Internet-based TV viewing, the arrival of Apple’s iPad and the proliferation of smartphones are set to ring in a new era of connected entertainment, industry experts predict.
Thousands of TV execs are to flock to the French Riviera to brainstorm and snap up some of the hottest new programs at this year’s influential MIPCOM 2010 audiovisual entertainment show that begins today.
The four-day event will focus on re-defining the entertainment experience through fast-growing digital platforms such as social networks as well as smartphone-connected digital TV and apps and their effect on the industry.
“The business model for the Web has not yet emerged even while the business model on TV is shifting dramatically,” Gary Carter, chief operating officer at international production company FreemantleMedia told reporters.
“The two big areas of exploration for FreemantleMedia in the last 12 months have been the use of our brands in social games and on social networks,” Carter said.
Games such as FarmVille or Bejeweled, both of which are available as apps on Facebook and Apple’s iPhone, are spreading like wildfire, Carter said.
Digital technologies are expected to steadily increase their impact on all segments of entertainment and media.
The number of apps on offer to iPhone, iPad and smartphone users is exploding and promises to usher in a new era for the media sector.
This year, almost 6 billion paid-for and free apps are predicted to be downloaded, up from about 2.4 billion last year. This surge in sales could yield more than US$11 billion in revenue by 2014 in the US alone.
The bottom line is how the entertainment, digital and advertising sectors can work together to create much-needed new revenue streams.
With advertising revenues increasingly migrating to the Internet, a large number of Internet-based companies are expected to attend.
These include heavyweight Microsoft’s MSN as well as hugely popular video-sharing Web site YouTube and social networking sites Facebook and Bebo.
Television nevertheless remains as popular as ever, via terrestrial, cable and satellite channels or via the Internet.
“Over a five-year period television, globally, will continue to hold its share of global advertising,” Marcel Fenez from influential market watchers PricewaterhouseCoopers told MIPCOM News.
Media specialists Eurodata TV Worldwide reported recently that while last year was a record year in terms of worldwide viewing time, this year looks set to be even better.
“In 2010 the worldwide consumption of television continued to grow strongly, mostly due to the many sports events that year, but also because of the cross-fertilization between TV and the Internet,” Eurodata TV Worldwide vice president Jacques Braun said.
This year will be a star-studded event with a host of A-list TV stars and top entertainment industry honchos due in town as the entertainment industry bounces back after a tough few years.
Hollywood legend Robert Redford will jet in to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the Sundance Channel in Europe. Three of the stars of the US’ -multiple-Emmy award winning drama series Mad Men — Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss and John Slattery — will also be here for the first MIPCOM World Premiere TV Screenings. And the cast of hotly tipped new series, The Waking Dead, will invade the famed Cannes Croisette to promote the show.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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