The survival of Taiwanese over-the-top (OTT) service operators depends on the government quickly integrating resources to facilitate the development of the local streaming sector, industry representatives said yesterday.
Intensified competition among local and international streaming services was one of the main themes discussed in a communications conference in Taipei, hosted by the Singapore-based Asia Video Industry Association.
Catchplay chief executive officer Daphne Yang (楊麗貞) told reporters on the sidelines that the South Korean government did two things once they realized that their dramas were in high demand.
Photo: AFP
The government integrated the management of OTT services into one government agency, which removed barriers for the industry to develop, she said.
Meanwhile, funding from the government and private equity firms support platforms that merge their operations or form partnerships in content production, she said, adding that the consolidation efforts have left South Korea with only two large OTT operators.
“These two operators do not exist only to compete with Netflix and Disney+. Their goal is to export the platforms and Korea-produced content overseas,” she said.
“The government and local OTT operators must be on alert. We are already ‘panting’ in our competition against Netflix and Disney+. In the future, we must also face competition from Korean OTT operators, not just Korean dramas,” Yang said.
Yang said that she is glad that Taipei has announced plans to spend more on creating quality content with export potential, but she is more concerned about the lack of strategy to sell the content, and the slow integration of resources in the nation’s OTT industry.
“It is like the difference between coffee beans and coffee shops. If you only produce coffee beans and do not facilitate the growth of local coffee shops, eventually international coffee shop chains would start to dictate how we roast our coffee beans, or simply buy coffee beans elsewhere,” Yang said.
“Taiwan is probably the main source of content production in the liberal democratic Mandarin-speaking community. It is very important to protect the way we tell our stories and to allow them to be seen and appreciated on local and international platforms,” she said.
OTT operators in Taiwan can integrate resources by jointly producing dramas and airing them on multiple local platforms simultaneously, she said.
“The government can help facilitate similar partnerships by streamlining regulations and consolidating the management of the OTT services into one government agency,” Yang said.
OTT services are regulated, funded and protected by the National Communications Commission, the Ministry of Culture and the Intellectual Property Office, “but they do not know how to integrate resources to develop the industry,” she said.
Entrepreneurs seeking investment targets have no way to channel their funding into content production, she said.
While the government is seeking to facilitate the creation of original Taiwan-made content, it must close the loopholes by addressing the copyright infringement of the content, Taiwan OTT Association chairman David Chien (錢大衛) said.
“The Ministry of Culture estimated that Taiwan’s OTT services generate a revenue of NT$14 billion (US$456.53 million), but the copyright infringement caused Taiwan’s film and television industry to lose about NT$28.3 billion in 2018,” he said.
On average, every person in Taiwan accesses content on about four streaming platforms, including paid and free services, experts told the conference.
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