The Asia Video Industry Association held its third Future of Video India virtual conference to much optimism as industry leaders remained bullish on India’s long-term view, after its fifth straight quarter of economic expansion, with all round economic recovery and an economic rebound that is much broader based and across multiple sectors.

InMobi, a leading provider of content, marketing, and monetization technologies that help businesses fuel growth, today announced the expansion of its regional leadership team in Asia Pacific to double down on the growth of its advertising business in the region. The move is aimed at spearheading ad-based monetization of its owned-and-operated and third-party properties through the InMobi Advertising Platform.

Reliance and Viacom18 today announced a strategic partnership with Bodhi Tree Systems, which is a platform of James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and Uday Shankar, to form one of the largest TV and digital streaming companies in India.

Planetcast International, the new division of Planetcast Media Services which has a 25-year heritage in broadcast and media services, and Wurl, a world leader in powering streaming TV, today announces a partnership between the two companies to enable India’s media and entertainment companies to join the Free Ad Supported streaming TV (FAST) revolution.

The Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) has been tracking traffic to sites that have been blocked in Indonesia, as well as overall traffic to pirate sites and legitimate sites. The Indonesian government started blocking illegal sites in the middle of 2019 and by April this year the total number of sites blocked in Indonesia had topped 3,500. CAP’s latest data also showed traffic to all pirate sites in Indonesia was down by 75% as of January this year compared to when tracking first started in September 2019. Encouragingly traffic to legitimate sites in Indonesia had also tripled over the same period.

In discussing the outlook for the video industry in Asia, Vivek Couto, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Media Partners Asia (MPA), indicated there remained a lot of room for growth. With most markets having an SVOD household penetration of less than 50%, there was certainly an upside for Southeast Asia and some parts of North Asia as well. However, while the region remained bullish on growth, the Average Revenue Per User remained low, particularly in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and India. As such, some tiers and price increases would be introduced along the way, especially when premium sport started to be added to the platforms.

Cartoonito, WarnerMedia’s preschool brand, has made its Asian debut. The brand, launched as a dedicated morning programming block on Cartoon Network in Japan on March 1 and in Southeast Asia and Korea today (March 28). It offers a modern approach to preschool programming, built to support each child’s unique potential with its educational framework called “Humancentric Learning”.

The Coalition Against Piracy’s (CAP’s) most recent YouGov consumer surveys show that while piracy continues to be a major concern around the Asia Pacific region, particularly in Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines where 61% of consumers admit to accessing pirate services in each country, site blocking, and in particular government regulatory blocking, is having a noticeable effect in stopping consumers accessing pirated content online.

AVIA is set to host its annual OTT Summit from 30 – 31 March, as the video industry continues to go through massive evolution. This year’s Summit will look at the area of growth, the opportunities that abound, and the strategies to unlock it, as more international and local operators continue to launch services across the region. The discussions will explore three critical areas - Growth in Streaming, OTT Advertising and the role and development of the Technology that supports the OTT industry.

2020 was a subdued year for television advertising, leading to a decline in total Ad Volumes across the year despite the record stay-at-home rise in viewership. 2021 has bounced back with a substantial double-digit spike, delivering an all-time high of 1824 million seconds of Ad Volumes during the year.

The Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) commends the Singapore High Court for granting an Order to block 30 illegal streaming sites and almost 150 associated domains responsible for the distribution of considerable quantities of illegally streamed content in Singapore.

MEASAT announced today an agreement with Amagi, a global leader in cloud-based Software as a Service (“SaaS”) technology for broadcast and connected TV, for the distribution of Toonz Kids via MEASAT-3a satellite.

beIN ASIA PACIFIC has expanded its rights for the ATP Tour to the following nine territories across the Asia region from 2022: Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Philippines, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.