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We update you on the most essential news from Asia in tech, media, and business—the things you need to know that you probably haven’t heard in Western media.
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China’s Box Office Recovering Better Than Expected 🎞
In the midst of China’s famous Golden Week holiday season, Chinese movie theaters are getting more business than expected. Total box office receipts in China within the first few days of Golden Week were $368 Million, which is 14% lower than the same period last year. Cinema owners have been pleasantly surprised by the recovery, citing facts that Chinese people might have more need for cinema entertainment, especially since they cannot travel overseas for this year’s Golden Week.
On the other hand, the world’s second biggest cinema operator Cineworld announced that they will be cutting 45,000 jobs across the US and UK. While Western films like James Bond’s No Time to Die and the latest film version of Dune have been postponed until 2021, most domestic Chinese blockbuster films are still coming out this year, contributing to the optimism of China’s film industry. For many people working in Hollywood, China has been slowly rising over the past few years to become the most important cinema market. With the coronavirus, that entire process may have sped up.
Stats around Livestreaming = Huge in China 🎥
I’ve been enthusiastically writing about Chinese livestreaming for a few months in this newsletter. A recent report has come out saying that there were 309 Million e-commerce livestreaming viewers over the first half of 2020. That’s one third of China’s total internet population. This makes livestreaming the fastest growing internet sector in China. People from rural farmers to lawyers to property developers to major tech CEOs are now using livestreaming to sell products.
Could we soon see a world where livestreaming becomes popular in the West? Certain cultural and technological factors make livestreaming more relevant to Chinese audiences right now, but the authenticity and interactivity of livestreaming is something I think will become more popular across the world. Western social apps like Instagram are already experimenting with this and I only see this trend growing even further.
A TV Network in the Philippines Turns to Streaming 📺
The largest TV network in the Philippines, ABS-CBN, has been denied a broadcasting license by the government, forcing the network to go off the air in June. Part of this stems from a dispute between the network and Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte. While ABS-CBN has struck a partnership with another network in order to create a new brand that will start broadcasting on free TV later this month, ABS-CBN has still been forced to get creative over the last few months.
Instead of closing down, ABS-CBN has shifted all of their programming to social media and their own streaming platform iWantTFC. While ABS-CBN’s core business is still reliant on success in broadcast TV, they have seen good results from their online platforms in terms of views and new digital subscription revenue. They say necessity is the mother of invention. I foresee a world in the future where major networks are online-only, rather than TV broadcast networks. While ABS-CBN had to do this because of a government order, the world is moving into the direction where even the most traditional TV companies are shifting to digital.
Update #82 - China's Box Office, Chinese Livestreaming, and Philippines Streaming Platforms