| Excluding
Pakistan, the regional figure stands at $1.43
billion, up $300 million, representing a 26
per cent increase in lost revenues compared
to 2006
The
cost of pay-TV piracy in Hong Kong for 2007
has decreased by 15 per cent to $27.4 million
although the number of hacked connections
remained unchanged.
Casbaa
CEO Simon Twiston Davies says, “The
fall in the ‘lost revenue’ number
is attributed to the reduced cost of a pay-TV
subscription in Hong Kong thanks to increased
competition in the market”.
Meanwhile,
a large part of the rise in total revenue
losses for 2007 can be attributed to a 20
per cent US dollar re-alignment against
the Indian rupee. “Nevertheless, the
India pay-TV market is the most distorted
in Asia thanks to what can only be characterised
as structurally-based revenue leakage,”
said Twiston Davies.
According
to Casbaa, India is a market with 73 million
pay-TV connections. Yet it suffers from
heavy-handed government regulation which,
in turn, has created a debilitating lack
of investment in infrastructure. India’s
pay-TV revenue leakage reached a massive
$985 million in net losses in 2007, an increase
of 44 per cent over 2006.
While
the rest of the world is benefiting from
digital roll-outs, Indian consumers have
no opportunity to enjoy these fruits. “The
systemic shortfall in analogue revenues
from local cable operators is a major part
of the problem,” said Twiston Davies.
The
most positive news in the survey is a dramatic
fall in the number of illegal connections
to pay-TV channels in Vietnam, where the
value of industry losses has fallen from
$38 million in 2006 to $10 million this
year.
Standard
Chartered Bank head of media and entertainment
Lee Beasley says, “The improvement
is almost exclusively thanks to the removal
of pirated international channels from the
line-up offered by Vietnamese operator VTC.
“The
Government of Vietnam is clearly moving
to fulfill its international trade commitments
and listening to its own legitimate industry.
This is great news, and we hope attention
to this issue continues.”
The
2007 survey of pay-TV piracy in Hong Kong,
India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia,
Macau and this year’s addition, Pakistan
highlights the impact of pay-TV signal theft
and unlicensed pay-TV operators on regional
economies amid new and challenging technological
developments.
“The
pay-TV piracy situation in most of the big
markets in the region needs to be seriously
addressed, not just by the industry but
also by government. Nonetheless, the fact
that legitimate paid subscriptions are seeing
an average 10 per cent growth is a positive
sign of the vast potential for the Asia
Pacific pay-TV industry,” adds Beasley.
The
report also highlights that at least $213
million is being lost in unpaid tax revenues
across the region this year.
Meanwhile,
in 2007, Casbaa has continued to lobby governments
and has extended legal actions against commercial
distributors of unauthorised signals in
public venues in Hong Kong and against pirate
operators in the Philippines. The Hong Kong
actions have been successfully concluded
while the issues in the Philippines remain
in court.
With
1.32 million unauthorised connections, Thailand
continues to suffer annual piracy losses
in the range of $180 million, the second
largest dollar loss in the region.
Casbaa
notes that, despite a slight improvement
in the approach to intellectual property
rights by some cable operators in the Thai
provinces, there has been a disturbing growth
of an emerging and important phenomenon,
that of illegal Internet-based card-sharing
(via remote servers) for Direct to Home
(DTH) services.
“This
is a relatively new and sophisticated technical
hack that boosts the vulnerability of DTH
services to piracy. This needs to be watched
carefully and highlights the need for industry
vigilance and continued investment in technical
protection supported by stringent legal
sanctions,” adds Davies.
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