CASBAA

Marcopoto, Millenials and Stunning Complacency

Stunning complacency shown by pay TV industry executives following a great panel by Steve Marcopoto, the Hong Kong-based president of Turner Broadcasting System Asia.

Steve’s panel featured four high school students talking about their media consumption habits and afterwards the audience was polled to find out whether they thought Asia’s pay TV industry was doing enough to attract those young viewers.

The students described how they often actively fight against the industry to watch TV and access media, but 92 percent of those present said they thought the Pay TV industry was doing enough to attract young people. (Note: Discussion below whether the vote in fact went the opposite way. Seeking clarification, but still not yet received it.)

By definition they are Asia’s leading TV executives so this conclusion was incredible given the devastating indictment of media companies delivered by the the high school students (Details below and on video with Steve)

Who are Millenials?
- Largest generation in America 83mn vs 74mn Babyboomers. They are also the largest consumer group in countries like China and India.
- Optimistic
- Globally focussed
- Digital natives who grew up online
- Like to consume media anywhere, on any device at any time.
- They accept ad-supported media as a reasonable cost for quality content.
- Seek many more services from mobile phones. (”Why can’t I order my Starbucks coffee before I get to the shop?”)
- Ready to invest in home entertainment devices.
- In BRIC countries they are among the largest group of consumers and they want more choice.

Funny footnote at the end of the PwC film featured non-millenials. A series of “older” consumers were interviewed and spoke about how they like to read newspapers and watch scheduled TV . Conclusion by PwC: “Older consumers will maintain habits that support traditional media.”

Verbatims from Steve’s four students from Hong Kong International School:

While the PWC survey found 32% of Millenials prefer to watch TV on Internet, all four members of the panel said they preferred watching on the net over a television screen.

TELEVISION
- “I never like to watch TV on the TV because you can’t multitask and chat with friends at the same time.”
- “I follow US TV, like Desperate Housewives, which we can’t get in Hong Kong, so I watch it online.”
- “I watch a lot of TV shows on Tudou and Megavideo, but generally I get there via another site, like Surfthechannel

MOBILE?
- “If I hear about a new TV episode while in cafeteria from a friend, I will go home and watch it on TV instead of look at it on my mobile.”

PIRACY?
- “I like Hulu and would use it, but they don’t let me watch it here in Hong Kong.”

PAY FOR CONTENT?
- “I only buy music from iTunes, not TV programs.”
- “I use iTunes as a secondary source, if people cannot find it online in peer-to-peer for some reason.”
- “I mainly watch TV downloaded from torrents with limewire.”
- “If they sold the series for less than HK$500, I would buy it. You pay for cable on a monthly basis and it is not that expensive, but if you buy individual episodes, it gets very expensive. This is unreasonable.”

NEWS?
- “I browse the titles, but don’t look at the stories.”
- “I follow CNN.com and the big aggreggators. There is too much bias in blogs to trust them. I mainly just stick to the major outlets.”

SOCIAL NETWORKING
- “I only use Hotmail to see if I have messages sent from Facebook.”
- Each have 500 to 700 friends on Facebook.
- “The good thing about reading something sent over Facebook is that your friend recommended it.”

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