into ongoing fund raising rounds, what do the new deals really mean – and why now?

First, a bit of background. Telkomsel and Globe are both affiliated with Singapore telco giant, Singtel, which has a 65% stake in Hooq along with increasingly silent JV partners, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. Hooq is probably iflix’s fiercest rival in Southeast Asia, although there’s no shortage of competition. We’ve seen no proof that the Singtel factor gave Hooq an advantage, but Britt certainly thinks iflix was disadvantaged in the Hooq vs iflix battle.

That’s all over now. iflix’s new deal with Telkomsel breaches Hooq’s Indonesian stronghold, leveling the playing field and allowing iflix to go head to head with Hooq for the first time via the country’s dominant operator. Guesstimates are that at least 70% of Hooq’s users in Indonesia come from Telkomsel. iflix users have been spread across telcos, with the bulk coming from Indosat and XL and a small percentage from Telkomsel users subscribing to iflix independently. Ditto with Globe in the Philippines, another fierce battleground for the two streamers.

What caused Telkomsel and Globe to change their minds about iﬂix now? For one, the price was likely to be right. iﬂix in the past is believed to have undercut the market in a big way, offering deals some say were up to 90% lower than Hooq’s. Neither have disclosed deal terms, in Indonesia or anywhere else.

In addition, political and corporate winds are clearly blowing in iflix’s favour, and the forces that might have driven support for Hooq over iflix are spent. Both Telkomsel and Globe are building big, beautiful and total experiences for their millions of telco subscribers. And both have – clearly – now said iflix needs to be a part of the plan. Any objections, from shareholder Singtel or anyone else? No? Right, let’s get on with the business of streaming then.

These partnerships unlock a huge growth opportunity for us.”

Mark Britt, Chief Executive, iﬂix

In Indonesia, Telkomsel says its customers use about 70% of their data quotas for video streaming. In the past year, video content trafﬁc on the network has increased by 250%. “This is just the beginning,” says Crispin Tristram, Telkomsel’s head of digital lifestyle services.

iflix’s multi-phase partnership with Telkomsel includes integrated carrier billing, with daily pricing of Rp1,300/US$0.09. The monthly iflixVIP plan costs Rs39,000/US$2.67. iflix testing on Telkomsel in the two weeks before the official announcement added about 300,000 active users, bringing iflix’s total across Indonesia’s four telcos at about four million.

The Indonesia deal follows iﬂix’s blossoming relationship with Globe Telecom. The Globe deal covers distribution/carrier billing, coproduction with Globe Studios and content licensing of Globe Studios titles, including music show Elements: The Series

The content piece is part of bigger picture Globe president/CEO Ernest Cu is drawing. Only weeks before, Cu called for more local Philippines’ content on OTT streaming services. “The content we see today has to be made more appealing to a wider audience,” Cu said. “We are working very very hard to ﬁll the OTT world with Filipino content. Today we’re reaching the A-crowd, the post-paid crowd, the Netﬂix crowd, the Disney crowd… there is not enough Filipino content on those platforms,” he said.

The big question now is how these 230 million potential new customers will engage with iflix, which has always offered some Indonesian titles, including Joko Anwar’s 2017 horror film, Pengabdi Setan (Satan’s Slaves). New flagship titles are Magic Hour 2 and Conversations with Ghosts. At least six original series out of Indonesia are in development, and iflix is planning to release an exclusive movie a week – post-theatrical titles and streaming originals – over the next 12 months. Is that enough? No way to know. But for sure it’s a start.

streaming

India’s 35 video apps will either ﬁnd and monetise their niches or...

Leena Yadav’s Rajma Chawal is the story of a middle-aged man who uses social media to connect with his uncommunicative son. It is among Netflix’s newest slate of eight films and one original series out of India. This is in addition to the nine originals and three films from India that the platform is already streaming.

With 70% of the Indian movie intellectual property from the last decade, rival streamer ErosNow is the go-to app for ﬁlms. Of its 128 million registered users more than 13 million pay an average of US$5 a month (in India) and US$30 (overseas), making it one of the largest pay/subscription apps from India.

There’s also Zee5, which commissioned more than 200 hours of original content each in 10 odd Indian languages earlier this year. “Zee as a (broadcast) network stands for mass India. Our game is languages,” says Tarun Katial, Zee5’s chief executive ofﬁcer.

As 35 apps battle it out in one of the world’s fastest-growing streaming market, everyone is looking for their own little corner to occupy.

Star India’s Hotstar is about catch-up TV and sports, Viacom18’s Voot is about kids’ content, ErosNow about ﬁlms and Netﬂix is known for its originals. YouTube, the mother of all OTTs, is about everything

“For this business to make sense it has to be TG (target group) focused,” says Vishal Maheshwari, country head of Viu India, which is part of the Hong Kong-based US$4.7-billion PCCW. “People are still producing for generic audiences, so what you see online is plus or minus TV here and there,” Maheshwari adds.

Much has changed for Viu India in the two years since “we used to do a lot of aggregation, some originals and hope that the khichdi (a mix of rice and lentils) works”. Driven by research, which pointed toward 18 to 34 year olds and originals in Indian languages, Viu’s 2017 marriage comedy Pelli Gola, an original in Telugu, was a huge hit. Season three is now in the making. So was the Tamil Nila Nila Odi Vaa (Oh Moon Come Here), the love story of a vampire and a man. Viu now focuses on regional originals targeted at millennials.

Many factors have hastened the search for specialisation. India’s US$10-billion TV industry reaches over 800 million people who watch TV for about three hours a day in a predominantly single-TV home market. Now add 412 million people with a decent broadband connection, rising device penetration and falling data prices.

Data consumption doubled over two years from 2015 to 2017. Even though the OTT market is just about US$390 million in revenues, many more millions have been pumped into Voot, AltBalaji, Viu, YuppTV or Zee5 by private equity players, broadcasters and telcos. The pressure to

India is our biggest market for content, we commission more from here than from anywhere else.”

Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Ofﬁcer, Netﬂix

scale up, get the next big hit is huge.

“India is our biggest market for content, we commission more from here than from anywhere else,” says Ted Sarandos, Netﬂix’s chief content ofﬁcer.

And therein lies challenge number one. Since professionally created content gets more than 75% of the trafﬁc on most apps, soaring demand has created, even in a robust content market like India, a shortage. This has pushed prices up by anywhere between 40%-60%.

The second challenge is monetisation. The biggest video apps get anywhere between US$3-US$7 per thousand viewers compared to several hundred times that for TV advertising.

And while OTT subscription is showing decent uptick, it’s nothing compared to the size of the market. What does this mean? Very likely that several of those 35 apps will fall by the wayside as the search for sustainable niches intensiﬁes. – Vanita Kohli-Khandekar

Rajma Chawal

talent

A handful of talent agencies is bringing a wealth of method to India’s chaotic entertainment industry.

Smita Singh was doing a screenwriting course at the Film and Technical Institute of India (FTII) in Pune. The script written at the end of the course is a writer’s calling card, and Chaitanya Hegde, partner at India-based talent agency Tulsea, came calling. He liked Singh’s love story, Raat Akeli Hai (The night is alone), and signed her on in 2014. Two years later, Singh became one of the three writers, along with Vasant Nath and Varun Grover, on Sacred Games, Netﬂix’s ﬁrst original commissioned out of India.

The three are among the 110 writer/directors of a total roster of 200 that Tulsea, now India’s largest agency for writers, represents. Along with Matrix, Kwan, Bling, Spice and others, the agency brings muchneeded method to India’s entertainment/talent ecosystem with writers’ rooms, brand and endorsement deals and rate benchmarks.

About time. At the production end, studios have taken charge and at the retail end multiplex chains. But at any industry gathering, talk inevitably turns towards talent – or the shortage of it. In the last 10 years alone, the Indian ﬁlm industry has grown by over 60% and TV by 300%. As a result, “the demand for (talent) has increased 200-300 times, so you need a larger system to build for that,” says Rana Daggubati, Kwan South’s managing partner.

Tulsea, Kwan, Matrix et al are working towards that in an array of ways, including scouting and signing new talent, ﬁnding suitable projects and even, depending on the agency, putting together funding.

Kwan represents 150 actors, sports stars and celebrities such Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone. It calls itself a “marketplace for popular culture” and its agents take on mid-size celebrities who can be leveraged beyond an area, niche or genre. For instance, when Kwan took on Pritam, the composer for super hits such as Dangal (2016) and Yeh Jawaani hai Deewani (2013), one of the founders, Anirban Das Blah, was sceptical. Was he scalable? Vijay Subramaniam, co-founder and the man who was making the call, insisted that earnings would rise –and they did. By about 20 times.

Pritam credits performance to Kwan’s 360-degree approach, gobbledegook to him back in 2014. Now he realises it means exploring and leveraging his creative prowess in various ways – like singing with Gospel singers on an American tour. In 2015 Kwan set up Studio J.A.M.8 to nurture musical talent under Pirtam.

Similar stories abound. Sudip Sharma was a struggling writer until NH10 (2015) and Udta Punjab (2016), the ﬁlms he is now known for. Sharma says working without an agent was “like shooting in the dark”.

The blooming of talent agencies however is not something studios in India have necessarily welcomed. It took Tulsea eight years to convince studios it could deliver. Even now, there is a “total unwillingness to say the talent (on a show or ﬁlm) is from Tulsea,” says Tulsea partner, Datta Dave.

Our star system is feudal.”

Prabhat Choudhary, Founder, Spice

This remains the biggest challenge to professionalising this part of the value chain. “Some of the producers get very upset when I say ‘Tulsea will talk to you’. They say it is not nice. If you have agents it sends the wrong message to the producers,” says Gazal Dhaliwal, writer on ﬁlms such as Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016) and Qarib Qarib Single (2017).

Others have no such qualms. Sunil Lulla, Balaji Teleﬁlms’ group chief executive, reckons “a management service makes sure of the dates, arranges the appearance. They do whatever is required to make the product happen”.

However perish the thought – for now – of Indian versions of U.S.-style William Morris Endeavour-IMG or Creative Artists Agency. “William Morris or CAA is in a developed economy where all factors are stable – studio power and internal democracy is ingrained. We are still evolving. Our star system is feudal,” says Spice founder, Prabhat Choudhary. The agency handles branding for Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Mahesh Babu, among others.

Like it or not though, talent agencies are here to stay. More than 15 years back, Indian studio bosses would have laughed at the idea of paying a talent agency to source a writer or director. Now they do. –Vanita Kohli-Khandekar

Sacred Games

forecasts

Deep, dark, serious challenges in parts of Asia are balanced by robust growth in others, MPA says.

That big fear that has been looming over much of Asia’s pay-TV industry in the past few years? Well it’s here. Full blown, foul, fuelled by numbers that show deep, dark and serious challenges across Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan.

India and South Asia have not only been spared, but have been singled out for major growth in Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) latest forecasts. Subscriber growth in Korea has moderated, but remains robust, and the Philippines’ subs outlook isn’t looking anywhere near as bad as anything its Southeast Asian neighbours face.

China, India, Korea and Japan will power future growth. MPA forecasts a 3% CAGR in Asia Paciﬁc pay-TV revenue from 2018-23. By 2023, pay-TV revenue will total US$25 billion in China, US$16 billion in India, US$7.4 billion in Korea and US$7.1 billion in Japan, MPA’s Asia Paciﬁc Pay-TV Distribution report shows. The pay-TV base in the region will grow 2% CAGR from 645 million subscribers in 2018 to 696 million by 2023.

“Pay-TV stakeholders are adjusting to new realities as the industry shifts to IP-based distribution. The growth of high-speed broadband and online video is driving fundamental changes in content consumption and investment across key markets. This, together with piracy, will continue to adversely impact pay-TV industry growth,” MPA says.

MPA describes the current environment as a combo of slowdown and decline as key markets transition to online video and internet TV delivery. “Subscriber and ARPU growth is fundamentally challenged across much of Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan, and advertising is under pressure across most markets ex-India,” he says.

“In the context of such challenge, most pay-TV operators are rationalising content budgets, investing mostly in their own channels, local and Asian channels and sports rights, while rationalising spends on third-party channels across Hollywood entertainment, kids, factual and lifestyle,” Couto adds.

Content spend across a number of these genres has started to move online with the growth of OTT. At the same time, large scale IP-owners in entertainment and sports are likely to move direct-to-consumer with OTT offerings of their own.

Global media M&A will have a signiﬁcant impact in Asia as key players grow scale through the consolidation of channels and IP under one roof, creating more synergies and bargaining power in the process, Couto says. Following Fox/Disney, WarnerMedia (Warner Bros, HBO, Turner); and Discovery/Scripps, MPA ﬂags more consolidation, with A+E and Sony among the most likely candidates.

Pay-channel subscription fees are expected to grow at 2% CAGR over 2018-23 to US$10.8 billion by 2023. India will remain a key growth driver while Australia, Japan and Korea will remain scalable for incumbents.

Key territories: Pay-TV channel & content providers (total revenue growth % CAGR)

Leading regional pay-TV broadcasters & content providers, Asia Paciﬁc

“There will continue to be signiﬁcant rationalisation in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan,” Couto says.

Net advertising revenues are expected to grow at 5% CAGR over 2018-23 to reach US$16 billion, driven largely by growth in India.

India’s importance as a mainstay for pay channels will only be underscored by 2023 as it will contribute almost 50% to the Asia ex-China pay channel and CP revenue pie.

Seven media groups – 21st Century Fox, Disney, Sony, WarnerMedia, CJ, Sun TV, Zee – have more than 40% share of revenues accruing to channels and content providers from the Asia ex-China pay-TV industry in 2018. The remainder is split between international groups (Discovery and Viacom for instance), strong local incumbents (India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan), successful new entrants (BeIn Sports) and pay-TV operator invested channels.

I want to see the pride of Thai excellence worldwide.”

Anne Jakrajutatip, CEO, JKN Global Media, Thailand

To see more platforms getting behind eSports in a holistic manner.”

For the world to recognise the potential of Indian formats & embrace our concepts with the same love they have shown our scripted series.”

Sunita Uchil, Chief Business Officer –Global Syndication, Co-Productions & International Ad Sales, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd

Our goal for 2019 is to triple the number of formats adapted in Asia and to have at least three scripted formats in production. Consider- ing the number of programmes in development I would say that’s more than achievable.”

Sabrina Duguet, EVP Asia Pacific, all3media International

Find the right content that can engage both on air and online.”

Krissada

Trishnananda , Content Acquisition Director, PPTV HD 36, Thailand

Consumers to value content creators, individual & companies, who create that piece of fantastic content that we so cherish.”

#Onehope

Media execs with Asian single biggest business

We hope to push the boundaries for engaging and entertaining content while steering positive social growth.”

Joy Olby-Tan, Lead, NPP-Acquisition, Mediacorp, Singapore

Continued support of fresh talent and original content production throughout Asia.”

With a few deals under negotiation, I look forward to see how our hit formats will roll out internationally.”

Beatrice Lee, CEO, Blue Ant Media, Asia Pacific

Lester Hu, Head of Formats and International Business, Hunan TV, China

Lee, VP Sports Business, Astro, Malaysia

Fotini Paraskakis, Global EVP, Entertainment, The Story Lab

Ask and we shall receive? With all the excitement on localisation, we hope to see the commissions for it.”

Sonia Fleck, CEO, Bomanbridge Media

Big thatformat could make my heart pound and set my soul on fire.”

Tatiya Sinhabaedya, Chief Commercial Officer, Heliconia H Group, Thailand

More reasonable pricing.”

The search for inspirational and engaging content for the Thai audience will continue in 2019.”

Joe Suteestarpon, CEO/Founder, Mediaplex International (Doonee), Thailand

Airin Zainul, Director, Media Prima, Malaysia businesses share their hope for 2019…

Asia continues to create great original and international co-production content that can impact the global stage.”

Julius Toh, Vice President, Content Sales Asia Pacific & Middle East, Fox Networks Group Content Distribution

More budgets.”

2019 is the time for us to expand our subscription service to advertising and ecommerce service. That’s really a big challenge.”

Produce 1+ hit original IP that can be used on a variety of platforms.”

Christine Baek, Team Leader, Business Development, Broadcasting Division, skylifeTV, Korea

Expecting more personalised, relatable & sharable original content coming out of Asia to fill in the fast growing new media platform.”

Stella Soh, Senior Manager, Content, dimsum

Winnie Ngai, Chief Marketing Officer, myTV Super, Hong Kong

Vitto Lazatin Vice President, Content Acquisition, Cignal TV, Philippines

Launching our food channel and bringing our quality programming to new territories.”

To continue expanding our unique content to new audiences across the world.”

Get viewers addicted to quality British content.”

Establish even more growth in the region, by bringing innovative content that engages the audiences on all platforms, tailored to the Asian market.”

I hope to continue to work with local producers and channels partners across all platforms to build premium content opportunities that have universal resonance.”

Forge valuable content partnerships with like-minded producers and content creators in the region.”

That our world-class production and storytelling continue to bring in new audiences and standout in an expanding digital landscape.”

That our Asia footprint will be significantly expanded as we ramp up our TV distribution business across the region.”

Production of more high-quality Asian originals.”

That our audience will be the biggest appreciators of the content that we will be creating next year.”

Saskia van Lier, SVP, Talpa Asia

Vanessa Shapiro, President, Worldwide TV Distribution and Co-Production, Gaumont

Juliana Low, Head of Content and Programming, Vuclip Malaysia

Nuno I, Director of Sales, Asia Pacific, Hasbro Studios

Chris Knight, President and CEO, Gusto Worldwide Media

Xavier Aristimuño, VP of Licensing, HBO Latin America

Solange Atwood, EVP, Blue Ant International

Sophia Yuen, Head of Content and Distribution, ITV

Shenthil Ranie, Vice President, Global, Inflight Rights

Patrice Choghi, SVP, International, GRB Studios

To see even more of our shows in this exciting and evolving market.”

Dominic Gardiner, CEO, Jetpack Distribution

Technology is transforming how buyers and sellers engage – so more deals, less hassle.”

Victoria de Kerdrel, Senior Vice President, Asia Paciﬁc, TRX

Looking forward to introducing new titles to the Asian market.”

Julien Farçat, Sales Manager, CAKE

We hope the regional markets open up for Asean (Indonesian) based productions and theatrical releases.”

Lavesh Samtani, COO, 13 Entertainment, Indonesia

2019 will see a focus on working with local producers and broadcasters to introduce our formats into the region.”

Robert Bassett, Senior Sales Executive for Asia, Scandinavia and Africa, Twofour Rights

Premium content shall be accessible via linear and SVOD to subscribers. Education and entertainment will be driving the market.”

Alexandre Bac, Managing Director Asia-Paciﬁc, Thema

In principle, we hope to expand our footprint across Asia, but also to maintain our fruitful and highly valued existing partnerships.”

Anke Manthey, Sales Project Manager, m4e AG

That we close out this decade with less ignorance and fear, and greater understanding, empathy and compassion towards one another.”

Glen Hansen, VP/Head of Content Sales, Asia-Paciﬁc,

More formats, co-productions, and co-investments.”

We hope that in 2019 Turkish drama will grow more powerful and strengthen its position in the market and land in many new markets.”

Salmi Gambarova, Sales ExecutiveCIS, Asia, Australia, Kanal D

Hyeonza Hong, SVP Sales Asia, ITV Studios Global Entertainment

A+E Networks

AND FRED

COOK UP A STORM ON A ROAD TRIP AROUND EUROPE

THE CULINARY BOOT CAMP SERIES THAT’S ‘HELL ON WHEELS’

GORDON RAMSAY, GINO D’ACAMPO

SIRIEIX

Shop sharp

Drama, movies, animation and formats rule buyers’ shopping list for 2019, according to ContentAsia’s latest Buyer Poll. 72% of the buyers listed drama as their top priority, followed by movies at 56%. Animation and formats came in third, with 44% of attention from a sample of buyers from linear terrestrial channels, digital terrestrial services, production houses, distributors, pay-TV platforms and streaming/SVOD services. Kids, lifestyle and travel programming were not far behind; 40% of the buyers who responded have these genres of their lists. Online rights are – not surprisingly – part of most conversations, along with various on-demand rights. The snap poll was conducted across a range of channels and platforms across nine countries (Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand) between 7 November and 16 November this year.

Types of content buyers are acquiring for 2019:

Bauhaus world

See us at Booth E-18

meefung.lee@pikfilm.com.my T +60 (3) 2093-0866

Explore a culture of iconic design. Meet internationally renowned designers, architects and artists from around the world who share a passion for Bauhaus and praise its influence on their work.

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Explore a culture of iconic design. Meet internationally renowned designers, architects and artists from around the world who share a passion for Bauhaus and praise its inﬂuence on their work.

Who’s buying what rights...

Has the OTT/streaming environment made a big difference in the way buyers are acquiring and/or programming?

19 (76%) of the 25 participants across nine countries in Asia say they will buy online rights for 2019. 18 of the 25 will also include video-ondemand (VOD), subscription VOD and transactional VOD rights in their 2019 acquisitions.

What

leading

18 (72%) of the participants say OTT/streaming environment has impacted the way they are buying/programming content. How are they handling the change? Solutions range from closely monitoring market trends/habits and acquiring online/VOD rights where possible to operating their own streaming/ online services. Two buyers operating in the free-TV and pay-TV environment say they have not been impacted so far by the streaming video environment.

traditional players across Asia are asking for...

Company Rights broadcasters, channels and pay TV platforms are buying for 2019

Free TV Free TV, mobile, online, VOD/SVOD/TVOD

Free TV All rights

Free TV Free TV

Free TV Free TV, mobile, online, VOD/SVOD/TVOD

Free TV Free TV, IPTV, mobile, online, VOD/SVOD/TVOD

Free TV Free TV, online

Free TV Free TV

Pay TV channel Pay TV, cable/satellite, IPTV, mobile, online, VOD/SVOD/TVOD

Pay TV channel Pay TV, cable/satellite, mobile, online, VOD/SVOD/TVOD

Pay TV channel Pay TV, cable/satellite, IPTV, mobile, online

Platform All rights

Platform Pay TV, cable/satellite, IPTV, online

Platform All rights

Platform Free TV, pay TV, cable/satellite, IPTV, mobile, online, VOD/SVOD/TVOD, all rights

Source: ContentAsia’s Buyer Poll 2019 (7-16 Nov 2018)

56% of free-TV broadcasters will buy online rights

All linear pay-TV channels will buy online and mobile rights

100% of traditional payTV platforms will buy online rights

CBS Studios International

CBS High Quality MASS_APPPEAL - FBI

The CW BUZZ Youth-Oriented - Charmed

SHOWTIME Daring Inviting, Inventive – escape at dannemora

CBS All Access Groundbreaking ORIGINAL – tell me a story

Are buyers acquiring more or less foreign/regional (ie. non-domestic) content for 2019 compared to 2018?

Are platforms/channels producing more or less of their own content in 2019 compared to 2018?

22 of the 25 participants offer foreign programming, ranging from sports, drama, movies, to lifestyle and animation from regional and international markets including Korea, Japan, Malaysia, the U.S. and U.K. Out of the 22, more than half (12 buyers) say their foreign acquisitions for next year will remain the same as 2018. Six will buy less while four will increase their foreign acquisitions for 2019.

Are buyers in Asia spending more or less on original content in 2019 compared to 2018?

23 of the 25 acquisition executives work for channels/platforms that produce their own content. Asked whether they will be producing more or less content next year compared to this year, 13 of the 23 said they would be making more, while two confirmed that original production would drop in 2019. Eight say there will be no change in 2019 compared to 2018.

How much original production among premium services in Asia is

short-form?

A resounding yes for more original content. Of the 23 execs who responded to this question,15 said they would spend more on original programming next year compared to this year while six said they would spend less. Four said there was no change and two declined to answer.

Activity here is split almost down the middle. 12 of the 23 buyers who responded to this question said none of their original production is short form. 11 said they were including short-form in their original plans.

NOTES: The information was gathered from acquisition executives from 25 companies operating across a wide range of genres in nine countries (Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand) and as well as regional programmers and operators across video broadcast and streaming platforms in Asia. Nine free-TV broadcasters participated, along with five streaming/online/on-demand services, four pay-TV channels, four pay-TV platforms and one production house that also acquired third-party rights. The survey was conducted between 7 November and 16 November 2018.

Kingdom come

Netﬂix has 100+ new and returning originals on its slate for 2019. Content vice president, Rob Roy, talks about asking, listening, Asian creators and trying to remove creative pain points.

Netflix said ‘yes’ to returning Korean epic zombie drama Kingdom before the season one premiere on 25 January 2019. No, it wasn’t a tough decision to go with a second season before confirming audience response to the first, says Rob Roy, Netflix’s vice president for content acquisition. That kind of risk is, he adds, “in our DNA. If we believe in something, we will commit to it and go... we want to try to get the second season out as fast as we can, and we recognise that we have to make that commitment sooner rather than later”.

With almost 120 new and returning Asia originals on its slate for 2019, is this where Roy thought he would be at this point in Netﬂix’s Asia roll out? There was no speciﬁc originals target to start with, he says. “We knew there was going to be a very rich offering, great storytelling and capabilities within the region,” he says.

Originals in Asia since Netflix’s global launch in January 2016 were less about a number than “a question of figuring out ways to work with people,” he adds. “We didn’t have a specific target in mind, but we have good momentum. I also feel like we’re just getting started.”

Did Netﬂix arrive in Asia with a genre wishlist? Do you have one now?

“The genres we thought were going to be impactful or meaningful have happened... but there are things that surprised us too. That’s the beauty of our model and our approach, as we’ve gone, as we learned, we re-

iterate and innovate... if you look at the quality of the talent that’s out there, the quiet conversations that are happening, those are all superencouraging insights.”

How much of the programming agenda for Asia is driven by the stories you’re hearing from writers such as Korea’s Kim Eun-hee (Kingdom) and how much is driven by data that sends you out there looking for specific kinds of stories? “One of the questions we always ask people is ‘what’s the story you want to tell’. It’s an easy way to get into a conversation with the creator and figure out whether we are the right home for the story, whether it makes sense, and how do we help that. We spend a lot of time asking that question and a lot of stories come that way... we’re really putting the creative and the quality of the storyteller’s vision first and foremost. We don’t have to worry about advertisers or anything other than making a really compelling piece of programming so that our members love it, that they watch a lot of content here and talk about it with their friends. At the end of day, we’re trying to figure out what those stories are, and how we can provide value in telling those stories differently.”

How do you use your data to shape what gets made? “I would say data is mostly a feedback mechanism. What data tells us is... mostly where the audience is and how big that audience currently is, and making sure the

right piece of content gets in front of the right person in an accessible way. We use data to think about how big the audience could be, to measure the cost of the production relative to the size of the audience. But when it comes to a commissioning decision, the creative is the most important thing. Is it a compelling story? Is it a world you want to live in? Do you want to know the characters? Is it a story that you want to hear? That’s really the driver.”

The Netflix way of doing things has had a significant impact on the production process in Asia. Has shaping, or re-shaping, that process been difficult for you? “Every day we’re getting smarter. As we ramp up our productions around the world, we learn of lot of things and what that allows us to do is to share those learnings and incorporate the learnings from other markets too. As we get smarter, as we learn to identify local market experts who really know the production landscape and we learn about the pain points in each industry, we can figure out how we can help alleviate those from a creative perspective. We face challenges in every market. No market is perfect... What we are able to do is share our learnings across the world... We’ve got people who are very talented and know how to make really compelling programming. So it cuts both ways. It’s hugely beneficial to us to learn and take those best practices as well.”

What do you think Netflix’s biggest impact on the production industry in Asia has been? “I think us being a prolific buyer of content is good for creators, it’s good for consumers, it’s good for the industry in terms of employment, it creates more demand for great talent. And if we can share some of these learnings, and bring resources that aren’t there today, then that’s also helpful. We also benefit just from the existence and the relationships that we have. Learning from people is hugely helpful.”

What was your biggest surprise? “Content will surprise you... You can’t predict everything. Certain pieces of content are much bigger than we thought... A show like To All the Boys I Loved before was a huge hit for us all over the world. Chinese drama series, A Love So Beautiful, plays really well in various parts of Asia. The End of the F***ing World is another one.”

Singapore’s Shirkers was mentioned at least three times during the what’s next showcase in November. Was that show a surprise? “I would say less of a surprise than more just a great opportunity. We’re a unique platform, we can give that film the broadest distribution possible and it can find an audience. I think what’s cool

We’re really putting the creative and the quality of the storyteller’s vision first and foremost. We don’t have to worry about advertisers or anything other than making a really compelling piece of programming so that our members love it, that they watch a lot of content here and talk about it with their friends. At the end of day, we’re trying to figure out what those stories

are, and how we can provide value in telling those stories differently .”

Rob Roy, Vice President, Content, Netflix

about that story is it’s a love letter to Singapore in some sense but also it’s really a story about a filmmaker trying to get her movie made. and that that resonates with people all over the place.”

What are you happiest about? “I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished so far and I think we’re just getting started. You know, when you look at the shows that we’re announcing and the calibre of the talent that we’re working with. And the sizes of the audiences that we’re able to aggregate that I’m proud of that and I’m proud of the fact that we’re exposing people to content from all over the world in ways that I think they haven’t had a chance to experience before.”

What would you like to change. “I wish we were going faster... I’d love to have even more compelling programming and build this slate even faster.”

What do you need to be able to do that? “Just time. It’s having those conversations with people finding out what those stories are and setting them up to get made.”

HERE TO ENTERTAIN

Space race

Zee’s international business/syndication boss, Sunita Uchil, has the full-blown co-pro bug. And while the strategy kicked off with blue-chip factual, no genre is out of bounds as she explores the space.

Zee’s international syndication/business boss, Sunita Uchil, has had her head in a new space and her heart set on big blue-chip global co-productions for more than a year, even before she heard about (or perhaps as a result of) Talesmith’s Life of Earth 4K/UHD special tracing 4.5 billion year history. The co-pro with Smithsonian Networks International – which Uchil to this day describes as “my baby” – was announced in October 2017.

Today, with Life of Earth: From Space done and ready, Uchil has the full-blown co-pro bug, planning at least one, and maybe two, similar projects a year, charting a new course for Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd’s (ZEEL) and expanding perception of the company as a heavyweight drama producer.

Thinking of Zee as a drama/general entertainment powerhouse is not, she hastens to add, “a wrong perception”. But she wants more. “There’s a paucity of this kind of content”, especially among mass market players, she says of her maiden blue-chip factual foray.

As part of her current global content surge and her remit as chief business ofﬁcer, international ad sales, global syndication and production, Uchil is also prioritising remakes. A 52-episode African version of Zee’s Pavitra Rishta, a co-production with Nigerian agency Mace and Ghana’s Multimedia Group, was announced in November. This second African series follows Khwaabon Ke Darmiyaan (2016), a co-pro between Zee in Dubai and India with RTI from the Ivory Coast. The drama remakes follow

Zee’s expansion into formats, including creating Dance India Dance. The driver behind all of this? “We have a vision of doing more,” she says. For India, Uchil talks about a “different level of awareness”, about content that caters to a whole new generation of consumers. “As disposable income rises in India, there will be a need for better content, people are more discerning, and more fragmented,” she says. This may still be a one-TV household market, but smart phones have changed the game across all socio-economic groups. “The smartphone is India’s second screen... TV will continue, but we will see a huge change in content coming out of India”.

Uchil says broadcasters in India “have a natural advantage” in creating engaging content experiences for streaming audiences. For one, local players have two decades or more of original content along with an understanding of the native segments, like Marathi, Tamil, Kanada.... Zee has content in at least 12 languages. “That’s a huge beneﬁ t,” she says.

The rise of streaming platforms, including ZEEL’s Zee5, has given programmers a much wider content canvas not possible on traditional linear family services accustomed, for instance, to long-running serials. “We can say, this doesn’t ﬁt on Zee TV, but we can put it on Zee5,” she says, adding: “That’s the opportunity, to create a 10-part series or a completely different kind of programme that is not typically Zee.”

Sunita Uchil

Globealisation

Philippines’ telco giant, Globe Telecom, has 65m customers and a sharp focus on building a broad-ranging creative ecosystem. Senior advisor

Joe Caliro talks about the music, movies, style, fashion and production partnerships feeding into the bigger picture.

A month ago, on 3 November, Globe Studios, a division of Philippines’ telco giant Globe Telecom, and Viu, the OTT/streaming service of Hong Kong telco giant PCCW, premiered a Korean music talent/reality show with an additional window on cable music channel Myx, owned and operated by traditional free-TV/pay-TV broadcaster ABS-CBN. The idea behind Hello K-Idol – a first-of-its kind coproduction – was “to bring K-pop closer to Filipinos”. Eleven days later, Globe dropped 10 songs by 10 Filipino artists simultaneously on Spotify in the Elements Music Camp 2018 playlist, with a streaming window for a behind-the-scenes making-of Elements show and a slate of related content on emerging markets’ platform iflix. And there’s more – movies, style, fashion, theatre, plus relationships with Disney, Turner, Netflix, Hooq and others... all part of a wide-ranging creative ecosystem Globe is building to nurture and support creative talent and engage its universe of 65-million (and growing) consumers.

Globe’s Manila-based senior advisor, Joe Caliro, says the telco’s content priorities are to “ﬁnd stories or platforms that reach beyond the Philippines”.

“We start with a purpose to select projects that support the arts and Filipino creators, whether that’s in music, fashion, theatre or ﬁlm. We then give mentor-

Photograph by Daniel Tan

Hello K-Idol (main pic) Joe Caliro

DOCUMENTARIES & SPECIALS

We start with a purpose to select projects that support the arts and Filipino creators, whether that’s in music, fashion, theatre or film. We then give mentoring, marketing and finance support to make the end product world-class. If done right it leads to great content.”

Joe Caliro, Globe Telecom

ing, marketing and finance support to make the end product worldclass. If done right it leads to great content,” he says.

Globe’s content strategy, Caliro adds, is all about partnerships. “The purpose-driven nature of our role is that it should be a win-win for both partners. We hope over time to work with every one of our content partners. The win-win is they all need localised content and we can provide this quality content and at the same time market it for them to our 65 million customers,” he says.

Caliro also spoke about some of Globe’s recent projects and described a vision in which the sum of the content parts is designed to equal way more than the whole...

Globe and Viu partnered for the first time on seven-episode Korean reality/talent show, Hello K-Idol. Are you happy with the response? ”It’s a great show... and we learned what not to do next time. [Globe Telecom president and chief executive, Ernest Cu] likes to say that as we go about doing this stuff, we’re learning. We don’t profess to know everything. And that’s why we partner. And little by little, we end up doing things where it’s more 80% us and 20% our partner. It’s starting to flip in films. In the beginning, it was 80/20. We were 20, because we were trying to get our feet wet, to learn the business.”

Does this first Viu co-production take you in a new direction or is this a continuation of your current partnership? “It’s a continuation. What we’re trying to do is hopefully partner with every one of our major partners. So Viu was a collaboration on trying to find a format that was Korean in nature but based in Philippines. That was something that we co-produced. We developed the script and the format with Viu.”

Will your productions ever be 100% Globe? “I don’t know that will ever be 100% because there is value in partnerships.”

You still see value in partnerships, even though these may not give you full ownership of the IP, which is important to you? “When you partner and you’re the minority partner you don’t own the IP. You own equity. And you will earn from that property. But you do not own the IP and hence anything you want to do or anything you want to spin off is very restrictive.”

How is Globe Studios structured? “The Studios is divided into two. There’s the branded part of Studios and then there’s the long-form division. Even within the branded space, we’re starting to work with partners that are outside of Globe. So we’re working with Volkswagen. We’re working with Revlon and with Lee jeans. Understanding how to talk to millennials in the digital space is what Globe has done really well.”

How much do you make in-house and how much do you involve the local indie production industry? “It depends on the type of project. When you look at, for instance, [music property] Elements, we will hire crews to come in and produce it, but ultimately, we’re producing it. We are directing it. We have a cast of in-house people who are script writers, who do the storyboards.”

How do you see Globe Studios’ role in the Asian content ecosystem? “We would love to see Globe Studios as the go-to partner for movies or short-form content that resonates not only with Asia but the rest of the world. I was once asked at a conference in the Philippines, ‘how do you get your movies on Netflix?’ My answer was this: ‘Very simple. Stop making Filipino movies for Filipinos and start making Filipino stories for the world. This is what Globe Studios is looking for when we take on a project and the quality of the final project must be at that standard.”

How would you characterise Globe Studios’ relationship with producers or programmers? “The reason we’re different is because as Globe Studios, we want to produce high-quality stories that are not necessarily for mass appeal. We will finance and produce. Unlike the other studios, we promote the final product. It’s to our benefit to promote it to our 65 million customers. So we’re like a marketing arm for our own products”.

Are you building your own platform? “We decided not to go this route... We will partner with companies that already have platforms.”

Globe’s partnerships span a wide range of activities, all of which feed into each other... “I guess you have to put your money where your mouth is. We’ve introduced several different opportunities, including fashion. We have an initiative called StyleFest, where we mentor upand-coming designers and we partner them with well-known Filipino designers. And we partner them with online businesses like Zalora and also with our own 0917 brand. We not only mentor them on the design but the business of fashion.”

The only person who makes money is the person who owns the IP. Otherwise you’re just a production house. So a lot of the things that we’re doing now, we own the IP.”

Joe Caliro

Where does Globe Live fit? “Globe Live is the live events part of Globe... What we’re trying to do is create an ecosystem where you can create events that spawn content. And in some cases, the first type of content is branded content. It’s about getting other brands involved in that event and giving them a platform. And then the actual event spawns content, which can be a series, a movie, a documentary. That’s where Globe Studios steps in. We have several examples, including StyleFest. Our music project – Elements Music Camp – is another example of trying to give Filipinos a platform outside of the Philippines.”

You own the Elements IP... “We do, which means we can leverage new royalty streams from the music content, performance rights from the songs and the artist publishing rights of the song and the artist. Oh yeah, and we have content. We can now sweat the assets. We have merchandise rights to Elements. We can create Elements lines. So really, it’s trying to master what Disney has known forever.”

You describe Globe as an “un-label” in the music space.... “As a telco we get behind marketing. One would argue that we’re like a record label and we’re acting like an un-label. We produce music videos for each of the artists. We fund the whole thing. And we produced Anatomy of the Song, which people will be able to see on YouTube... We made a behind the scenes video and Live at the Iconic, which is a live performance in a studio of the song. In all, we have six shows of about 20 minutes each. Everything will air on iflix, so people around the world can watch, not just in the Philippines.”

It seems as though you spend a lot of time thinking about why artists from the Philippines have not made more of an impact on the global stage – and then trying to do something about it... “Why has a naturalborn Filipino artist never broken internationally in the music industry? If you look at all the talent we have in the Philippines, you have to ask that question; why, when you go on cruise ships or you go in Hong Kong to a Hard Rock, it’s all Filipinos playing in the band. And so the hypothesis we had is that they’re just not given the right support to break internationally.”

And Globe can give them that support? “Yes. For instance, we partner with Spotify, which has reach worldwide for music. We have partnerships with YouTube, which has reach worldwide. So if you could create music (and content) that’s relevant to people, not just in the Philippines but worldwide, maybe you could break an artist.”

You believe you can contribute to the creation of an international star from the Philippines... “Perhaps part of the reason Filipino music hasn’t broke out of the Philippines is because the music producers have a Filipino ear... So we brought in five international producers to work with 10 artists. We got the best five Filipino local producers and we brought in five of the top international producers to create 10 songs, people who have produced artists like Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, Nicky Minaj, Usher, Eminem. The songs were all recorded in English because English travels. The Elements Music Camp 2018 playlist dropped on Spotify on 14 November. It was the first time ever that 10 songs by 10 local artists had been released simultaneously. We wanted to give every song, every artist an equal chance at being discovered.”

You leveraged Globe’s involvement in the Elements Music Camp into a movie called Last Song Syndrome – or LSS . How did that happen? “In Elements, we have 10 artists. Among those is a band called Ben&Ben. Ben&Ben were [Elements Music] Campers and are the hottest band in the Philippine right now. We are producing a film that will release in the first quarter of 2019. Guess who’s the star of that film? Ben&Ben. It’s a love story about these two love-torn couples. What they have in common is that they love Ben&Ben. They follow Ben&Ben and they keep running into each other.”

What’s your biggest learning? “The only person that makes money is the person who owns the IP. Otherwise you’re just a production house. You can’t leverage the asset if you don’t own the IP. So a lot of the things that we’re doing now, we own the IP.”

What’s your best outcome? “I have so many... Ultimately I would love to have something by Globe Studios on every one of our partners’ platforms. I think that that’s a modest first step. If you ask Ernest [Cu, Globe Telecom president and chief executive], he wants to win an Academy Award. If you ask me I just want to make money. Not necessarily in that order.”

Informer decisions

Sunetra Sarker became an actress because U.K. daytime drama Brookside needed a brown face and a casting agent happened to drive past the bus stop where the teenage Sarker was waiting. “That basically meant they couldn’t ﬁnd any Asian actresses... I had no thought of acting becoming my career. I was just happy to tell my school friends that I’m going to be on TV,” she says.

Fast forward to today, and Sarker is one of the actors ﬂying the ﬂag for big-attitude Asian women who aren’t stereotypical South Asian shopkeepers’ wives with six lines and hidden personality. Actually, she didn’t mean to do that either, she says as her latest drama – six-part contemporary thriller, Informer – premieres.

Sarker, born and brought up in Liverpool to middle-class Indian Hindu parents from Calcutta, plays Pakistani Muslim Sadia Shar, the mother of a reluctant informer in contemporary London. The character is witty, independent, runs her own beauty salon, doesn’t sleep with the man everyone thinks is her husband, and has a few secrets. “There were so many clashes of stereotypes that I liked,” she says.

In a way though, her earlier roles clashed more loudly with her heritage. Born in 1973 the year after her parents emigrated to the U.K., Sarker “was very much thrown into the world of a ﬁrst-generation Asian girl, born and brought up in England with this heritage that I really didn’t want to know much about. I was living in the present wanting to be as English as possible,

as British as possible,” she says. “I was very much a British-before-Asian kind of youngster.”

Luckily, perhaps, because decent roles for Asian women were rare. “I wasn’t trying to be Indian in anything I was doing. I was really keen to not play the race card because there were no roles,” she adds. So she ended up auditioning for parts as Clare, Zoe, Angie or Jane. Her argument went something like this: “I might not look like a Clare, but I sound like a Clare and I can act like a Clare so why can’t she look like me?”. Some went for it. Some didn’t. But she always “managed to ﬁnd a successful route to not having to shine a spotlight on being Asian”.

It was only when she turned “about 30”, that she started “feeling quite proud of being Indian for the ﬁrst time... it creeps up on you. I was getting married and having children. I enjoyed my friendships with my parents. I realised I had my own identity now and that is where I started I suppose, adapting myself to being open to trying Asian roles.”

What she won’t do is take a role for the sake of gender or race diversity. “I’m happy to play a terrorist if the story is about a terrorist and it’s a good story. I don’t want to just be a person in a show because you’ve ticked a box and said there is now a brown person in the show. I’m sure a lot of people will agree with me on that,” she adds.

Why did she take the Informer role? “Because there was so much intrigue in the ﬁrst script. I couldn’t work out what was going to happen”.

There are only so many white men who can write [roles] for Asian women.”

Sunetra Sarkar

Sarker says she was gripped by page two – and the character she was auditioning for had not even appeared yet. “I wanted to know the story regardless of the part,” she says. When she did “meet” Sadia, she found a woman with sass – “that’s the word I use the most” – that Asian women don’t usually get a chance to show on television. “Having worked in TV for so long, I can spot a new character that hasn’t been shown on screen before,” she adds.

Informer is written by newcomers Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani and produced by Neal Street Productions (Call The Midwife, Penny Dreadful) for BBC One. Amazon Prime Video has U.S. rights. Asia distribution by all3media International is pending. The series stars Nabhaan Rizwan as Raza, a second-generation Pakistani man from East London coerced by counter-terrorism officer Gabe (Paddy Considine) to become an informer. Bel Powley plays Gabe’s young and ambitious partner, Holly.

Sarker says Noshirvani, a New Yorker born in Iran, brought to the story an understanding of the complexities of extended Asian families; “We call a lot of people uncle and auntie. We call a lot of people our grandparents who aren’t really our grandparents... within that he managed to capture a mom who wasn’t really the mom.”

“A lot of family in my life have similar scenarios, aunties who looked after

them after their parents had passed away. As it turns out in our story, Sadia is not Raza’s biological mother. She sacrificed her life when he was four or five years old to take care of him, his brother and his dad. I think that’s one of the reasons the bond is so strong for Raza to deceive the family. He’s trying to save Sadia because she has gone out of her way to look after them. He has a bigger debt to pay to her. That’s the reason I liked the script”. Sarker’s relationship with her on-screen son plays out against myriad characters managing double lives, coping with lies and deception.

Informer is not the first time Sarker has stepped into the Pakistani Muslim mother role. In Channel 4’s Ackley Bridge, she plays Kaneez Paracha, who finds out, among other things, that her daughter is gay and that her husband has a second family. “She’s the dinner lady at the school, rubbing shoulders with racists, and she’s just got bags of character. Again, she’s a woman who you don’t see on screen a lot. These are the sort of Asian women I want to play,” she says.

Has her world become more race/colour blind in the last 30 years? “The environment has changed a lot, but no.” Sarker speaks up for greater multiculturalism behind the camera, including cultivating writers and creative talent from a greater range of backgrounds.

“We need a lot more multi-culturalism behind the scenes before it can come on-screen... there are only so many white men who can write for Asian women,” she says. “We need to open the doors earlier to the new generation coming through, to let them feel they can be writers, to let them believe they can be an Asian writer, an Asian director, an Asian producer, an Asian cameraman.”

Sarker occasionally writes, has her own production company, and has directed a few episodes of BBC medical drama, Casualty, in which she played Dr Zoe Hanna for eight years. “It was really fun, again as a woman in television and not spotting as many female directors as you would like to see.”

Nabhaan Rizwan as Raza in Informer

Bridge the gaps

Three versions and multiple seasons of Scandi noir crime drama, The Bridge, have been made around the world. The fourth – and the ﬁrst in Asia – is a Double Vision production in Malaysia for streaming platform Viu. The Malaysian studio’s head of production, Min Lim, talks about adapting the 10-part thriller, turning up the dial on premium originals and navigating political and cultural sensitivies between Singapore/Malaysia.

The Malaysia/Singapore version of crime thriller, The Bridge, premiered across Asia at the end of November, bringing to a close more than two years of development and opening new routes to production/co-production/funding and distribution.

The 10-part hour-long Viu Original series, based on the Scandinavian noir drama from the Endemol Shine Group scripted format catalogue, premiered simultaneously on PCCW Media’s Asian streaming platform Viu, on traditional regional pay-TV channel HBO Asia across 17 markets (excluding Malaysia) with windows on HBO Go and on HBO On Demand, and on Malaysia’s free-TV channel Media Prima ntv7.

The Asian version pretty much sticks to the international plot, opening with a body found exactly halfway between Singapore and Malaysia on the bridge that links the two countries. The body is split in half, made up of two different women, setting off a hunt for a killer that involves teams from both countries. Throughout the investigation, the killer reveals that he will

bring to light ﬁve issues that are causing rot on both sides of the border.

The series, directed by Lee Thean-jeen and Jason Chong, stars Malaysia’s Bront Palarae as Malaysian detective Megat Jamil and Singapore’s Rebecca Lim as Serena Teo.

Double Vision’s Kuala Lumpur-based head of production, Min Lim, who pushed the project uphill for two years or more, is anything but battleweary, and it sounds like she would, if she could, do it all over again.

How did you deal with the potentially explosive political and cultural differences between Singapore and Malaysia? “We actually had a lot of fun with it. Obviously you know we have this friendly rivalry with Singapore... not only did we contrast the two countries but we also had the two leads who are different races – one Malay [Bront Palarae] and one Chinese [Rebecca Lim]. So you also have not just the difference in national culture, but also the differences in races. We wanted Megat and Serena

be very typical of the countries that they came from and embody the different characteristics... So basically, she’s the anal one from Singapore and he’s the laid back one from Malaysia.”

For example... “She is high IQ/low EQ, efficient, by the book. He has a different way. He’s very charming. People like him and you see that in the first scene when he arrives in Singapore. He does what a lot of Malaysians do. He brings them food and immediately the Singaporeans are like ‘wow, you know, I take back every bad thing I’ve said about Malaysia ICD’. So he has a very personable manner and that’s what makes the contrast so interesting. It is not just the differences in culture but also the differences in character. When these two meet, they actually start off on a bad foot. They don’t like each other, they just rub each other up the wrong way. But over the course of the series they form this bond. And that’s really the arc of their story.”

Min

We didn’t take out all the sex. ”

Lim, Head of Production, Double Vision/Vision New Media

You spent about two years developing the Singapore/Malaysia version... “We started talking about it two years ago and we kept saying ‘yes it’s a great story. We should do this’. We have a bridge [between Singapore and Malaysia]. It makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of relevance and we can make a really really good local adaptation. But it needs to be done at a certain budget. It’s a story that has a lot of characters, a lot of plot lines, a lot of scenes. The budget is high for a reason, but we just couldn’t find a broadcaster who would do it.”

And then Viu stepped up... “I remember talking to Kingsley [Warner, Viu Malaysia’s general manager] about it and he was like ‘this is actually a great story’... And he really made this happen. So this is all very much due to him as much as it is for us.”

There are some significant changes to the original script, including taking out all the sex to comply with Malaysia/Singapore content codes. What did you replace it with? “We didn’t take out all the sex. I think now we imply sex... We knew from day one that this was going to go on free-to-air TV as well as on OTT, where you have a little bit more leeway. But the facts are that the series will air on free to air and that this genre has never really been done before in Malaysia. Not just that it’s crime, but in how the characters are shown.”

For example... “In the original or even the U.S. or the U.K. versions, the Serena character goes to a bar, picks up a bartender, takes him home and has sex with him. Immediately afterwards, she goes back to work and he’s very confused. We felt that just wouldn’t work in an Asian setting... as liberal as we would like to think we are, the audience would have judged her for it. And so we’ve changed that slightly and still kept a bit of it but kind of gave her a bit of legitimacy with a work relationship... we kept elements but found a way to do it that worked in a local setting.”

The Bridge

We didn’t avoid cultural stereotypes. The journey is quite complex and varied and the story is very dark. There’s a lot happening and different things to follow... we thought that giving audiences characters that they could identify with and go on this journey with was a lot better.”

Min Lim, Head of Production, Double Vision/Vision New Media

The international versions have a diverse cast in terms of looks and physical abilities not often seen in Asian drama... “We wanted a variety of looks. When you look at Asian drama, the look and the styling tend to be the same. Or the girls are very pretty, dressed very well, especially idol drama, Korean and Taiwanese... we were very conscious of getting people who looked like real people... Malaysia and Singapore have diverse populations – Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian... we’ve managed to get the whole gamut. So that’s kind of what we were concerned about in terms of diversity.”

What lines did you draw between cultural stereotypes that were relevant and cliches? “We didn’t avoid the cultural stereotypes... because that’s what the audience identifies with. We could have gone down a route where we maybe flipped them or did different things. But now that they are culturally stereotyped, it’s almost easier for the audience to identify and go along on this journey.”

So the stereotypes are deliberate? “Yes. Because the journey is quite complex and varied and the story is very dark... There’s a lot happening that makes it incredibly different from a lot of local drama. It’s not just a family story, there are different things you have to follow. So, we thought that giving audiences a character or characters that they could identify with and go on this journey with was a lot better.”

Is there a season two? “Not yet”.

The Bridge

At a premium

HBO Asia is almost two years into an originals strategy driven by a different kind of Asian storytelling and a wider, deeper approach to production. With original titles such as horror anthology Folklore and eight-part action series Grisse already on air and various co-productions – including backing for Viu original The Bridge by Malaysia’s Double Vision and Astro Shaw’s The Garden of Evening Mists – on their way around the world, HBO Asia’s senior vice president for original productions, Jessica Kam, speaks about creating an Asian content pipeline for the premium movie service.

Picture by Shawn Ha

6x 60’

10 x 60’

10x 60’

You’ve had a year of non-stop development, including Folklore and Grisse, both of which you chose very quickly after you joined HBO Asia in early 2017. What was it about those two that made you take the leap? “I try to choose genres that can travel [and] genres that we Asians are good at. Horror and action are the two that are easy to win. Horror is very easy to do well for Asians because the entry barrier is not too high, and the cost is not usually that high, but we have a chance of doing it well if not even better than Westerners. And we can put the HBO spin on it as well... not like what a local terrestrial channel would do. Otherwise why would they be on HBO? So for Folklore, we gathered six directors from six different regions, who are all top of their class in their countries. We gave them a theme, and they came up with their own stories.”

Folklore lived up to your expectations even before its HBO Asia premiere in early October.. “Folklore has been validated by film festivals, which are traditionally incredibly picky about quality and about production value”. Folklore premiered on HBO Asia in early October. All six episodes screened at film festivals around the world, including the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Fantasic Fest in the U.S., Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival (Spain), Scream Fest (Singapore), Five Flavours Asian Film Festival (Poland), Asian World Film Fest (U.S.), Geneva International Film Festival 2018 (Switzerland), Trieste Science+Fiction Festival (Italty), Philadelphia Asian Film Festival and the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Folklore was TIFF’s first Asian TV series to be selected officially since the start of its Primetime programme in 2015.

There were other advantages to the Folklore choice and execution... “Another nice thing about the show is that it was a quick and cost-ef-

fective way of getting into six markets at the same time, which is part of my strategy. I am trying very hard to expand our production bases and our production footprints to more countries and work with more local talent, local directors, to bring out the best and the most authentic stories from Asia. So this format was one of the best ways for me to do it in a short time.”

You chose to work with feature film directors, like Joko Anwar and Eric Khoo, on Folklore. Why? “Because they are an assurance of quality. The six episodes in Folklore are all films, they’re not in a traditional series format.”

Your second commission is Grisse, which premiered in Asia on 4 November and is available on HBO in the U.S. and Europe. What was it about this series that attracted you? “Grisse is something quite different. It’s epic action set in 19th-century Indonesia under Dutch rule. The story is about a group that leads a rebellion against brutal Dutch oppressors. It’s action packed, gritty and violent – all the good things that HBO likes. It also has a Western feel to it, which makes it unique... it’s an Asian point of view to a story that we have most often seen from the European conqueror’s point of view... In Indonesia, the story has been told in Bahasa Indonesia in film and television, but we took the chance of doing it in English so that it can travel.”

After horror and epic action, you have a documentary based on an original HBO Asia production – coming-of-age drama, The Teenage Psychic – made with PTS in Taiwan. How did the documentary happen? “The Teenage Psychic (2017) was our first Mandarin-language series and it did really well. It’s a small-budget Chinese show, but high quality, about a teenage girl who is psychic. Season one did very well, so season two was Grisse

a no-brainer. Season two will air in 2019, so there was a gap of about two years between one and two. We wanted to take our time and do it well, but that meant a time lag between the seasons. So we decided to do a documentary called The World Behind the Teenage Psychic, which explores the temple culture in Taiwan and asks questions like ‘can psychics be trained?’” The hour-long The World Behind the Teenage Psychic features Taiwanese actress and singer, Nana Lee (The Teenage Psychic, Youth Power, One Million Star), who offers a personal account of how traditions of life and death survive in Taiwan today along with followers, devotees and academics. “For us it’s about having something to fill the gap between the two seasons so viewers don’t forget about it. Another thing is to appeal to a wider audience. The documentary is not just for teenage fans, but also for curious minds, believers or non-believers. So it ticks a few boxes for us”.

I try to choose genres that can travel, that Asians are good at. Horror and action are the two that are easy to win.”

Jessica Kam, Senior Vice President, Original Productions, HBO Asia

What are you hoping for with your involvement in feature film, The Garden of Evening Mists, with Astro Shaw? “Series are more our thing, but Astro Shaw is a strong, long-term partner. The story is based on Tan Twan Eng’s best-selling book. It’s a romance set during World War II between a Chinese Malaysian and a Japanese – a forbidden love that spans 30 or 40 years. It has a core Malaysian DNA, but it’s a story that can resonate with everybody. Those are the kinds of things that we look for, authentic stories that can also resonate across all the countries that we cover”. The Garden of Evening Mists stars Malaysian actress Lee Sinje and Taiwanese actressdirector-producer, Sylvia Chang, who both play Teoh Yun Ling. Japan’s Hiroshi Abe stars as Nakamura Aritomo, the gardener with whom Yun Ling is romantically involved. The cast also includes David Oakes (The White Queen, Victoria), Julian Sands (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and John Hannah (Four Weddings and A Funeral, The Mummy Trilogy).

Your range of investments and funding partnerships seems very broad, from HBO-led productions such as Grisse to films with Astro Shaw to series like The Bridge, which was led by Viu. So you’re obviously not limiting your involvement in Asian production in any way... “That’s right. We have our own shows and there are some where we work with different partners. We try to work with more partners locally. That’s the only way we can do more. And do more in high quality.”

The World Behind the Teenage Psychic

Folklore: A Mother’s Love

Production lines

Philippines’ broadcaster ABS-CBN is likely to spend upwards of US$220 million on production this year, including shows such as long-running drama series Brothers and the local versions of talent/ reality formats. Home-grown titles are travelling widely across Asia, with increasing presence in Africa, Latin America and Europe. Last year, international syndication revenue was up 38%. On YouTube, ABS-CBN’s entertainment channel has 11.5 million followers. Against this backdrop, Ruel Bayani, ABS-CBN’s business unit head of production and veteran ﬁlm/TV director, writer and producer, talks about production trends and challenges, inspiration and inﬂuences.

ABS-CBN is making a major shift in opening up production from a 100% in-house model to once that incorporates third-party alliances and coproduction. What does this mean for you? “It’s only recently that we have allowed independent line producers to be making content for us. Previously, we’ve been doing it all ourselves and it has been very difﬁcult especially in the ever changing landscape of entertainment. We believe that opening up to other creatives and producers and creating a more diverse portfolio of content is the better way to move forward.”

What does your in-house production ecosystem look like? “We have hundreds of creative producers working on more than 20 soap operas for the

year. Some are long running, some short term. Brothers, which is our most successful show, is in its third year. It creates around 40-45% ratings in the Philippines and it is a major driver of our income.”

What drives your production choices? “First and foremost what our audiences will relate to. Mostly the Filipino story is the story of resilience. And this has been the recurring theme, people struggling with their identity, with cultural identity, desire for independence, love and sacriﬁce for family. In the end, every story is a story of hope and it afﬁrms the very nature, the very virtues and values of the Filipinos. And that is why most of our content resonates.”

Picture by Shawn Ha

What’s the genre breakdown between in-house and outside commissions? “Most of the premium [prime-time] content – drama, news, variety and comedy – is kept in-house. We commission out mostly smaller films. On TV, we’re just starting to allow a few reality/lifestyle programmes.”

ABS-CBN opening up production to outsiders is one significant trend. What other content trends are you seeing in the Philippines? “The taste and preference of the Philippine audience has also shifted. We consume a lot of OTT content. We consume a lot of Korean content because we love Korean dramas. We’ve also launched our own OTT platform and have produced a lot of content for our millennial audience. I think the trend will be towards a younger, more dynamic, more agile market and we’ll be seeing more horror and suspense and action. For the most part, ABS-CBN content has always been about drama, the core drama that the Filipinos love. But now that we’re reaching out to the younger demographic we’ll have to be addressing those needs as well.”

You’ve worked with ABS-CBN for 27 years and before that GMA. In that time, you’ve been involved in more love triangles than anyone we know. Do you think the love triangle will remain a staple in the Philippines?

“When I was younger, [love triangles] somehow disappeared, they didn’t figure prominently. And then back in 2013, my movie No Other Woman, about this mistress who is really a good person, became the trendsetter and was the first Filipino drama/movie to earn Ps300 million/US$5.7 million. Since then, that whole triangle about modern relationships has come back into fashion.”

You’ve broken new ground in North America. How has that changed the way you approach filmmaking? “My last movie, Kasal (The Wedding), was the first Filipino film to enter the top 20 box office films in North America/Canada. It’s of course not Kung Fu Panda, but it’s such a big deal for us in the Philippines... we are now more encouraged to continue to produce content for the global market. We have proven that Filipino films can be enjoyed by movie-goers from all over the world.”

You foresee the end of “poverty porn” in Asian films... “...As proven by the success of Kasal, a genre movie. It wasn’t art house. Or poverty porn, which is the usual for films that go around the world.”

Will Crazy Rich Asians really make a difference to Asian filmmaking? “To me it’s a significant film, a cultural marker. We will remember 2018 for it. Two Filipinos appear in the movie: Diego Santos, the Filipino comedian, and Kris Aquino, who plays a princess... I believe it should only

encourage us to stay proud and defiant, that we should only promote the best of our culture, the best of our country, the best of Asia. We should not try to change it so much, to appear too Westernised.”

As an Asian filmmaker, are you personally encouraged by the success of Crazy Rich Asians? “Now more than ever.”

Are you seeing a greater acceptance outside of the Philippines for content in Tagalog, ie. non-English-language programming? “Streaming platforms like Netflix want local dialects. We should promote, both for mainstream and digital, movies that truly reflect our culture.”

ABS-CBN has had amazing success with international formats such as Your Face Sounds Familiar, The Voice Teens, Little Big Shots and you’re bringing back Big Brother. What do you see as the outlook for international formats and are you balancing these with your own originals? “Historically Filipinos have responded well... Big Brother is now in its 13th year in the Philippines and it has produced a significant number of movie stars for the network though housemates turning into big time celebrities. We have enjoyed The Voice, it’s one of our biggest raters. The Voice Kids was particularly successful... But we’re moving towards creating our own titles. Tastes have been refined... now Filipinos are also reacting well to original Filipino concepts.”

ABS-CBN has more than 13 million subscribers on YouTube, so clearly the platform is enormously successful for you What digital-first or digital-only content are you making? “We’ve done a lot of work producing digital content. In the beginning it was a struggle because everyone was so used to the drama format. Younger audiences are beginning to like our shorter content, and the same way that they enjoy clips from our TV shows they are starting to like the shorter form as well.”

You say you wouldn’t mind seeing three or four big networks in the Philippines instead of the current two? Why? “Because it will provide more employment to our people and it will challenge us to be better. It will create greater competition creatively. The biggest problem is to be complacent, to believe that your content is already the best. It might be the best in the Philippines, but it’s not the best in the world.”

Distribution. Licensing. Production

Drama queen

Mainland Chinese entertainment platform Youku has the world in its sights. Julia Song, Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group/Youku’s head of scripted international drama acquisitions & BD, talks about the new generation of Chinese dramas and shifting audience trends and tastes.

Detective series Day and Night was your first drama for Netflix and was made with a global audience in mind. What impact has this worldwide access had on Youku? “Day and Night was popular in China and through Netflix it reached beyond Chinese-speaking audiences. A lot of the new shows we’re doing this year are being created from the start with international standards and outlook. Netflix has picked up another of our shows, 30-episode Hong Kong cop thriller, OCTB, which has also done very well”.

What’s Youku’s programme strategy? “We balance three categories of drama – at least one new prime-time acquisition a month, usually from satellite channels; high-value online superdrama, with the ﬁrst window on Youku; and online drama, small to medium budget productions that we develop in-house or with third party production companies.”

What’s your originals output? “About 30 drama series a year are what we call Youku originals. Of those, 10 are 100% in-house original productions and 20 are with third-party producers. In total we have between 100 and 120 productions from China a year.”

What genres do you prefer? “All kinds, because we aim to create something for every user on our platform. But generally speaking, our target demographic is 18 to 25 female and even younger these days actually. So we create young content for them. A lot of our shows have very strong female characters.”

This brings us to the scripted format you acquired from Japan, Tokyo Joshi

Zukan (Tokyo Girls Picture Book), which you made into Women in Beijing and Women in Shanghai... “We aired these two in the ﬁrst half of this year and they were the most talked-about shows in China at that time. We made two versions because the girls from Beijing are very different from the girls in Shanghai. We used different production companies, different characters and cast, different storytelling... but we kept the structure of the Japanese version for both. Chinese dramas are very long, at least 45 episodes of 70-90 minutes for historical series. Because these were for online and a younger demographic, we kept to 20 episodes of 30 minutes each. Both were very fast-paced, and while we acquired the Japanese IP, our versions were different. So it was very innovative for us.”

Is this a move away from costume or martial arts drama? “Women in Beijing/Shanghai created this trend for drama that resonates with viewers’ everyday lives in modern cities. So that area is very crowded now. What we’ve added lately are subgenres of popular costume dramas, also for young audiences. The storytelling is more anime, fantasy, magical. Our new supernatural fantasy dramas are Guardian and Bloody Romance.”

Are you looking for co-production partners in Asia or elsewhere? “Yes definitely. We’re starting to by working with scripted formats and remakes. We’re likely to do Asian co-productions first because it’s just easier. We share similar cultures, similar language. And for us to financially invest into an English-language drama, it really has to be the right project because Youku is still just a local service. In order for us to recoup all that investment and content wise for it to pass our censorship we need to be very careful what we select”.

Picture by Shawn Ha

Travel guides

Little from Asia can compete with anime on the global entertainment stage, where fandom drives commitment and decades-old franchises based on print stories still top the list of Asian titles most in demand. ContentAsia asked data science company Parrot Analytics to look at the top 10 Asian shows around the world this year. Nine of the 10 spots go to anime. The sole non-anime title was Korea’s 2013 series, Good Doctor, which received a bump from remakes in the U.S. and Japan.

1 January-10 November 2018 Markets: Global Demand Expressions®: The global TV measurement standard developed by Parrot Analytics, which represents the total audience demand being expressed for a title, within a country, on any platform, per 100 capita. Designed to compare the demand for titles between countries. [Audience demand reﬂects the desire, engagement and viewership, weighted by importance; so a stream/download is a higher expression of demand than a ‘like’/comment.]

1. Dragon Ball Super

Toei Animation’s Dragon Ball Super, which ran in Japan from 2015 until earlier this year, was the giant of manga giants in 2018, outranking its nearest competitor – Attack on Titan – with 1.93 demand expressions per capita. Part of a cult franchise that goes back to the 1980s, the series opens with peace on earth threatened by powerful evil forces. Goku rises to the rescue once again. The super-powered Dragon Ball franchise shows no sign of slowing down; The 7 November trailer for the Dragon Ball Super: Broly feature ﬁlm had more than 4.2 million views in its ﬁrst four days on YouTube.

2. Good Doctor Korea

Five years after it premiered on KBS in Korea, single-season medical drama Good Doctor is riding high on two high-profile regional/international remakes – the first in the U.S. in 2017 and the second for Japan’s Fuji TV in 2018 – along with a window on Netflix. The original Korean series starred Joo Won as the autistic doctor whose medical skills outweigh his ability to relate to fellow hospital staffers or patients. The 20-episode original com-

Dragon Ball Super

manded top ratings spot in Korea for most of its run. The U.S. series (Sony Pictures Television/ABC Studios) stars Freddie Highmore; season two premiered in September 2018. The Japanese version, starring Kento Yamazaki, ran from July to Sept this year on Fuji TV (10pm, Thursdays).

3. My Hero Academia

Three TV seasons and a movie drove My Hero Academia – the story of a schoolboy learning how to be a superhero – into global consciousness over the past two and a half years. In Asia, My Hero Academia has found a particularly happy home in Malaysia, topping the country’s list of top 10 titles at the end of September this year, beating Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead

4. Attack on Titan

After humanity is all but destroyed by Titans, survivors live within three giant walls. Their relative peace is shattered when a 200foot Titan breaches the outer wall. Fear and chaos ensue as the marauding Titans start devouring human life once again. The series’ hero is Eren Yeager, who takes on a Titan form after being eaten. The original manga title appeared in print in 2009, migrated to video games, and made its way to television in 2013. Theatrical versions followed in 2014/5. Season three aired on NHK in Japan this year. Warner Bros is producing a feature film adaptation of Attack on Titan, directed by Andy Muschietti.

5. Naruto

Naruto, the coming-of-age story of an adolescent Ninja with big dreams, was first published in 1997, with a television adaptation by Studio Pierrot for TV Tokyo in 2002, and a total of 11 films. The television series ran for 220 episodes – most based on the manga but with some originals for television – until 2007. The original production has been remastered in HD.

6. One Piece

The world’s best selling manga, One Piece debuted in mid-1997, introducing Monkey D. Luffy and his quest to find the “one piece” that will make him the next pirate king. The Toei Animation series premiered on Fuji TV in Japan in 1999 and has clearly never gone away, expanding into everything from feature films and video games to theme parks. Myriad channels around the world, including Animax in Southeast Asia, have included One Piece in their schedules over the years.

7. Naruto: Shippuden

A sequel to the original epic ninja adventure series Naruto Naruto: Shippuden is set two and a half years later. The series ran on TV Tokyo in Japan from Feb 2007 to March 2017.

8. Dragon Ball Z

The sequel to Toei Animation’s original Dragon Ball property picks up Goku’s story in early adulthood, where, along with his two sons and various allies, he continues to fight villains and creatures. Versioning for English-speaking North American markets was plagued by criticism over integrity to the original story lines and imagery. Dragon Ball Z premiered on Fuji TV in Japan in April 1989 and ran for seven years.

9. Tokyo Ghoul

A relative newcomer to the anime scene, Tokyo Ghoul debuted as a manga series in 2011, followed by a fantasy anime TV series in 2014 and a live-action feature film last year. Tokyo Ghoul is set in a city haunted by flesh-eating creatures who look human. The lead char-

Good Doctor Korea

Global demand: My Hero Academia (16 August 2018 to 13 November 2018)

Source: Parrot Analytics

acter is Ken Kaneki, a college student caught between two worlds. After an almost-deadly date with a ghoul, Kaneki wakes as halfhuman/half-ghoul who needs to consume human flesh to survive. The series follows his efforts to deal with his new life, including fitting into ghoul society. Netflix has picked up three seasons.

10. The Seven Deadly Sins

Fantasy manga series, The Seven Deadly Sins, is a newer addition to the landscape. Its six-year pedigree includes global exposure from the beginning on Netﬂix. All 24 episodes were made available simultaneously in November 2015, followed by part two in February 2017. The feature ﬁlm, The Seven Deadly Sins the Movie: Prisoners of the Sky premiered in August this year.

Parrot Analytics

One Piece

New tunes

Lots to love about Singapore, which rules December because of the Singapore Media Festival and the ATF programme market. Chicken rice. Mee siam. Char kway teow. The white tiger at the zoo. Spago. Media, um, maybe. Depends on the day and who has the mic.

Singapore remains a regional media hub. But the energy that characterised the early days of multichannel television? Not so much if you’re not Netﬂix. Or Amazon. As 2018 turns to 2019, a battered video industry hunts around for lifelines that range from direct-to-consumer subscription services and YouTube to ramping up original production and winding down old structures peopled by, well, people. Too many of them, clearly. “Digital” and “social” continue to be interpreted every which way, for good and for bad, and a common panic is over the relative absence of skills (or a new combo of skills) that will recreate kickass media businesses.

Other than shutting off analogue TV at the end of December 2018, what’s Singapore’s plan?

Two-year-old government agency, the combo telecoms/media Infocomms Media Development Authority (IMDA), is peddling furiously to be all things digital, including an admirable effort to upskill, reskill and future-proof the domestic workforce. In 2017, for instance, 50,000 seniors took part in the Silver Infocomm Initiative, and the government’s TechSkills Accelerator received another S$145 million/US$105.6 million for another 20,000 training places by 2020; the aim is to teach emerging digital skills, like data analytics, artiﬁcial intelligence and cybersecurity.

The vision is to create a “dynamic Digital Economy and a cohesive Digital Society, driven by an exceptional infocomm and media ecosystem”. Somewhere in there, during 2017 (the most updated ﬁgure available), was funding for 5,477 hours of public service broadcasting programmes, and a S$3-million/US$2.2 million three-year content development fund to

pilot and test new concepts and formats. What else is happening as the year turns?

Free TV

Singapore’s sole terrestrial broadcaster remains Mediacorp, which is backed by the Singapore government and has a mixed public service/ commercial remit. Mediacorp operates seven TV channels (Channel 5, 8, U, Channel NewsAsia, Suria, Vasantham, okto), 11 radio stations and multiple digital platforms, including video streaming platform Toggle.

Unlike the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Korea, where broadcasters routinely release ratings, Mediacorp closely guards viewership data from the country’s government-supported SG-TAM by Gfk. The best we have been able to get recently is for English-language Channel 5’s MasterChef Singapore, which was watched by close to 900,000 people over the eight episodes, making the series the highest-rated English-language variety/entertainment title on Channel 5 in two years since October 2016, when the SG-TAM ratings launched. The ﬁnale was watched by 277,000 people. The reality show also had 387,000 video views (and 100,000 unique viewers) on Mediacorp’s streaming platform Toggle. No word yet on a second season.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that digi-life and the universe has not been massively kind to many in the traditional broadcast space, and Mediacorp, monopoly or not, cannot – surely – be exempt from the country’s enthusiastic use of VPNs to access overseas services, plethora

SPOP SING! Champion Jarrell Ng singing his debut song Wings of Pride, composed by local Lee Wei Song

Top 10 programmes in Singapore: July to September 2018

of easily available android boxes, and easy-ish access to pirate streaming sites. The English-language Channel 5 perhaps has the hardest time in an environment flooded with legal, illegal and grey-area English-language alternatives. Chinese Channel 8 fares better. New local music competition series, Spop Sing!, scored more than 1.7 million viewers over its 10-episode run from August this year, plus 816,000 views on Mediacorp’s streaming platform Toggle, according to Mediacorp.

Other than standing with its hand out for the government’s S$250 million/US$182 million a year in public service broadcast funding and lobbying for more – what’s a broadcaster like Mediacorp to do?

Enter national entertainment treasures, Dick Lee and Michael Chiang. In a new initiative designed to boost English-language Channel 5, Mediacorp is tugging at the country’s domestic heartstrings and “sense of Singaporean-ness” in a new plan that could – if done right – stem viewer leakage and shore up defences against better-resourced regional and global entertainment services.

Both Lee and Chiang will resurrect their best-known creative works for English-language Channel 5 and for Toggle. The first two original productions under the “Lights. Camera. Singapore” initiative announced in late November are a 13-part TV drama based on Lee’s iconic 1991 musical, Fried Rice Paradise, and a rework of Chiang’s stage play, Mixed Signals Fried Rice Paradise is scheduled to air/stream from 2 July 2019. The TV drama is the story of a woman struggling to keep her father’s coffee shop afloat. The 13-part dramedy, Mixed Signals, about dating in the digital age, will premiere on 1 October 2019. Chiang promises “humorous hijinks will be heightened for television”.

Supporting the initiative, Lee says “our national identity is something we must never take for granted, so I’m always mindful of imbuing my work with a sense of Singaporean-ness”.

Mediacorp says the initiative “champions the cultural cornerstones that make us uniquely Singaporean” and will tap ideas from across the creative ecosystem. A Tuesday 10pm home on English-language Channel 5 has been created to house the new strand, which kicks off on 27 November with the free-TV premiere of 2015 movie 7 Letters

Kirsten Tan’s Pop Aye (2017) will air on 18 December, and Ilo Ilo (2013) on 26 February 2019. 28 movies have already been identified for the slot in a partnership with the Singapore Film Commission (SFC).

The official line is that Lights Camera Singapore celebrates “content created for, by and with local talent, and cements Mediacorp’s commitment to spotlighting shared experiences – our people, places and parlance – via Singaporean storytelling”.

Mediacorp is onto something here. Whatever else Singapore lacks, national sentiment isn’t in short supply; the National Day Parade on 9 August was the most-watched programme across both Channel 8 and Channel 5 for the three months from July to September 2018, according to rankings released by the IMDA. Mediacorp says 1.85 million people watched the live broadcast.

Pay-TV

There’s only one way to describe this sector: a great big sigh (and not of relief). Regional analysts Media Partners Asia (MPA) forecasts a pay-TV industry revenue decline of 6% in Singapore from 2018 to 2023, making

Source of viewership ranking: SG-TAM published by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). Viewership figures are based on first telecast only (i.e. repeated series/ episodes are excluded), across three key genres – (1) Information (2) Variety (3) Drama. Titles were ranked based on “Average Daily Ratings according to each channel’s target demography. “Average Daily Ratings” have not been made available. Data period: July-September 2018, among people 4+

the country the worst performer in Southeast Asia for the next four years.

MPA’s numbers are not a huge surprise really. Between them, the two major pay-TV players – Singtel and StarHub – shed 53,000 traditional pay-TV subscribers in the first nine months of this year. The 11-yearold Singtel TV ended Sept 2018 with 383,000 residential subscribers – a drop of 18,000 from the beginning of the year. StarHub ended September this year with 423,000 subscribers, down 35,000 from 458,000 at the end of 2017.

It’s a long way down from 2015. StarHub’s high was in March 2015, when TV subscribers hit 545,000. Singtel never quite managed to overtake StarHub, coming closest in December 2015 with 424,000. And it doesn’t look like Singtel ever will, or at least not in the traditional boxbased way being left in the dust by a focus on mobile/streaming.

Both platforms have – for better or worse, but in a clear effort to make sense of a new normal – made significant changes to their linear packages. As it added fresh new brands such as CuriosityStream, Hits Movies and Gusto TV to its linear line up, StarHub dropped the entire Discovery/ Scripps bundle this year, and changed its relationships with programme rights holders such as Hong Kong’s TVB. Singtel, which added some Discovery channels, also disappeared Toonami/Toonami On Demand, Mezzo Live, Trace Sports Stars, Showcase, !nsert, Bioskop Indonesia, along with three Fox services, Channel [V] Taiwan, Eurosport, Eleven Sports 1 & 2, ASN, Discovery Eve and Discovery Kids.

Whether this year’s efforts are working – or not – will become clear when the platforms report their full year 2018 financials. We’re not holding our breath.

Streaming/OTT

Much more encouraging is Singapore’s online/streaming environment, which MPA forecasts will grow 15% CAGR from 2018 to 2023. There’s no shortage of companies with their hands up for a piece of this. For now, growth is being driven by Netflix and Viu, but others will rise as the industry – including players like Singtel and HBO and even Hong Kong’s TVB – shifts online.

“That 15% growth could be much much higher,” says MPA executive director Vivek Couto.

Singapore has the full range of global/regional streaming services and then some, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Go, Viu, Apple’s iTunes (music/movies only, no TV), India’s ALTBalaji (launched in April 2017), South Asian global platform Spuul (launched in April 2012) and Yupp TV (launched in May 2015), Taiwan’s Catchplay On Demand, Malaysia’s dimsum and Fox+, some of which bill through domestic providers and all of which offer direct-to-consumer interfaces. Most are not customised for Singapore.

The big excitement is freemium newcomer TVB Anywhere SG, by Chinese programming giant Television Broadcasts Ltd (TVB). TVB Anywhere SG rolled out in October 2018. The direct-to-consumer mobile streaming plan seems to be (although no one is saying it like this) part of a reworked (and we believe not as lucrative as in the past) licensing deal with StarHub.

Made-in-Singapore services include two from dominant telco Singtel –aggregator app Cast and full-fledged AVOD/SVOD streaming platform Hooq, a joint venture with Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. Singtel’s mobile video portfolio also includes legacy service, Singtel TV Go,

Cast (Singtel) from US$3.60 In high-experimentation mode, testing Singapore consumers’ taste for mobile-based services (with TV-cast capabilities), bundling and pricing. Channel packs cost about US$11.

Catchplay On Demand

US$9.40

Fox+ from US$9.40 US$9.40 a month through Singtel and with a traditional pay-TV subscription.

HBO Go

US$14.50

Standalone through StarHub for now.

Hooq from US$6.50 Offers sachet pricing in some markets

Netflix from US$8 Is considering experimenting with pricing in Asian markets like India, but no mention made of Singapore.

Spuul

US$4.99

StarHub Go from US$7.20

Standalone options. Offers different packs, some require linear channel subscription, some don’t. Word is there’s an RFP out for new tech to drive a revamped streaming strategy

Toggle Prime US$7.16 Fremium. Premium packs include Club TV (Manchester United TV, Chelsea TV) for US$7.52 a month.

TVB Anywhere

US$4.36 Offers a free tier as well. Available standalone and through telcos

Viu from US$3.55 Lowest price is with a contract through Singtel’s Cast. Also available direct-to-consumer. Focus on Korean and Asian content. Offered standalone or via telco partners. Unlimited downloads for premium subs.

Source: ContentAsia, platforms

a companion app to the set-top box TV package and offered only to Singtel TV subscribers, and the mobile-only StarHub Go, which can be bought independently from the set-top-box TV subscription.

Singtel launched Cast in July 2016, aggregating on-demand and linear channels as well as regional streaming services such as Hooq and PCCW Media’s Viu. Singtel had 114,000 OTT subscribers (combined Singtel TV Go and Cast) at the end of September 2018.

Singapore’s dominant press group, SPH, runs a free video portal, SPH Razor, made up largely of low-cast videos and bits of streaming.

Despite programmers’ best efforts, Singapore – annoyingly – also has a healthy and visible trade in Android boxes along with a vibrant VPN market that opens up access to everything everywhere.

Production

Singapore isn’t short of a production house or three, underpinned in days gone by a marvellously generous (if incomprehensible to some) government subsidy structure that doled out many millions to entities like Australia’s RGM Group. That regime was ushered out ignominiously in 2010 in a blaze of undelivered projects, unrecovered loans and scathing public comments from Singapore’s Auditor-General.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of that 2008/9 low point when, in a shocking report, the Auditor-General listed embarrassing lapses by the

then Media Development Authority (MDA). The list included less-thanstellar admin of the S$40 million/US$29 million Microfunding Scheme to grow the interactive and digital media sector and lapses in administering the Scheme for Co-Investment in Exportable Content.

The report said grants had been given to ineligible companies, pointed out conflicts of interest in evaluating funding applications, noted a “lack of rigour and vigilance” in funding approval, and cited the MDA for “laxity” in giving advances to mentors. The co-investment scheme fell down in not collecting estimated revenue of just under S$10 million/US$7.3 million from 46 completed projects; failing to recover S$460,000/US$335,000 from a production company that had sold a film; and not conducting postproject reviews to ensure the films had met job creation and local spend criteria. As of March 2009, MDA had given out a total of S$45.57 million/ US$33.2 million for 157 projects, the report said.

10 years on, how has Singapore’s production industry fared?

On the face of it, fine enough, although the common feeling is that the commercial model is broken, there’s not enough money to go around, and producers are scrambling in a horrible cycle of low budgets and not enough ownership of the IP they create. Nevertheless, most of them seem to keep their doors open, with the exception perhaps of Make Productions, which closed for other reasons.

Our list of production houses to watch in 2019 includes: Beach House Pictures, which specialises in factual programming, did a good job on MasterChef Singapore for Motion Content Group/Mediacorp, and now has its eye on scripted. The new scripted projects, announced in October this year, are a modern TV reboot of Singaporean super spy Cleopatra Wong, star of three cult 1970s/1980 films, and the adaptation of teen horror property, Mr Midnight, by Jim Aitchison (aka James Lee).

Also expanding into new areas is activeTV Asia, this time in the direction of the Asian Academy Creative Awards, held for the first time in Singapore in December 2018. activeTV’s production credits include two seasons of automotive reality entertainment series, Celebrity Car Wars, for A+E Networks’ History and Caltex, infotainment series The Food Detectives on Mediacorp Channel 5, and stand-up comedy specials with Asian comedians Harith Iskander, Kevin Jay and Fakkah Fuzz for Netflix.

Content distribution and production company Bomanbridge Media is pushing forward with its support for original Asian production, most recently backing a series that follows adventurer Ash Dykes on his record-breaking bid to travel 4,000 miles on foot along the length of China’s Yangtze river.

Short-form, social-media video, branded content/marketing, digital/ online video are a big deal for a burgeoning number of specialist shops, including Eye Creative, which set up in Hong Kong in 2015 and in Singapore the following year, and BDA Creative, which has migrated in recent years under Paula Mason from a branding/promo producer into a longand short-form production house. The Eye Creative Group’s most recent entertainment projects include digital content for Asia’s Next Top Model season six. Coconuts TV is also on the short video case, highlighting Asia’s weird and wondrous factual stories and distributing them online. Refinery Media is holding steady as the production house of choice for Asia’s Next Top Model most recent two seasons, which were backed by Subaru.

Scripted/premium outfits driving activity out of Singapore include IFA Media. Production credits include Bardo, a Netflix Original series from Taiwan. IFA Media was also behind HBO Asia’s first Mandarin original series, The Teenage Psychic, a co-production with Taiwan’s Public Television Service (PTS). HBO Asia kept Infinite Studios in the headlines in 2018 with eight-part period drama Grisse, created by Infinite Studios’ boss Mike Wiluan. At the

Streaming in Singapore Price

top of the pyramid is mm2 Entertainment, part of the Singapore listed mm2 Asia group that also owns Singapore’s iconic Cathay Cineplex chain. Headquartered in Singapore with a presence in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, mm2 Entertainment produces ﬁlms and TV/online content, including the Mandarin-language version of singing talent show The Voice for Singapore and Malaysia. mm2 has co-produced and/or distributed more than 100 ﬁlms across Asia since 2008.

TV production stalwarts include indies such as The Moving Visuals Co, which makes shows such as the seven-part Business As Usual (“Can money buy everything? Quirky and usual trades around the world... from leftover food, friends and animal poo”) for Mediacorp’s Channel U and Toggle. Oak3 Films is another domestic favourite.

And then there’s animation, a nascent sector led by One Animation, a CG-animation studio best known for its Emmy-nominated dialogue-free comedy series Oddbods Oddbods has 2.9 million YouTube subscribers (Nov 2018) and video views in the hundreds of millions. Last year’s Baby Bubbles is in Trouble, for instance, has almost 60 million views. The most recent video, Trespassing, had 577,000 views in its ﬁrst 10 days online. Broadcast partners include Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon as well as streaming platform Netﬂix and Amazon Prime Video. Going forward, predictions are that Singapore could potentially be a hub for animation development, marketing and distribution. Animation production? Maybe not, mostly because of the cost. But that doesn’t

mean the country’s strengths can’t be leveraged as a magnet for censorship-friendly kids animation creators from around the region, with production outsourced to less-costly neighbouring centres. Part of the opportunity is rising demand for animated/kids content from streaming players looking ahead to the time when Disney and WarnerMedia turn off their supply. Netﬂix is the most signiﬁcant force in this space right now, with new global features such as Over the Moon from China’s Pearl Studio and Guillermo Del Toro’s stop motion musical Pinocchio

Will this have any kind of knock-on positive impact eventually for Singapore? No harm hoping.

Telcos

Big excitement coming in 2019, with the launch of Singapore’s fourth telco. Yes, it has been pointed out that there are only six million people in the whole country... TPG Telecom joins M1 (204,000 fixed fibre customers and 1.95 million mobile subscribers), Singtel (624,000 fixed broadband subs, of which 616,000 are fibre broadband and 4.13 million mobile subs), and StarHub (473,000 residential broadband and 2.2 million mobile subs) and Australia’s TPG Telecom, which won a telco licence in December 2016 with a bid of S$105 million/US$73 million. The original plan was to launch 4G mobile trials by the end of this year. No word on that so far other than that there’s a four- to six-month delay. The rest of the telco industry, apparently, heaved a sigh. For now, that’s a sigh of relief.

Zander Ng, winner of MasterChef Singapore season one (above) and One Animation’s Oddbods (left)

Chart toppers

Fremantle was Asia’s top formats distributor this year, closing October with 60 formats either on air in 2018 or commissioned for 2019, and maybe a couple more before the year is out. Just under 70% of the titles are pure licensing deals, with local shops and/or broadcasters taking the production lead. Fremantle’s Ganesh Rajaram and Haryaty Rahman talk about the great leap forward.

Fremantle’s Asia formats business has overtaken fierce rival Endemol Shine in the region, surging into first place for the first time during the first half of this year, and maintaining the position for the 10 months to end October (see page 102 for ContentAsia Formats Outlook full Leaderboard). Fremantle moves into the end of 2018 with 60 formats either on air or commissioned for next year, and with rumours of one more big licensing deal before the lights go out on 2018. Just under 70% of the titles – 41 out of 60 – are from pure licensing markets, including Thailand, Vietnam, Mongolia, Cambodia and Myanmar. The other 19 are from Indonesia, India and China, where Fremantle maintains production units reporting to Australia.

The titles that propelled the U.K. indie to top spot in Asia include everything from ﬁrst seasons such as Boxing Glove Vietnam to long-running returns, such as The Price is Right, also in Vietnam. Formats from production centres include the

19th/20th season of Family Feud Indonesia, season one of Kids Got Talent in China and Distraction Bengali in India.

Fremantle’s Asia GM/sales EVP, Ganesh Rajaram, is very clear about the reasons for the great leap forward: Fremantle’s restructure about two years ago that shuttered regional production activities, a refocus on pure licensing and an attitude is that no market is too small to warrant a smile and a visit.

“These markets are pretty sophisticated in terms of economies of scale. They have production companies that have been producing for broadcasters and platforms for years, they have leverage, they can easily produce the shows themselves,” Rajaram says.

And they have, even in developing markets once considered not lucrative enough. On a trip to Myanmar for the Myanmar Idol ﬁnale, hotel staff recognised Rajaram from the live studio audience the night before. “Myanmar came to a standstill to watch Idol,” he says. In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen supported Hang Meas’ Cambodian Idol on social media and the crowd went wild.

“All we needed to do was license to

Philippines Got Talent

Haryaty Rahman, SVP, Asia Distributio, Fremantle

the right partners,” says Haryaty Rahman, Asia distribution SVP. Rajaram adds: “Three or four years down the road, we are seeing multiple successful seasons. And that’s really redefined the format business for Asia. We were successfully before, but we weren’t prolific.”

Rahman sold the first format into Mongolia, then a remote market with big ambitions but little experience. With Got Talent, Mongol TV took advantage of every format spec. Season three upped the ante, leapfrogging Asia and taking its cue from the more costly Britain’s Got Talent. “They’re coming back year after year... They’re willing to invest in what goes on screen,” Rahman says, adding that strong relationships in the finished tape business also support format sales.

The second reason behind Fremantle’s performance is – unsurprisingly – the strength of the IP. “It helps that we have Got Talent, Idol, X Factor and even smaller shows like Family Feud and The Price is Right,” both Rajaram and Rahman say. “These are tried and tested, trusted brands”. And they’re working. Hang Meas in Cambodia is building a bigger studio, installing new tech. “Their ambition is remarkable,” Rajaram says. So is their growing confidence, which benefits the entire industry.

The third reason behind Fremantle’s winning run is its use of tech innovation and social media. “It’s no accident that The Sacred Riana became the number one clip of all time on Facebook,” Rajaram says, highlighting Fremantle’s early engagement with YouTube and drawing a digital line that stretches between Singa-

pore and Fremantle teams around the world.

So far, format demand has been for non-scripted, with a smattering of requests for scripted, Rahman says. The appetite for classics like Family Feud is constant, and there’s an increase in demand for medium-sized easy-to-produce non-prime-time formats, like The Noise

Not every part of Asia’s map is equally lit up. Rajaram is realistic about opportunities in places like Korea, where Korea’s Got Talent was once one of Fremantle’s biggest shows. That ended with K-pop/drama, and for now there are low to no expectations of a revival.

Streaming platforms, on the other hand, are cause for optimism, particularly with Viu acquiring scripted rights for Endemol Shine’s The Bridge, and aligning with Media Prima and HBO Asia.

Will streamers have a long-term impact?

“I hope so,” Rajaram says. “We would love to see more collaboration, where streaming platforms work with free-to-air stations and pan-regionals. It’s ideal, but you have to be less precious about where it’s shown first... The whole notion of collaboration, how you fund programmes, all of that needs to change.” It will, he says, adding: “The market will dictate that.”

Hole in the Wall Vietnam

Ganesh Rajaram, General Manager, EVP Sales, Asia, Fremantle

Telling you what’s going on with content in Asia and what it all means. On the ground in Asia. All day. Every day.

Formats Outlook 2018

2018 looks like it will end with Asia’s formats biz up on last year. Thailand and Korea are the big winners for format rights holders, followed by India. Volume is way down in Vietnam compared to last year, but the market remains the region’s biggest buyer of formats by far.

Asia’s formats business heads into the ﬁnal months of the year looking better than it did this time last year. With additional announcements expected during the ATF market in Singapore in December, the year could close above 300 titles/series either on air or commissioned for 2019.

2018 gains are led by Thailand, which is rocking game shows and entertainment, and Korea, which has acquired a slate of drama formats such as Love Affairs in the Afternoon (Fuji TV, Japan) and Doctor Foster (BBC Studios). Thai versions of regional and international formats include Shark Tank Thailand (Sony Pictures Television) and Noisy Neighbours (TV Asahi, Japan).

The biggest trends are the rise of scripted/drama formats acquisitions and the rising conﬁdence of local creators who see a chance to spread their IP around the world. These include Hunan TV’s The Rocking Bridge and Zense Entertainment’s Singer Auction and The Producer out of Thailand. Japan is shifting the scripted needle. Nippon TV continues to capture Turkish drama attention and, in October, Fuji TV said it had sold remake rights to almost 40 of its drama series to Chinese media companies. Of the 17 markets tracked in ContentAsia’s Formats Outlook, 10 were up by end October and seven were down. Vietnam dipped the most, followed by China (no surprise, given ongoing regulation that disadvantages foreign rights holders) and the Philippines, which is, nevertheless, still involved in big budget productions such as Big Brother and Little Big Shots

Formats

by genre, Jan-Oct 2018

Formats by country, Jan-Oct 2018

9 Story Distribution International

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ATF 2018 Stand #: J30

Who’s who...

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Who’s who...

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AMC Studios

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Distribution

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Sales

Moon and Me

New Series!

Genre: Preschool

Episodes/Length: 50x22 mins

Inspired by well-loved tales of toys that come to life when nobody is looking, Moon and Me is the story of a special friendship between two characters from completely different worlds. From the creator of Teletubbies and In the Night Garden

Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum

New Series!

Genre: Animated AdventureComedy

Episodes/Length: 74x11 mins plus 1x55 mins special Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum is an animated adventure-comedy based on Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulos’ best-selling kids book series, Ordinary People Change the World. Follow the adventures of Xavier, Yadina, and Brad, as they travel back in time to meet famous heroes of the past and learn how to be their own heroes of the present!

Unspeakable

Genre: Limited Drama Series

Episodes/Length: 8x60 mins

A powerful and sweeping drama that follows the story of two families affected by the 1980s tainted blood scandal and is a passion project for creator Robert C. Cooper – who himself was a victim, having contracted Hepatitis C from tainted blood. This series offers a moving account of what it was like to live through and subsequently become a victim of this scandal, that will resonate with viewers around the world.

Jonestown: Terror In The Jungle

Genre: Documentary Series

Episodes/Length: 4x60 mins

Paints a picture of Jim Jones’ transformation from charismatic preacher and champion of civil rights into an egomaniacal demagogue who led the biggest mass suicide in American history. Featuring archival footage – including secret FBI and CIA recordings, unreleased photographs and previously classified documents

– Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle will attempt to answer the questions surrounding the grim massacre.

Let’s Go Luna!

New Series!

Genre: Animation/Adventure

Episodes/Length: 76x11 mins plus 1x44 mins holiday special Follow the hilarious adventures of three friends – Leo, a wombat from Australia; Carmen, a butterfly from Mexico; and Andy, a frog from the U.S. – as they traverse the globe with their parents’ traveling performance troupe, “Circo Fabuloso”. At each of the Circo’s stops, Luna the Moon guides the trio as they get to know the local region and its people.

Ride With Norman Reedus

Genre: Travel Docuseries

Episodes/Length: 24x60 mins

Take a ride into the incredible world of motorcycles and get to know the people who live and breathe them with The Walking Dead star and avid motorcycle rider and aficionado, Norman Reedus. Every week, viewers follow along with Reedus and a new riding companion – a fellow actor, musician, friend or local chopper fanatic – as they journey to a new destination with plenty of time for unplanned detours.

Titles

Cambodia's Got Talent S2

Cambodia's Got Talent S3

Cambodia's Got Talent S4

Cambodian Idol S3

Cambodian Idol S4

Don't Lose The Money

Cambodia S1

Heaven Or Hell

Cambodia S1

MasterChef Cambodia S1

MasterChef Cambodia S2

FremantleMedia/Syco

Endemol Shine Group

FremantleMedia

Endemol Shine Group

My Man Can Cambodia S1 Red Arrow Studios Int’l

Price Is Right Cambodia S1

Thank God You're Here! Cambodia S1

FremantleMedia

The Voice Cambodia S3 Talpa

The Voice Kids Cambodia S2 Talpa

X Factor Cambodia S1

FremantleMedia/Syco

Cambodia Hang Meas HDTV

Cambodia Hang Meas TV

Cambodia CTN

Cambodia MyTV

Cambodia Hang Meas TV

Talent The talent show with no age limit, no talent restrictions and no cultural boundaries

Singing contest Contest to find the most outstanding unsigned solo recording artist (or "idol")

Game show Two teams go head-to-head to win a life-changing amount of money

Game/quiz show

Contestants face a choice: to be clever in Heaven or risk everything in a horrendously hilarious journey to Hell and back

Reality – Food Competitive cooking reality show

Game show A comedy game show where women gamble on the abilities of their men

Game show Contestants compete for cash and prizes by guessing the pricing of merchandise

Comedy improv Tests celebrities’ improvisational skills by throwing them into unknown situations that they must ad-lib their way through

Cambodia Hang Meas HDTV Singing contest Singing contest to find unsigned singing talent

Cambodia Hang Meas HDTV Singing contest Kids version of The Voice

Cambodia Hang Meas TV

Singing contest Performers compete to become the nation's next singing sensation X Factor Cambodia S2

FremantleMedia/Syco Cambodia Hang Meas TV

31 Legged Race China TV Asahi China CCTV14

The Awakening China – New edition Mediacorp China TBC

Chosen China Sony Pictures Television China iQiyi (China & Taiwan), Netflix

The Confidence Man China Fuji TV

Document 72 Hours China NHK

Don’t Stop Me Now China S8

The Eureka Moment China S3

Falling in Love like a Romantic TV Drama China

Family Food Fight China

China TBC

China Tencent

FremantleMedia China CCTV

TV Asahi China TBC

Endemol Shine Group China TBC

First Class China Fuji TV

Ghostwriter China Fuji TV

Gossip Girl China S1

Warner Bros International TV Production

China TBC

China iQiyi

The Great Art Robbery China all3media China TBC

Hear Me, Love Me, See Me China S1

Humans China S1

Hunted China

ICON China

FremantleMedia

Endemol Shine Group/ Matador Film, Sveriges Television

China Anhui TV

China TBC

Endemol Shine Group China Shenzhen TV

Endemol Shine Group China YOUKU

In Treatment China S1 Dori Media/Sheleg Productions Ltd

China TBC

Sports 30 elementary school children run for 50 meters with their legs tied together

Drama A drama about Chinese immigrants to Singapore, set in the 1920s

Drama A couple, both doctors, embark on a desperate journey in Australia

Drama A con artist team of three resorts to any means necessary to steal from money-mad, insatiable and unscrupulous bosses

Factual Activity is recorded in one place for 72 hours

Game show Game show where everyone in the audience thinks they’re a superstar and wants the chance to prove it

Game show Couples go head-to-head in a series of dangerous stunts & wacky experiments to win the holiday of a lifetime

Drama Eight young actors gather for three months to produce their own romantic drama

Reality – Food Home cooking contest

Drama Women clash daily in a treacherous catfight to reach the top of the world

Drama A genius but tormented novelist becomes dependent on a ghost writer, who decides to seek her own fame and fortune

Drama Lives and times of privileged students at an exclusive private school

Drama An illusionist steals a painting from a renowned art collector

Reality – Dating A single girl dates 3 guys in a day, without leaving her room

Drama What happens if technology become so advanced it threatens to take over our lives?

Factual Groups of ordinary people go on the run, hunted by a crack team of investigators

RealityFashion/design

Inspirational lifestyle content for millions of millennials

Drama Half-hour dialogues between therapist and patient

Gaumont

750 North San Vicente Boulevard, Suite RW 1000, West Hollywood, CA 90069, U.S. www.Gaumont.us

E: sales@gaumont.com

ATF 2018 Stand #: H-33

Who’s who...

Vanessa Shapiro President of Worldwide TV Distribution & Co-Production

Laura Laas Vice President, International TV Distribution, Animation

Narcos

Genre: Drama Series

Episodes/Length: 40x60 mins

An inside look at the men who would stop at nothing to take down the Colombian drug cartels, delivering an unﬁltered look into a war that would change the drug trade forever. Season four moves to Mexico, exploring the origins of the modern drug war by going back to its roots as a disorganised confederation of independent growers and dealers.

El Chapo

Genre: Drama Series

Episodes/Length: 34x60 mins

Explores the true-life story of drug kingpin Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán. One of the world’s most notorious and ruthless criminals, El Chapo used airplanes and a network of tunnels to supply the vast majority of the American cocaine industry. A gripping world of wars with rival cartels, assassinations, daring prison breaks and systemic corruption, sure to appeal to audiences everywhere.

Gusto Worldwide Media

Headquarters: 6-2191 Thurston Drive Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 6C9 Canada www.gustoworldwidemedia.com

ATF 2018 Stand #: K32

Who’s who...

Chris Knight

President & CEO

E: cknight@gustoworldiwdemedia.com

Corey Caplan

Senior Director, International Sales

E: ccaplan@gustoworldwidemedia.com

Gusto Worldwide Media is the world’s leading 4K content producer, distributor and broadcaster of high-quality food, cooking, and lifestyle programming, available for television and digital platforms. Gusto’s content stands out with exceptionally high production values and produces over 100 hours of native 4K programming every year. Our innovative series inspire food lovers around the globe, showcasing engaging hosts, diverse cuisines, and creative recipes. In 2013, we launched the linear pay-TV food channel, Gusto TV, in Canada. In 2018, Gusto Worldwide Media announced the launch of the channel in Singapore, U.S. and U.K, with more rollouts to come.

One World Kitchen

Genre: Cooking, Food Episodes/Length: 82x30 mins

Shot in 4K UHD, this high-style cooking series features modern and traditional recipes from nine global cuisines, including: Argentinian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Thai, Greek, Lebanese, Italian and Vietnamese. Over three seasons, the nine passionate hosts inspire viewers to master the world’s hottest dishes using age-old cooking secrets from their cultures. This vibrant programme comes with a multi-platform turnkey solution, including short-form videos, creative recipes and digital artwork.

Bionic Max

Genre: Animated Comedy Adventure

Episodes/Length: 52x11 mins

A buddy comedy between two very different but lovable friends – Max, the ﬁrst and only prototype for a bionic guinea pig born in a laboratory, and his best friend Jean-Claude a goldﬁsh – and their adventures as express delivery boys in the middle of Central Park where they consistently end up in absurd and hysterical situations.

Flour Power

Genre: Food, Baking

Episodes/Length: 26x30 mins

Set in a colourful retro kitchen, this playful and super-stylish baking series is the sweetest indulgence for all viewers. Shot in 4K UHD, captivating host Jessica McGovern warmly inspires with her impressive recipes for all occasions –from simple baked treats to extravagant masterpieces for an elegant dinner party. Flour Power is accompanied by 85 recipes, stunning shortform videos and dazzling photography.

Chris Knight Corey Caplan

Vanessa Shapiro Laura Laas

It Girls China

FremantleMedia China iQiyi

Jekyll & Hyde China ITV Studios Global Entertainment China Huace

Kid's Got Talent China S1

FremantleMedia/Syco

China Tencent Video

Reality Combo fashion and reality show

Drama After Robert Jekyll experiences a disturbing transformation in himself, he finds that other people know more about his past than he does.

Talent Talented kids showcase their skills Life on Mars China

The Little Nyonya China – New edition

BBC Studios

Mediacorp

Matrimonial Chaos China Fuji TV

Pharaoh! China S4 (Crazy Magic) Nippon TV

Pharaoh! China S5 Nippon TV

China TBC

China Tencent

China

Puzzle Masters China S1 Endemol Shine Group China

Saturday Night Live China

Second to Last Love China

Your Home Is My Business China

Gobbler Race Hong Kong S2

Who Wants to be a Millionaire Hong Kong

Big Brother Hindi S12

NBCUniversal Int’l Formats

Fuji TV

Nippon TV

CJ ENM

Aniworld TV (Hunan Media Group Subsidiary)

Hunan Golden Eagle

Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation / Vision

China Youku

China TBC

Hong Kong tvN Asia

Sony Pictures Television Hong Kong ATV (OTT)

Endemol Shine Group India Colors

Big Brother Kannada S5 Endemol Shine Group India Colors Kannada

Big Brother Kannada S6 Endemol Shine Group India Colors Kannada

Big Brother Malayalam S1 Endemol Shine Group India Asianet

Big Brother Marathi S1 Endemol Shine Group India Colors Marathi

Big Brother Tamil India S2 Endemol Shine Group India Star Vijay

Big Brother Telugu India S2 Endemol Shine Group India Star Maa

Criminal Justice India BBC Studios India Applause Entertainment (digital)

Dating in the Dark India Talpa India MTV India

Drama Retro investigation drama about detectives from past and present

Drama The story of the descendants of Chinese immigrants

Drama A romcom about a divorced couple who fall in love all over again

Game show Large-scale studio game show with cash prizes

Game show A hunt for China’s smartest puzzle solvers

Entertainment SNL China fell foul of censors early in its run, but has been resurrected

Drama A couple fall in love late in life – and every family member is an obstacle

Drama A single real-estate agent is known for closing the deal no matter what

Entertainment The nation’s top gobblers race to gobble down the most in a foreign city

Game show Contestants answer multiple-choice questions to win up to $1 million cash

Reality – Social Experiment Strangers live together with cameras/ microphones recording every move

Drama A young man is accused of a murder he doesn’t remember committing

Reality – Dating Singletons date each other in a pitch dark room.

Distraction Bengali India FremantleMedia India Star Jalsa Game show Celebrity contestants try not to be distracted as they answer questions

Divided Kannada India Talpa India Vijay

Divided Tamil India Talpa

Fear Factor India S10

Hear Me Love Me India

Hollywood Squares India S1

India Vijay

Endemol Shine Group India Colors

FremantleMedia India

General knowledge game show 3 strangers work together to build up a collective amount of cash. Winnings are split into 3 unequal parts

Game show Participants put aside their biggest fears for the chance to win a cash prize

Amazon Prime Video Reality – Dating Tech takes virtual dating to the next level as a single woman dates three guys in a day – without leaving her room

CBS Studios Int’l India Star India

Honey Badgers India Armoza Formats India TBC

Hostages India Armoza Formats India TBC

India’s Got Talent S8

Game show Contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes

Drama 4 small-town friends change their identities to get jobs at a financial firm

Drama A surgeon is forced to choose between her oath to save lives and her family

FremantleMedia/Syco India Colors TV Talent Talent show open to all India's Next Top Model S1 (English)

India’s Next Top Model S4 (Hindi)

Indian Idol S10

CBS Studios Int’l India Colors

CBS Studios Int’l India

19 Entertainment/ FremantleMedia, U.K.

MTV India

India Sony Entertainment Television

La Famiglia India Armoza Formats India Applause Entertainment (digital)

Minute To Win It Kannada India S4

Endemol Shine Group India

Reality –Modelling 12 girls battle for the top model spot

Reality –Modelling

Singing contest The search for a solo pop superstar

Drama Embarrassing, bizarre & insane moments that are a part of family life

Colors Kannada Game show Complete a challenge in 60 seconds

The Office India BBC Studios India Applause Entertainment (digital)

Drama Jagdeep Chaddha and his hapless attempts to inspire a reluctant workforce

Titles Rights holder Country Broadcaster/channel Genre Synopsis

Jetpack Distribution

3rd Floor

20 Bedford Street

London WC2E 9HP

U.K.

www.jetpackdistribution.tv

ATF 2018 Stand #: G34

Who’s who...

Gillian Calvert Ridge Head of Global Sales

Dominic Gardiner CEO

Kazoops

Genre: Preschool animation

Episodes/Length: 75x7 mins and 1x22 mins special

Monty is a spirited boy of six with a vivid imagination. His best friend is Jimmy Jones, the family pet pig. Monty confronts preconceptions about life, embarking on imaginary musical adventures to find fresh perspectives. This 3D animated show targets 2-6 year olds and has aired on broadcasters including: CBeebies (U.K.), Netflix, Disney (Japan), ABC Kids (Australia), Canal Panda (Spain) and TV3 (Spain).

Talpa Asia

Blueprint, 2/F, Dorset House Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong China

T: +852 9887 5736

Who’s who...

Saskia van Lier SVP Talpa Asia

Christine Heayun Ahn, License Manager Talpa Asia

Talpa is ready for the evolution of content. By activating the audience across multiple touch points, we create tailor-made business propositions. We enhance the viewers’ experience and extend our reach. We’ve got a diverse range of formats that all have a crucial thing in common: they’re all highquality formats we truly believe in.

The Voice Senior

Never too old to shine

Genre: Talent show

Episodes/Length: 4x70 mins

Licensed in: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, Thailand, Spain

In this new spin-off of the worldwide successful talent show The Voice of, it is now the turn of the seniors! They will prove that you are never too old to shine. Which senior turns out to have a voice of gold?

Yoko

Genre: Preschool animation

Episodes/Length: Season 1: 52x11 mins. Season 2: 14x12 mins. Season 3: 26x11 mins and Movie: 1x80 mins

Yoko follows the adventures of three children who love to play outside. Their enthusiasm and energy awakens the magical creature Yoko, who takes ordinary children’s games and turns them into extraordinary adventures. This 3D animated show targets 4-6-year olds. It has been picked up by broadcasters including Spain’s TVE, Russia’s Karusel and CTC, Italy’s Nick Jr, Netflix, and Nat Geo Kids in Latin America.

House of Talent

The last stop before the top Genre: Reality show

Episodes/Length: Daily | 25 mins

Licensed in: the Netherlands

House of Talent is a daily reality show that targets the young and difficult to reach audience with music, social and reality TV across different platforms. The show starts where other talent shows stop… because House of Talent is the launchpad of the professional careers of eight aspiring musical artists.

Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed

Genre: High action adventure comedy

Episodes/Length: 52x11 mins

This 3D CGI animated series centres on Dennis, the irrepressible rebel hero and his group of fearless friends. Together they ramp up the energy, cook up crazy plans, get in scrapes and take on every challenge. The show targets 6-11-year olds and airs on broadcasters including: CBBC (U.K.), ABC (Australia), Super RTL (Germany), France TV (France), TVE (Spain) and Rai (Italy).

5 Gold Rings

You better be sure where you place your rings!

Genre: Game Show

Episodes/Length: 8x45 mins

Licensed in: U.K., the Netherlands, Israel, France, Vietnam, Greece, Middle East, Thailand

The connected game show with unique questions and a fresh gameplay. Five rings to correctly answer five levels by putting them on an interactive floor… how hard can it be?

Gillian Calvert Ridge Dominic Gardiner

Oh My Ghost India CJ ENM

Power of 10 S3

Rising Star India S2

Top Model India

India Applause Entertainment (digital)

Sony Pictures Television India Sony channel

Keshet International India Colors

CBS Studios Int’l India Colors Infinity

The Voice India S2 Talpa

The Voice India S3 Talpa

The Voice Kids India S2 Talpa

Who Wants to be a Millionaire India S10

India &TV

India Star channel

India &TV

Sony Pictures Television India Sony channel

Liar India all3media India Viacom18/Voot

The Dr. Oz Show

Indonesia

Family Feud Indonesia S19

Sony Pictures Television Indonesia Trans TV

FremantleMedia Indonesia GTV

Family Feud Indonesia S20 FremantleMedia Indonesia GTV

Hot Streak Indonesia S1

I Can See Your Voice

Indonesia S3

FremantleMedia Indonesia GTV

CJ ENM Indonesia MNC TV

Idol Extra Indonesia S3 19 Entertainment/ FrementleMedia, U.K.

Indonesian Idol Junior S3

FremantleMedia, UK/19 Entertainment

Indonesian Idol S9 19 Entertainment/ FrementleMedia, U.K.

Killer Karaoke S1 FremantleMedia Indonesia

Let's Make A Deal S1

Indonesia RCTI

Indonesia ANTV

FremantleMedia, UK Indonesia GTV

Little Big Shots Indonesia S1 Warner Bros Int’l TV Production

Indonesia Global TV

MasterChef Indonesia S5 Endemol Shine Group Indonesia RCTI

Match Game Indonesia S1 FremantleMedia

Indonesia GTV

Price Is Right Indonesia FremantleMedia Indonesia RCTI

Rising Star Indonesia S3 Keshet International Indonesia RCTI

Drama A timid girl’s life changes when she is possessed by a lustful virgin ghost

Game show Big-cash game of high-low

Singing contest Viewers control the show via an app

Reality – Models 12 aspiring models vie for stardom

Singing contest A hunt for unsigned talent

Singing contest

Singing contest Kids version of The Voice

Game show Contestants answer multiple-choice questions to win up to $1 million cash

Drama Two people’s initial attraction leads to far-reaching consequences

Talk show Long running health series

Game show Contestants have to guess the top answers to a quiz based on surveys

Game show A word-based gameshow

Singing contest A professional singer and celebrity entertainers guess who has real vocal talent

Singing contest Picks up where Idol leaves off, with interviews & behind the scenes insights

Singing contest Hunt for the most outstanding unsigned solo recording artist-for kids

Singing contest Hunt for the most outstanding unsigned solo recording artist (or “idol”)

Game show Contestants have to complete challenges while singing to win money

Game show Member of the studio audience are selected at random to participate in the trading of items

Entertainment Family programming featuring extraordinary engaging kids

Reality – Food Competitive cooking reality show

Game show Contestants attempt to match the answers of six celebrities

Game show Contestants guess prices to win prizes

Talent Viewers control the show via an app Shadow Singer Indonesia CJ ENM Indonesia GTV

Singing Battle Indonesia KBS

The Next Boy/Girl Band Indonesia S2 Talpa

The Voice Indonesia S3 Talpa

The Voice Kids Indonesia S3 Talpa

Top Chef Indonesia S2

Who's on Top? Indonesia

The Bachelor Japan S2

Cold Case Japan S2

NBCUniversal International

Keshet International

Warner Bros Int’l TV Production

The Good Doctor Japan KBS

Memory Japan CJ ENM

Radio Gaga Japan Lineup Industries

Indonesia GTV

Indonesia Global TV

Indonesia GTV

Indonesia SCTV

Indonesia RCTI

Japan

Amazon Prime Video Japan

Japan Wowow

Japan Fuji TV

Japan NHK

Orphan Black Japan

(Orphan Black – 7 Genes)

BBC Studios

Japan Tokai TV and Fuji TV Networks

Singing contest Closet singers a chance to shine by ‘borrowing’ the appearance and the fame of a celebrity clone singer

Singing contest Non-singer celebs team up with music producers

Talent Two top record labels complete to create the next boy/girl band

Reality – Music Hunt for unsigned singing talent

Singing contest Kids’ version of The Voice

Reality – Food Chefs compete against each other in culinary challenges

Game show A show where money isn’t the only thing that goes up & down

Reality – Dating One lucky man has the opportunity to find the woman of his dreams

Drama Cold case investigations revisited

Drama A human drama about pediatric surgeons’ love and endeavors to save lives

Drama A warm-hearted lawyer, suffering from Alzheimers, struggles to keep his memories

Reality –Character led

Two hosts travel through the country in their mobile studio, setting up camp in marginalised communities and spending 48 hours running a local radio station taking everything from song requests to confessions

Drama Sara Aoyama enters this sci-fi thriller when she witnesses a suicide

Titles Rights holder Country Broadcaster/channel Genre Synopsis

Signal Japan CJ ENM

Suits Japan

Japan Fuji TV

NBCUniversal Japan Fuji TV

Undercover Boss Japan S3 all3media/Studio Lambert

1 vs 100 Korea S16

1 vs 100 Korea S17

1 vs 100 Korea S18

Japan NHK

Endemol Shine Group Korea KBS2

The Confidence Man Korea Fuji TV

The Dinner Table Korea TV Asahi

Doctor Foster Korea

Hirugao – Love Affairs in the Afternoon Korea

Hundred Million Stars from the Sky Korea

Life on Mars Korea

Luther Korea

Korea TBC

Drama A veteran detective communicates with a criminal profiler through time and space

Drama A college dropout gets a job in a law firm without attending law school

Reality –Character led Bosses go undercover in their own businesses

Game show 1 player battles 100 opponents through a series of questions

Drama Con-artists resort to any and all means to steal from unscrupulous industry bosses

Korea skyDrama, Channel A Entertainment A family of four or more must start dinner together at 7pm sharp for 30 consecutive days to win a big cash prize

BBC Studios Korea JTBC

Fuji TV

Korea Channel A

Korea tvN

BBC Studios Korea OCN

BBC Studios Korea MBC

Man vs Child Korea A+E Networks Korea Lifetime

Drama A mystery-drama series that leads the protagonist down a dark path

Drama A compelling drama that explores the hidden desires of 'ordinary' modern housewives

Drama A detective investigates his girlfriend’s suicide, which turns out to be a murder

Drama Retro investigation drama

Drama A brilliant but emotionally impulsive detective is tormented by the dark side of humanity

Reality – Food Young cooks challenge famous chefs Matrimonial Chaos Korea Fuji TV

Mistress Korea

Korea KBS

BBC Studios Korea OCN

Mother Korea Nippon TV Korea tvN

Rich Man, Poor Woman Korea Fuji TV

Suits Korea

The Doctors Malaysia

Korea Dramax

CBS Studios Int’l Malaysia Astro

Get It Beauty Malaysia CJ ENM

Heartbeat Malaysia

I Can See Your Voice

Malaysia S2 (Chinese) CJ ENM

I Can See Your Voice

Malaysia S2 (Malay)

My Coffee Prince

CJ ENM

Malaysia MBC

Sanay Wala Na Wakas

Malaysia ABS-CBN

Syurga Yang Ke 2

Malaysia Emtek

The

Mongolia

Cash At Your Door

TV Asahi

Mongolia all3media

Come Dine With Me

Mongolia S2

ITV Studios Global Entertainment

Dress To Impress Mongolia ITV Studios Global Entertainment

Family Feud Mongolia FremantleMedia Int’l

Gogglebox Mongolia S5 all3media

Malaysia TBC

Malaysia NTV7

Malaysia Astro

Malaysia Astro Prima

Malaysia Astro

Mongolia TV9

Mongolia EDU TV ( Mongolia) Produced By Hulegu Pictures

Mongolia Mongol TV

Mongolia TV2

Mongolia Mongol TV

Mongolia's Got Talent S3 FremantleMedia/Syco Mongolia Mongol TV

Mongolia's Next Top

Model S2

Shark Tank Mongolia S2

Drama A romcom about a divorced couple who fall in love all over again

Drama A story about 4 women in their 30s

Drama An unpredictable story of motherand-daughter bonding

Drama A modern day Cinderella story

Drama Legal drama

Talk show Health & wellness specialists offer advice

Variety –Health/beauty Beauty talk and tutorials

Drama A rich man meets the young girl who received his dead fiancé’s heart

Singing contest Pros and celebs guess who has real vocal talent based on a few clues

Drama Romcom about a girl who pretends to be a boy at an all-male cafe

Drama Poor girl, rich heir, stranded on an island. Can their love survive?

Drama Sabrina’s family is thrown into turmoil when she wakes from a coma

Sports Celebrities challenge world-class athletes at their own sports

Game show A family quiz where the host goes door to door and the show happens right in the living room

Entertainment Strangers get together to compete for cash prizes as best hosts

Entertainment Three competitors try to win the heart of a fashion conscious singleton

Game show Contestants guess answers to a quiz

Factual Highlights of the week’s TV intercut with footage of people watching at home

Talent Talent show open to anyone & everyone

CBS Studios Int’l

Sony Pictures Television

Mongolia EduTV

Mongolia Mongol TV

Reality –Modelling Beatiful women compete for stardom

Reality – Biz

Would-be entrepreneurs compete Silent Library Mongolia Nippon TV

Mongolia VOL+, Mongol TV, VOD service ORI

Game show Contestants have to keep quiet no matter what

Beat

Champions

Titles Rights holder Country Broadcaster/channel Genre Synopsis

Star Academy Mongolia S1 Endemol Shine Group Mongolia EduTV

Talent Young artists’ quest for stardom

Still Standing Mongolia NBCUniversal/Armoza Mongolia TV9 Game show 10 opponents vie for $1m prize

The Voice Mongolia S1 Talpa

The Voice Mongolia S2 Talpa

Your Face Sounds

Familiar Mongolia S3

Family Feud Myanmar S5

Mongolia Mongol TV

Endemol Shine Group Mongolia EduTV

FremantleMedia Myanmar MRTV4/Channel 7

Family Feud Myanmar S6 FremantleMedia Myanmar MRTV4/Channel 7

Family Feud Myanmar S7 FremantleMedia Myanmar MRTV4/Channel 7

It Girls Myanmar Dori Media Group Myanmar TBC

MasterChef Myanmar S1

The Money Drop

Myanmar S1

The Money Drop

Myanmar S2

The Money Drop

Myanmar S3

Myanmar Idol S3

Singing contest Hunt for unsigned singing talent

Singing contest

Singing contest Celebrity contestants imitate musical icons

Game show Contestants have to guess the top answers to a quiz based on surveys

RealityCharacter led “It Girls” join forces to build a fashion site

Endemol Shine Group Myanmar MRTV 4 & Pyone Play Reality – Food Hunt for a top amateur chef

Endemol Shine Group Myanmar Channel 7 Game show A pair of contestants are given their cash prize at the start of the show. All they have to do it keep hold of it

Endemol Shine Group Myanmar Channel 7

FremantleMedia

Myanmar Myanmar National TV and Channel 9

Myanmar's Got Talent S5 FremantleMedia/Syco Myanmar MRTV-4, CH 7

The Voice Myanmar S1 Talpa

The Voice Myanmar S2 Talpa

Singing contest Hunt for unsigned solo recording artist

Talent Open-to-all contest for top talent

Myanmar MRTV4 Singing contest Hunt for unsigned singing talent

Myanmar MRTV4 Singing contest X Factor Myanmar S3 FremantleMedia/Syco Myanmar MRTV-4/Channel 7 Singing contest Search for a singing sensation

Big Brother Philippines S8

Boom! Philippines

Endemol Shine Group Philippines

ABS-CBN Ch2, Jeepney TV, 30 provincial stations & TFC

Keshet International Philippines GMA7

I Can Do That! Philippines S2 Armoza Formats

I Can See Your Voice Philippines S3

I Can See Your Voice Philippines S4

La Banda Philippines S2

Lip Sync Battle Philippines S3

Little Big Shots Philippines S2

Minute To Win It Philippines S4

Philippines Got Talent S6

CJ ENM

FremantleMedia

Reality – Social Experiment A group of strangers live together in a house with cameras and microphones recording their every move

Game show BOOM! fuses drama, thrill and intensity into one explosive trivia challenge

Philippines Lifestyle Network Game show Celebrities are challenged to perform breath-taking live acts

Philippines

ABS-CBN

ABS-CBN Channel 2

Singing contest Pros and celebs guess who has real vocal talent based on a few clues

Talent Hunt for a superstar 5-piece boyband

Viacom International Media Networks Philippines GMA Network Talent Celebrities go head to head lipsyncing

Warner Bros Int’l Television Production Philippines ABS-CBN Channel 2 Entertainment Family programming featuring extraordinary engaging kids

Endemol Shine Group

FremantleMedia

Philippines

ABS-CBN Ch2, Jeepney TV, 30 provincial stations & TFC

ABS-CBN Channel 2

Game show Complete a challenge in 60 seconds

Talent

Talent show open to everyone Philippines Got Talent S7

FremantleMedia Philippines ABS-CBN Channel 2

The Voice Kids Philippines S4 Talpa

NBCUniversal

Philippines

ABS-CBN Channel 2

ABS-CBN

Talent Talent show open to everyone

Singing contest Kids version of The Voice World of Dance Philippines

Your Face Sounds

Familiar Kids Philippines S2

Asia's Got Talent S3

Asia's Next Top Model S6

Endemol Shine Group Philippines

FremantleMedia/Syco

ABS-CBN Ch2, Yey, Jeepney TV, 30 provincial stations & TFC

CBS Studios Int’l Regional FOX Life

Dance contest A range of dance acts compete for the grand prize

Singing contest 8 celebs from previous series come together to mentor talented kids

Reality – Models Would-be models compete The Bridge Endemol Shine Group Regional HBO Asia, Viu, NTV7 Malaysia

Get It Beauty Singapore CJ ENM Singapore

Drama Crime thriller exploring the tensions between neighbouring countries

Variety –Health/beauty Beauty talk and tutorials

Hit It Singapore all3media Singapore Mediacorp Suria Game show Sports-inspired game show

MasterChef Singapore S1

Stupid Man, Smart Phone Singapore

Sri Lanka's Got Talent S1

Endemol Shine Group Singapore Mediacorp Ch5

BBC Studios Singapore Mediacorp Ch5

FremantleMedia/Syco Sri Lanka Maharaja TV

Reality – Food Hunt for the top amateur chef

Factual A comedian attempts outdoor adventures using only his smartphone to survive

Talent show open to everyone Who Wants to be a Millionaire Sri Lanka

Sony Pictures Television Sri Lanka MTV Sports Game show Contestants answer multiple-choice questions to win up to $1 million cash.

Titles Rights holder Country Broadcaster/channel Genre Synopsis

31 Legged Race

Thailand S13

TV Asahi

Thailand Channel 9 MCOT

Sports 30 elementary school kids run with their legs tied together. The fastest team wins 5 Gold Rings Thailand Talpa

Armchair Detectives

Thailand S1

Thailand Channel 7

Endemol Shine Group Thailand Workpoint TV

Catch Me Out Thailand all3media

Crazy Market Thailand S1 CJ ENM

Dance Dance Dance

Thailand Talpa

Divided Thailand Talpa

The Dr. Oz's Show Thailand Sony Pictures Television

Drag Race Thailand Passion Distribution

Entertainment Tonight

Thailand S1

The Face All Stars

Thailand S1

CBS Studios Int’l

Thailand TBC

Thailand TRUE4U

Thailand LINE TV

Thailand Channel 3

Thailand True TV

Thailand LINE TV

Thailand PPTV

Endemol Shine Group Thailand Channel 3

The Face Men Thailand S2 Endemol Shine Group Thailand Kantana

Family Feud Thailand S3

Family Feud Thailand S4

Golden Tambourine

Thailand S1

Grandpas Over Flowers

Thailand S1

Hollywood Game Night Thailand S3

Hollywood Game Night

Thailand S4

FremantleMedia Int’l Thailand Channel One

CJ ENM

Thailand CH7

CJ ENM Thailand TRUE4U

NBCUniversal Thailand Channel 3

Human Knowledge Thailand Talpa Thailand PPTV

I Can See Your Voice Thailand S2

I Can See Your Voice Thailand S3

Let Me In Thailand S4

MasterChef Junior

Thailand S2

MasterChef Thailand S2

The Money Drop Thailand S3

My Mom Cooks Better Than Yours Thailand S1

CJ ENM Thailand Workpoint TV

CJ ENM

Thailand Workpoint TV

Endemol Shine Group Thailand BBTV Channel 7

Endemol Shine Group Thailand BBTV CH 7

Endemol Shine Group

FremantleMedia

Thailand BBTV Ch 7

Thailand Workpoint TV

My Wife Rules Thailand Global Agency Thailand Channel 7

Game show Players answer questions over 5 levels

Game show Armchair detectives solve a whodunnit

Entertainment Regular people have to convince the audience they are professional entertainer

Game show Contestants identify food using 5 senses

Dance contest Celebs reenact famous dance acts using augmented reality tech

General knowledge game show 3 strangers work together to build up a collective amount of cash. At the end they split the pot into 3 unequal parts

Talk show Long running health series

Reality –Fashion/design Drag queens compete

Talk show An inside look at TV, film and music, with celebrity interviews

Reality Supermodels lead a team of aspiring young models

Reality Supermodels choose new faces to create teams of potential models

Game show Contestants guess survey answers

Game show

Game show Celeb teams compete with gusto

Reality Four famous elderly actors travel overseas

Game show Two contestants take part in a casual game night with celebrities and win cash prizes

Entertainment Studio entertainment show about estimating human behavior

Singing contest A studio-based music entertainment show where a professional singer and panel of celebrity entertainers guess who has real vocal talent and who doesn’t

Reality –Makeover An extreme life makeover show with contestants who face discrimination because of their appearance

Reality – Food An inspirational programme with children aged 9 to 12 years old

Reality – Food Hunt for the nation’s best amateur cook

Game Show Contestants have to hold onto piles of cash

Reality – Food Kids cook and parents instruct from the sidelines

Reality – Food Wives give instructions. Husbands cook Noisy Neighbours Thailand TV Asahi Thailand TBC

Oh My Ghost Thailand CJ ENM

Perfect On Paper

Thailand S1

Price Is Right Thailand S4

Price Is Right Thailand S5

Thailand TRUE4U

Endemol Shine Group Thailand

FremantleMedia

Workpoint TV

Entertainment Neighbours guess what noises the other family is making

Drama A timid girl is possessed by a lustful ghost

Reality – Dating Science is deployed in a dating experiment

Thailand True4U Channel Game Show Contestants guess prices

FremantleMedia Thailand True4U Channel Game Show Contestants guess prices

Pull Over Thailand Armoza Formats/ Createit Studio

Real Housewives of Bangkok NBCUniversal Int’l

The Return of Superman Thailand KBS

Shark Tank Thailand S1

Show Me The Money

Sony Pictures Television

Thailand S1 CJ ENM

Show Me Your Son

Thailand S1

Thailand Channel 3

Thailand PPTV

Thailand Channel 7

Thailand Not announced

Thailand TRUE4U

Endemol Shine Group Thailand

Silent Library Thailand Nippon TV

Workpoint TV

Thailand LINE TV

Game Show Lucky car owners get the chance to win cars

Drama Personal and professional lives of rich women living in Bangkok

Reality Workaholic dads stay home to look after their kids

Reality – Biz Contestants pitch investors

Talent A rap battle reality contest show judged by industry professionals

Reality - Dating Mothers and sons compete to win the heart of one bachelorette

Game show, studio based Contestants have to remain silent no matter what

Titles Rights holder Country Broadcaster/channel Genre Synopsis

Singer Takes It All Thailand S3

Still Standing Thailand S5

Still Standing Thailand S6

Take Guy Out Thailand S3

Take Me Out Thailand S13

Thailand's Got Talent S7

Thank God You're Here!

Thailand S1

The Best of All Thailand S1

The Best of All Thailand S2

NBCUniversal/Armoza Thailand Channel 7

FremantleMedia Thailand LINE TV

FremantleMedia Thailand Channel 3

FremantleMedia/Syco Thailand

Workpoint TV

FremantleMedia Thailand One HD

Dori Media Group/ Abot Hamaeiri

The Next Boy/Girl Band Thailand Talpa

The Voice Kids Thailand S6 Talpa

The Voice Senior Thailand Talpa

The Voice Thailand S7 Talpa

Top Chef Thailand S2

The Wall Thailand S1

World of Dance Thailand

X Factor Thailand S2

Thailand TV3

Thailand Channel 7

Thailand Thai TV3

Thailand PPTV HD 36

Thailand Thai TV3

NBCUniversal Thailand TBC

Endemol Shine Group Thailand One 31 HD

NBCUniversal Thailand GMM One HD

FremantleMedia/Syco Thailand Workpoint TV

You Are My Fantasy CJ ENM Thailand TRUE4U

Your Face Sounds

Familiar Kids Thailand S1

Endemol Shine Group Thailand BBTV Channel 7

5 Gold Rings Vietnam Talpa Vietnam VTV3

The Arbitrator Movie Vietnam Armoza Formats Vietnam TBC

The Bachelor Vietnam Warner Bros Int’l TV Production Vietnam HTV7

The Band Rules Vietnam S2

The Big Music Quiz Vietnam S1

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam Vinh Long TV, THVL 1

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam HTV

Body & Brain Vietnam Red Arrow Studios Int’l Vietnam TBC

Boxing Glove Vietnam S1 FremantleMedia Vietnam VTV

Brainiest Vietnam Sony Pictures Television Vietnam VTV6 & VTV3

Celebrity MasterChef Vietnam S1

The Choice Vietnam S1

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam VTV3

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam VTV

Singing contest A live singing contest with real time viewer participation

Game show 10 opponents vie for $1-million prize

Game show

Reality – Dating A man and his quest for the perfect date

Reality – Dating A single man dates 1 of 30 single women

Talent Talent show open to everyone

Comedy improv Celebrities have to ad-lib their way through unknown situations

Game show Will a crowd answer a question correctly more often than an individual?

Game show

Talent Two top record labels will take each other on to create the next boy/girl band

Singing contest Kids version of The Voice

Singing contest Seniors get the chance to shine

Singing contest A hunt for unsigned singing talent

Reality - Food Chefs compete

Game show Game show with huge cash prizes

Dance contest Performers compete for a grand prize

Singing contest Hunt for the next singing sensation

Reality - Dating/ Marriage; Music 50 nominees compete for their chance to win a date with a celebrith

Singing contest Personalities are transformed into legendary singers

Game show Tech and skill align in a pic-based quiz

Feature Film A social worker discovers he is the lost son of the underworld’s most powerful man

Reality - Dating A man seeks the woman of his dreams

Talent The search for a lead singer for a professional big band

Game show Celebs compete in a test of musical knowledge

Game show Two strangers go after a cash prize

Sports Knockout comedy format

Game/quiz show Hunt for the brainiest contestant

Reality – Food Hunt for the best amateur celebrity cook

Reality Eligible celebrities look for true love Crazy Market Vietnam CJ ENM

Descendants of the Sun Vietnam

KBS/Descendants of the Sun SPC

Divided Vietnam Talpa

The Face Vietnam S3

Vietnam VTV3

Vietnam Danet (OTT first)

Vietnam TN&K

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam TBC

Get It Beauty Vietnam CJ ENM

Glee Vietnam 20th Century Fox Television

Hole In The Wall Vietnam S2

Hollywood Game Night Vietnam

FremantleMedia/Fuji TV

NBCUniversal

It Takes 2 Vietnam S2 Talpa

It Takes 2 Vietnam S3 Talpa

Love at First Song

Vietnam

Lovers or Liars

Man O Man

CJ ENM

Vietnam Keshet International

Vietnam S1

Vietnam S2

FremantleMedia

Vietnam TBC

Vietnam Danet, ZING TV, FPT PLAY

Vietnam HTV7

Vietnam VTV 3

Vietnam VTV3

Vietnam HTV7

Vietnam TBC

Game Show Contestants identify food using 5 senses

Drama Romantic tale of love and comradeship among young soldiers and doctors

Game Show 3 strangers work together to build a collective amount of cash. At the end they have to split the winnings into three unequal parts

Reality Young models compete

Variety – Beauty Beauty specialists talk make up

Drama

Musical comedy about a group of ambitious and talented young adults

Game Show Players contort themselves tthrough cutouts on a styrofoam wall

Game Show

Singing contest

Two contestants take part in a casual game night with celebs and cash prizes

Celebrities, who are famous for anything except singing, are coached by professional singers to form the ultimate duo

Reality – Dating; Music A hybrid music dating show that matches people looking for their soulmates through musical taste

Game Show Can you recognise true love when?

Game show

Game show A male beauty show with humour, entertainment and audience engagement

Endemol Shine Group Thailand BBTV CH 7

Titles Rights holder Country Broadcaster/channel Genre Synopsis

Manbirth Vietnam Keshet International Vietnam VTV

Master Class Vietnam Keshet International Vietnam HTV 3, Vietnam

Masters of Dance Vietnam

Meet The Parents Vietnam

Million Dollar Minute Vietnam S3

Million Dollar Minute Vietnam S4

Keshet International Vietnam HTV3

ITV Studios Global Entertainment Vietnam HTV

Endemol Shine Group/ Seven Network Vietnam VTV3

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam VTV6 & VTV9

My Love From The Star Vietnam SBS

My Mum Cooks Better Than Yours Vietnam S4

Vietnam Danet (OTT first)

FremantleMedia Vietnam VTV3

The Next Boy/Girl Band Vietnam Talpa

TV Asahi

Vietnam VTV3

Vietnam HTV7

Reality – Social Experiment Dads discover what to expect when expecting

Talent Kids talent show with classic songs, only positive reviews and no eliminations

Dance contest Every move they make could be their last

Reality – Dating One singleton looking for love tries to find a ideal partner by quizzing their potential suitor’s mum and dad

Game show Three contestants go head-to-head over four rounds in a general knowledge battle. Each night, $10,000 of safe money is up for grabs

Drama An alien stranded on earth falls in love with a human

Reality – Food A culinary game show that combines cooking, contest & family dynamics

Talent Two top record labels will take each other on to create the next boy/girl band Noisy Neighbours Vietnam S4

Odd One In Vietnam S5

Price Is Right Vietnam S13

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam HTV7, DRT, HN1

FremantleMedia

Vietnam VTV3

Raid the Cage Vietnam S2 Sony Pictures Television Vietnam HTV7

Selfie Challenge Vietnam Dori Media Group

Vietnam SCTV

Sexy Beasts Vietnam all3media Vietnam TBC

Shark Tank Vietnam S1

Shark Tank Vietnam S2

Singer Takes It All

Vietnam S1

Sony Pictures Television Vietnam VTV1, VTV3 & InfoTV

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam VTV3

Singing Battle Vietnam KBS

Still Standing Vietnam S2

Thank God You're Here!

Vietnam S3

Thank God You're Here!

Vietnam S4

Top Chef Vietnam S2

Vietnam Vinh Long TV

NBCUniversal Vietnam

FremantleMedia/ Working Dog

NBCUniversal

Turn Back Vietnam S3 TV Asahi

The Voice Kids Vietnam S6 Talpa

The Voice Vietnam S5 Talpa

The Wishing Tree Vietnam Talpa

Who Wants to be a Millionaire Vietnam S9

Vietnam VTV3

Vietnam HTV7

Vietnam VTV3

Vietnam HTV3-DreamsTV

Sony Pictures Television Vietnam VTV3

You Deserve It Vietnam S5 Red Arrow Studios Int’l Vietnam VTV

You Deserve It Vietnam S6 Red Arrow Studios Int’l Vietnam VTV

Your Face Sounds

Familiar Vietnam S6

Endemol Shine Group Vietnam VTV3

Entertainment Neighbours guess what noises the other family is making

Game show Family guessing game with two celebrity teams trying to spot the person with the unique skill or secret in a series of outlandish line-ups

Game show Contestants compete to win cash and prizes by guessing the pricing of merchandise

Game show Knowledge and agility are the key to winning a cavernous cage full of prizes

Game show Two groups of three friends compete for selfie prowess

Reality - Dating Hollywood style prosthetics are used to transform people before they go on a first date, taking real looks out of the equation

Reality - Biz Aspiring entrepreneur-contestants make business presentations to a panel of "shark" investors, who then choose whether or not to invest

Singing contest Live singing contest with viewers taking control via a real-time app featuring hundreds of auditions on phones and tablets

Singing contest Duet survival show with celebs and musical producers

Game show Prime-time game show offering contestants $1 million by out-guessing 10 opponents in fast-paced trivia battles

Comedy improv Celebrities’ improvisational skills are tested in unknown situations

Reality – Food Chefs compete in culinary challenges

Entertainment Guests with their backs turned play true or false to guess if there is a real performance going on behind them or not

Singing contest Kids version of The Voice

Singing contest Hunt for unsigned singing talent.

Factual Feel-good format where children hang their wishes for someone else in a wishing tree and see them fulfilled

Game show Contestants answer multiple-choice questions to win up to $1 million cash.

Game show Feel good game show with prizes for deserving individuals or families

Singing contest Eight celebrities from previous Your Face Sounds Familiar series come together to mentor talented kids

Source: Distributors/rights holders, broadcasters, ContentAsia Notes: Data updated as of 16 November 2018. Titles were on air or premiered in 2018, or were commissioned for broadcast in 2018/9 in Asia. Does not include: re-runs, format options, titles/formats created solely for a specific sponsor/s, titles/formats which have been around from Q1 2017 without any updates, and shows created by broadcasters for their own channels that have not been sold as formats to anyone else. All distributors and formats rights holders were given equal opportunity to participate. For information/feedback, please contact aqilah@contentasia.tv

ContentAsia’s Formats Leaderboard

Fremantle

1. Asia’s Got Talent S3

2. Boxing Glove Vietnam S1

3. Cambodian Idol S3

4. Cambodian Idol S4

5. Cambodia’s Got Talent S2

6. Cambodia’s Got Talent S3

7. Cambodia’s Got Talent S4

8. Distraction Bengali India

9. Don’t Stop Me Now China S8

10. The Eureka Moment China S3

11. Family Feud Indonesia S19

12. Family Feud Indonesia S20

13. Family Feud Mongolia

14. Family Feud Myanmar S5

15. Family Feud Myanmar S6

16. Family Feud Myanmar S7

17. Family Feud Thailand S3

18. Family Feud Thailand S4

19. Hear Me Love Me India

20. Hear Me, Love Me, See Me China S1

21. Heaven Or Hell Cambodia S1

22. Hole In The Wall Vietnam S2

23. Hot Streak Indonesia S1

24. Idol Extra Indonesia S3

25. Indian Idol S10

26. India’s Got Talent S8

27. Indonesian Idol Junior S3

28. Indonesian Idol S9

29. It Girls China

30. Kid’s Got Talent China S1

31. Killer Karaoke S1

32. La Banda Philippines S2

33. Let’s Make A Deal S1

34. Man O Man Vietnam S1

35. Man O Man Vietnam S2

36. Match Game Indonesia S1

37. Mongolia’s Got Talent S3

38. My Mom Cooks Better Than Yours Thailand S1

39. My Mum Cooks Better Than Yours Vietnam S4

40. Myanmar Idol S3

41. Myanmar’s Got Talent S5

42. Philippines Got Talent S6

43. Philippines Got Talent S7

44. Price Is Right Cambodia S1

45. Price Is Right Indonesia

46. Price Is Right Thailand S4

47. Price Is Right Thailand S5

48. Price Is Right Vietnam S13

49. Sri Lanka’s Got Talent S1

50. Take Guy Out Thailand S3

51. Take Me Out Thailand S13

52. Thailand’s Got Talent S7

53. Thank God You’re Here! Cambodia S1

54. Thank God You’re Here! Thailand S1

55. Thank God You’re Here! Vietnam S3

56. Thank God You’re Here! Vietnam S4

57. X Factor Cambodia S1

58. X Factor Cambodia S2

59. X Factor Myanmar S3

60. X Factor Thailand S2

1. 1 vs 100 Korea S16

2. 1 vs 100 Korea S17

3. 1 vs 100 Korea S18

4. Armchair Detectives Thailand S1

5. The Band Rules Vietnam S2

6. Big Brother Hindi 12

7. Big Brother Kannada S5

8. Big Brother Kannada S6

9. Big Brother Malayalam S1

10. Big Brother Marathi S1

11. Big Brother Philippines S8

12. Big Brother Tamil India S2

13. Big Brother Telugu India S2

14. The Big Music Quiz Vietnam S1

15. The Bridge Malaysia/Singapore

16. Celebrity MasterChef Vietnam S1

17. The Choice Vietnam S1

18. Don’t Lose The Money Cambodia S1

19. The Face All Stars Thailand S1

20. The Face Men Thailand S2

21. The Face Vietnam S3

22. Family Food Fight China

23. Fear Factor India S10

24. Humans China S1

25. Hunted China

26. ICON China

27. MasterChef Cambodia S1

28. MasterChef Cambodia S2

29. MasterChef Indonesia S5

30. MasterChef Junior Thailand S2

31. MasterChef Myanmar S1

32. MasterChef Singapore S1

33. MasterChef Thailand S2

34. Million Dollar Minute Vietnam S3

35. Million Dollar Minute Vietnam S4

36. Minute To Win It Kannada S4

37. Minute To Win It Philippines S4

38. The Money Drop Myanmar S1

39. The Money Drop Myanmar S2

40. The Money Drop Myanmar S3

41. The Money Drop Thailand S3

42. Odd One In Vietnam S5

43. Perfect On Paper Thailand S1

44. Puzzle Masters China S1

45. Show Me Your Son Thailand S1

46. Singer Takes It All Thailand S3

47. Singer Takes It All Vietnam S1

48. Star Academy Mongolia S1

49. The Wall Thailand S1

50. Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids Philippines S2

51. Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids Thailand S1

52. Your Face Sounds Familiar Mongolia S3

53. Your Face Sounds Familiar Vietnam S6

Talpa

1. 5 Gold Rings Thailand

2. 5 Gold Rings Vietnam

3. Dance Dance Dance Thailand

4. Dating in the Dark India

5. Divided Kannada India

6. Divided Tamil India

7. Divided Thailand

8. Divided Vietnam

9. Human Knowledge Thailand

10. It Takes 2 Vietnam S2

11. It Takes 2 Vietnam S3

12. The Next Boy/Girl Band Indonesia S2

13. The Next Boy/Girl Band Thailand

14. The Next Boy/Girl Band Vietnam

15. The Voice Cambodia S3

16. The Voice India S2

17. The Voice India S3

18. The Voice Indonesia S3

19. The Voice Kids Cambodia S2

20. The Voice Kids India S2

21. The Voice Kids Indonesia S3

22. The Voice Kids Philippines S4

23. The Voice Kids Thailand S6

24. The Voice Kids Vietnam S6

25. The Voice Mongolia

26. The Voice Mongolia S2

27. The Voice Myanmar

28. The Voice Myanmar S2

29. The Voice Senior Thailand

30. The Voice Thailand S7

31. The Voice Vietnam S5

32. The Wishing Tree Vietnam

CJ ENM (24 titles) Crazy Market Thailand S1; Crazy Market Vietnam; Get It Beauty Malaysia; Get It Beauty Singapore; Get It Beauty Vietnam; Gobbler Race Hong Kong S2; Golden Tambourine Thailand S1; Grandpas Over Flowers Thailand S1; I Can See Your Voice Indonesia S3; I Can See Your Voice Malaysia S2 (Chinese); I Can See Your Voice Malaysia S2 (Malay); I Can See Your Voice Philippines S3 & S4; I Can See Your Voice Thailand S2/S3/S4; Love at First Song Vietnam; Memory Japan; Oh My Ghost India; Oh My Ghost Thailand; Shadow Singer Indonesia; Show Me The Money Thailand S1; Signal Japan; You Are My Fantasy Thailand

NBCUniversal (16 titles) Hollywood Game Night Thailand S3 & S4; Hollywood Game Night Vietnam; Real Housewives of Bangkok; Saturday Night Live China; Still Standing Mongolia/Thailand S5 & S6; Still Standing Vietnam S2; Suits Japan/Korea; Top Chef Indonesia S2/Thailand S2/ Vietnam S2; World of Dance Philippines/Thailand

Sony Pictures Television (14 titles) Brainiest Vietnam S3; Chosen China; The Dr. Oz Show Indonesia; Dr. Oz Show Thailand; Power of 10 S3; Raid the Cage Vietnam S2; Shark Tank Mongolia S2; Shark Tank Thailand S1; Shark Tank Vietnam S1; Shark Tank Vietnam S2; Who Wants to be a Millionaire Hong Kong; Who Wants to be a Millionaire India S10; Who Wants to be a Millionaire Sri Lanka; Who Wants to be a Millionaire Vietnam S9

10 titles: Fuji TV The Confidence Man China; The Confidence Man Korea; First Class China; Ghostwriter China; Hirugao – Love Affairs in the Afternoon Korea; Hundred Million Stars from the Sky Korea; Matrimonial Chaos China; Matrimonial Chaos Korea; Rich Man, Poor Woman Korea; Second to Last Love China

9 titles: BBC Studios Criminal Justice India; Doctor Foster Korea; Life on Mars China; Life on Mars Korea; Luther Korea; Mistresses Korea; The Office India; Orphan Black Japan; Stupid Man, Smart Phone Singapore

8 titles: All3media Cash At Your Door

Mongolia; Catch Me Out Thailand; Gogglebox Mongolia S5; The Great Art Robbery China; Hit It Singapore; Liar India; Sexy Beasts Vietnam; Undercover Boss Japan S3; CBS Studios International Asia’s Next Top Model S6; The Doctors Malaysia; Entertainment Tonight Thailand S1; The Good Wife Japan S1; Hollywood Squares India S1; India’s Next Top Model S1 (English) & S4 (Hindi); Mongolia’s Next Top Model S2; Keshet Boom! Philippines; Lovers or Liars Vietnam; Manbirth Vietnam; Master Class Vietnam; Masters of Dance Vietnam; Rising Star India S2; Rising Star Indonesia S3; Who’s on Top? Indonesia; TV Asahi 31 Legged Race China; 31 Legged Race Thailand S13; Beat The Champions Mongolia; Falling in Love like a Romantic TV Drama China; Noisy Neighbours Thailand; Noisy Neighbours Vietnam S4; The Dinner Table Korea; Turn Back Vietnam S3

6 titles: Armoza The Arbitrator Movie Vietnam; Honey Badgers India; Hostages India; I Can Do That! Philippines S2; La Famiglia India; Pull Over Thailand; Nippon TV Mother Korea; Pharaoh! China S4; Pharaoh! China S5; Silent Library Mongolia; Silent Library Thailand; Your Home Is My Business China; Warner Bros The Bachelor Japan S2; The Bachelor Vietnam; Cold Case Japan S2; Gossip Girl China S1; Little Big Shots Indonesia S1; Little Big Shots Philippines S2

5 titles: Dori Media The Best Of All Thailand S1; The Best Of All Thailand S2; In Treatment China S1; It Girls Myanmar; Selfie Challenege Vietnam; KBS Descendants of the Sun Vietnam; The Good Doctor Japan; The Return of Superman Thailand; Singing Battle Indonesia/Vietnam

4 titles: ITV Studios Come Dine With Me Mongolia S2; Dress To Impress Mongolia; Jekyll & Hyde China; Meet The Parents Vietnam; Red Arrow Body & Brain Vietnam; My Man Can Cambodia; You Deserve It Vietnam S5; You Deserve It Vietnam S6

2 titles: Mediacorp The Awakening China - New edition; The Little Nyonya China - New edition

1 title: 20th Century Fox Glee Vietnam; A+E Networks Man vs Child Korea; ABS-CBN Sanay Wala Na Wakas Malaysia; Emtek Syurga Yang Ke 2 Malaysia; Fox Networks Group Heartbeat Malaysia; Global Agency My Wife Rules Thailand; Lineup Industries Radio Gaga Japan; MBC My Coffee Prince Malaysia; NHK Document 72 Hours China; Passion Distribution Drag Race Thailand; SBS My Love From The Star Vietnam; Viacom Lip Sync Battle Philippines S3

Source: Distributors/rights holders, broadcasters, ContentAsia Notes: data updated as of 16 November 2018. Titles were on air or premiered in 2018, or were commissioned for broadcast in 2018/9 in Asia. Does not include: re-runs, format options, titles/formats which have been around from Q1 2017 without any updates, and shows created by broadcasters/ production houses/sponsors for one channel but have not been sold as a format to anyone else. All distributors and formats rights holders were given equal opportunity to participate. For information/feedback, please contact aqilah@contentasia.tv

Endemol Shine

10 x 60’ | Off The Fence

10 x 30’ | Blink Films

1 x 60’ & 1 x 90’ | Renegade Pictures & Merit Entertainment

8 x 60’ | Blue Ant Media Productions

26 x 11’ & 13 x 30’ | Riverbank Pictures