![]() ![]() Taking the United States' viewership patterns as a yardstick, between 20, the time spent by 18 to 24 year-olds watching traditional TV dropped by one third, according to viewing figures by Nielsen. With so many eyeballs leaking away, Mediacorp must evolve to plug these gaps to ensure they do not sink. Viewers have a plethora of viewing choices during their free time - often from sources with content that are of much higher quality. Free-to-air TV has to jostle to keep the attention of viewers." Our viewers are consuming content from a variety of sources - Netflix, iTunes, Spotify and many others. "operating environment for our media companies is getting more challenging. Streaming offers a richer content catalogueĭuring the Committee of Supply debate in April, Minister of State for Communications and Information Chee Hong Tat said, What if Viu/DOTS represents the future model for media content - free, on demand, and not limited by geography? Where will Mediacorp figure in all of this? ![]() Now, the many people who watched DOTS in Singapore probably did so on new streaming service Viu. It gives users access to Korean content 8 to 24 hours after they have been broadcast in Korea - complete with English subtitles. This then translates to advertising revenue for Mediacorp. If we were to use DOTS as an example, the answer is a resounding "Yes".Īs recent as five years ago, Mediacorp could still buy a show like DOTS and lure viewers in due to the relative inaccessible nature of Korean dramas. ![]() Is the gravy train for Mediacorp under threat from the advent of the Internet and streaming? ![]() Streaming sites are making previously inaccessible content accessible In other words, there always existed alternative ways to access content not available on local TV, but it was not very convenient to the masses. In a survey commissioned by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) in November 2014, about one in two respondents (54.9 per cent) viewed downloading from unauthorised sources as theft, down from some three in four (77.8 per cent) in 2010. And usually that meant some months or years would have passed since its initial broadcast in their respective countries.īut what choice did we have - apart from renting from neighbourhood video shops or buying illegal copies from Johor Bahru?įast forward to a decade ago, a small group of people found that the Internet was a great place to access content they could not find on terrestrial TV - again using 'legally-questionable' methods.Īll was fine and well for local TV in the last two decades because renting shows was not a particularly easy activity - you had to walk downstairs, interact with people, and shell out some money, and then do it all over again when you return the video/VCDs/DVDs.Īs for piracy, you can get arrested/sued/fined for it - although an increasing number of young Singaporeans are finding piracy acceptable. Two decades ago, if we wanted to watch overseas movies/shows, we would have to wait for our local TV stations to purchase them. Traditional model of buying syndicated shows needs catching up So the big question is - where was local TV in all of this? It will not be a stretch to call it one of the shared cultural moments of 2016. ![]()
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