Videoage International January 2019

8 January 2019 V I D E O A G E J ust before Singapore’s Asia TV Forum (ATF) opened its door on December 5 for the three-day annual content market, a local paper, The Straits Times , ran a photo of Singapore’s president, Madame Halimah Yacob, with representatives of 40 different faiths — every religious group in the world that one could imagine. It is conceivable that even the obscure brand of Christianity practiced by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was represented. The occasion marked the announcement of an interfaith religious convention to be held in the city-state later this year. Singapore is considered a crossroad of sorts for all the world’s known religions and religious groups. It is also the cluster of an amalgamated cultural center. This is, of course, in addition to its designation as South East Asia’s (SEA) financial hub. And, with the ATF, it is now hoped that it will also become SEA’s media center, a label currently shared between Hong Kong and Tokyo. This latest goal is difficult to fulfill, but ATF organizers have been trying hard to achieve it for the past 19 years. The problem, however, lies not with Singapore, but with the fluid financial and political situation in the SEA region. Then there is the ATF organizers’ obsession with seminars and conferences rather than a focus on buying and selling. As anATF participant expressed, “I don’t have to fly 8,000 kilometers to listen to someone pontificating. I can always go online for that. I go to ATF to sell content.” However, after ATF reps read VideoAge ’s De- cember 2018 cover story that raised the issue, day 2 of ATF’s official daily devoted more space to exhibitors than conferences. Of the 24 editorial pages, 14 were devoted to the market, and the rest to conferences. A record, indeed, and a good start. Finally, there is the region’s low marketing power to consider. Even though the SEA region represented the bulk of the exhibitors — with 76 companies from Singapore, 72 from South Korea, 59 from Japan, and 52 from China — combined they were unable to surpass the media presence of the 22 Turkish companies in attendance, of which just seven had their own booths (with the others operating under the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce’s umbrella stand). And this is not something new. Before the Turkish TV content world’s invasion of the past few years, it was LATAM companies that dominated the ATF’s media presence (LATAM’s presence has now been reduced to three exhibitors from a high of 15). And before that, it was the Western Europeans who carried the show. In terms of buyers, Singaporean companies generated most of the hype with 40 companies, followed by Indonesia with 38, Hong Kong with 23, and China with 19. Some notes of interest were that, in addition to scheduled appointments, some exhibitors were surprised by a large number of walk-ins, and that it is advisable to capture the interest of Indonesian buyers fast because, as it was succinctly explained by one exhibitor, “for them ATF is a day-and-a-half market. After that, it’s purely a vacation.” Another challenge for sellers is that acquisition executives for SEA territories are constantly changing, putting pressure on to quickly create new relationships. Preparations were already underway to cele- brate the ATF’s 20th anniversary next year, star- ting December 4, 2019. The organizers had a TV crew to record participants’ opinions and sugge- stions for future ATF events, including those of one VideoAge reporter whose suggestions were: Focus more on the market floor, and, if conferen- ces were absolutely necessary, they should fea- ture only buyers and sellers as speakers. It was pointed out that exhibitors invested lots of money on the market and they should therefore get extra visibility. This ATF was busier than previous editions, with some new faces seen on the market floor. New this year was Turkey’s Madd Entertainment, Russia’s GPM ET, and Los Angeles-based ACI, while Italy’s RAI Com was back after an absence of several years, and Canada’s Gusto Worldwide Media returned after a skipping it for two years. Also observed was Gary Marenzi, who was representing Los Angeles-based Endeavor, the parent company of sports agency IMG, for which Marenzi was producing non-sports related programming. And absent for the first time were Brazil’s Record TV and Mexico’s TV Azteca. All the major U.S. studios exhibited, including 20th Century Fox, represented by top-level marketing executives, and Paramount, with SEA- based executives. While studios like Paramount focused on major Asian buyers, other companies zoomed in on smaller territories. “Our number one territory is China, followed by Japan,” said Jonathan Greenberg, Paramount’s SVP based in Hong Kong. Content sales in SEA for Kanal D, one of the seven major exhibitors from Turkey, is now under Salmi Gambarova, who, at ATF, focused on buyers from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and Cambodia. To SEA countries, Kanal D delivers content with Turkish-language soundtracks, and local clients take care of the Bigger Than Past Markets. Sellers Got More Attention From Buyers, Organizers Asia TV Forum Report ABS-CBN’s Wincess Lee Gonzales, head of Sales for Asia and LATAM Kanal D’s Kerim Emrah Turna, Salmi Gambarova, Thema’s Fabrice Faux L. to r.: Twentieth Century Fox TV Distribution’s Effi Eustace, Greg Drebin, Chris Bettes, Kat Remy ATV’s Muge Akar and Emir Duzel dubbing. Similarly, Inter Medya, another of the “seven Turkish sisters,” has SEA clients dub in local languages, but it deliversmaterials with the English dub. The license fees in the SEA region were said to be too low to justify dubbing by the sellers. ATV, represented by Muge Akar and Emir Duzel, commented on challenging markets like Indonesia and Malaysia. “On the other hand, there are lots of Indian buyers,” said Akar. MISTCO attended many meetings with local distributors seeking to represent Turkish series in SEA territories, but its Aysegul Tuzun noted that the company “prefers to deal with the final user directly,” and added that MISTCO’s animated content was a big hit with Chinese and Korean buyers. Finally, first-timer Madd Entertainment reported meeting with a wide-range of buyers, including those from Myanmar and Bangladesh. According to Deniz Cantutan, sales manager for SEA, “in Asia, Madd’s series are stripped by many local stations Monday to Friday.”