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A “complete” ban on Indian audiovisual content from broadcast outlets has gone into effect in Pakistan, reports The Nation (Pakistan) (October 20). "Channels violating this will have their license suspended immediately,” said broadcasting regulator PEMRA in a statement. Films, TV shows and music from India are popular in Pakistan and widely offered.
The ban seems to be tit-for-tat for India’s film producers association banning Pakistani actors from Bollywood and cinema operators refusing to screen films with Pakistani actors. Tensions between the neighboring countries are high, The current tiff involves the borders with Kashmir.
“As far as the government of India is concerned, there is certainly no blanket ban on the Pakistani artists,” said a Ministry of Exernal Affairs spokesperson, quoted by The Nation (India) (October 20). “Due to the prevailing atmosphere, security situation and sentiment of local organisers, we will (evaluate this) on a case to case basis. “We do not have such bans. Pakistani programmes and series can be viewed in several channels.”
Pakistan’s broadcasters are already feeling the heat. “The public are yelling at us,” said Pakistan Cable Operators Association chairman Khalid Arain, quoted by Reuters (October 21). “Subscribers are not concerned about the origin of content.” Hindi-language films and music, generally referred to as Bollywood, represent huge export revenues for India.
The Swiss Federal Council this week (October 19) formally recommended that the country’s parliament reject a popular initiative to abolish the public broadcasting license fee. It was not a surprise. A lobbying group opposed to the license fee, supported by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, presented over 100,000 citizen signatures about a year ago triggering an in-depth analysis ahead of a parliamentary vote to allow the measure to proceed to a popular vote or not.
The Federal Council, in a statement - see here, via regulator OFCOM/BAKOM, in French - “emphasizes” the need for equal access across the country’s linguistic regions to informational, educational and cultural program uniquely provided by public broadcaster SSR-SRG. “Abolition of fees would mean that the SRG and private broadcasters, who receive a portion of the fees, would no longer be able to fulfil their mandates.” The Federal Council also noted that private sector broadcasters “for economic reasons, are generally entertainment oriented at the expense of information, education and culture.”
Moaning about the SSR-SRG is hardly new. Newspaper publishers, some private sector broadcasters and right-wing politicians - often intertwined - see the Swiss public broadcaster as a an monolith, over-priced and unaccountable, hindering private-sector media development. Similar initiatives coming to a popular vote have always failed.
A surge in international business sent fans and foes of subscription video on demand (SVoD) service Netflix into a twitter-storm. Of 3.57 million new customers in the most recent quarter (Q3), 3.2 million were outside the United States. Customer pick-up in Brazil and Australia showed “strong growth” with the UK being Netflix’ “most important market” in Europe, for as long as it remains. The new figures were clearly share-price disruptive, a “surge” of about 20%, reported Reuters (October 18).
Netflix is close to becoming the genericized name - proprietary eponym, technically - for SVoD much like Xerox for photocopy fifty years ago and “googling” more recently. The 2016 UK Top 20 Cool Brands ranking placed Netflix at #3. Apple was, of course, #1. A US-based study by market researcher iModerate, released June 2015, showed customers are “confident Netflix can replace other video entertainment options altogether.”
“In Italy the take-off is yet to come,” wrote La Repubblica (October 18). ”A year after its arrival in Italy, Netflix has not proven a threat for broadcasters, thanks to the strong competition and ‘countermoves’ of big pay TV operators.” That would be Mediaset, Sky Italia and Telecom Italia. Vivendi and Mediaset struck a deal earlier this year to compete with Netflix, Sky, et.al.. It fell apart.
“In Sweden we see no big cord-cutting trend,” said Mediavision researcher Marie Nilsson, quoted by Dagens Nyheter (October 17). “It is more common to add a streaming service to the normal (cable) TV service.” She added that Netflix has about a million customers in Sweden, competing primarily with the MTG product Viaplay and HBO Nordic. Netflix also has about a million German subscribers, indicating, for some, “great potential,” said Berliner Zeitung (October 18).
Developing the Chinese market is, obviously, an investor hot-button but a challenge for Netflix and many others. Rather than proceed with a service roll-out CEO Reed Hastings said in a letter accompanying the Q3 financials the company would be pursuing content licensing to “existing online providers… in the near term.” Tech news portal Quartz (October 18) called the new Netflix strategy for China “brilliant… to stay the hell out.”
The current Netflix rage is science fiction series “Stranger Things.”
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