Disney's content flood rattles TV market in HK

Peter Liang points out technology fixes alone will not revive HK incumbents' fortunes - they need to offer younger audiences the fare they desire

The move by Walt Disney Company, a leader in the United States entertainment industry, to start two streaming services has not only rocked Hollywood but also set Hong Kong's troubled television market buzzing.

In announcing the plan to "align itself with consumer trends", Disney said it would spend heavily on original programming for its streaming service, The New York Times reports. Hong Kong broadcasters have long recognized the value of streaming to reach the growing market of younger viewers. Most of them, including the government's Radio Television Hong Kong, have set up their own real-time streaming services.

What sets Disney's proposed service apart from many others is not the technology, which is cheap and readily available, but rather the rich content which the entertainment behemoth promises to make even richer. Disney has deeper pockets than most of its potential rivals in doing just that.

In Hong Kong the studios, big and small, are faced with a dilemma. Most want to see results first before they commit to making bigger investments in content. The problem is that they would never see any promising results by pushing content already shunned by younger viewers on a different medium.

As with many other markets, young viewers in Hong Kong prefer to watch their favorite programs on their computers, tablets and phones anytime and anywhere. They are given a wide and varied choice of programs from around the world. What's more, many services provide programs free of charge to viewers.

Hong Kong's TV stations are showing many drama series produced in South Korea and Taiwan. It's probably much cheaper to buy these than to produce their own. What's more, South Korean productions have proved popular among many local viewers.

But many, if not all, those programs are provided free on the internet by at least half a dozen providers who can be easily discovered through Google Search. In those services, all episodes of any particular series are available for watching at any time the viewer may choose. And with the right setup, they can watch it on a big-screen television set.

Unsurprisingly, even Television Broadcasts (TVB), which has had a virtual monopoly on the local television market for many years, is finding it had to maintain growth momentum despite its obvious efforts to entice younger and more affluent viewers who are targeted by advertisers. The station's many loyal followers in housing estates are growing old. And being retired, they are no longer the consumers that matter to advertising spenders.

The broadcaster's net profit for last year fell more than 50 percent from 2015. In the past several months, TVB has been strongly pushing its "all-in-one" multimedia site which is said to combine the functions of traditional TV, mobile app and social platform. It's basically a free streaming service of TVB's contents with some added functions.

But the move, though widely seen to be in the right direction, seems to have failed to impress investors. The performance of the company's shares has remained lackluster, lagging behind the benchmark index in the latest rally.

Separately, ViuTV, hailed by industry critics as a breath of fresh air when it was launched last year, is rapidly losing its initial momentum although it is seen to have gone all-out to woo younger viewers. As a new player, the station, unlike TVB, has no worries about losing its loyal viewership base which it doesn't have. But the station, which is an affiliate of the giant communications firm PCCW, has yet to narrow its losses.

It has become clear that the traditional model that helped catapult TVB to the forefront of the regional entertainment market is rapidly losing its magic. At first, everybody thought the problem lay in seismic changes in people's viewing habits brought about by advances in technology.

But industry insiders soon found out the problem could not be solved by investing in new technology alone. It has to be accompanied by a much bigger investment in content to suit the changing tastes of viewers, especially younger ones.

Only by doing that can Hong Kong hope to revitalize its entertainment industry to become once again a dominant force in the regional entertainment marketplace.

The author is a veteran current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 08/21/2017 page8)