The Summit opened with clear views from industry stalwarts, Henry Tan, Group CEO, Astro, Clement Schwebig, Chairman, Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA), and Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Media Partners Asia, that a return to profitability and a focus on revenue was much needed for sustained growth across Asia. Though Asia was a huge but diverse and difficult market, there was no doubt certain markets will continue to grow, said Couto. However, disruption was going to continue for the next few years, added Tan, and all players had to be prepared for a rollercoaster ride.

James Gibbons, President & Managing Director, Western Pacific, Warner Bros. Discovery, also shared his views on the massive changes that the industry had gone through over the last decade. While there used to be a real emphasis on subscriber growth, and the belief that the market for subscription video-on-demand was infinite, a business without an advertising component was no longer meaningful. A wholesale reassessment of how to assess the growth and value of a company was now needed. And content was no longer an individual line of business, but represented an entire franchise opportunity that enabled businesses to build a special relationship with their consumers across all touchpoints.

This focus on content certainly resonated through the Summit. For Donovan Chan, Founding Partner, Beach House Pictures, sticking to premium programming that was efficiently produced at a high quality to deliver on what the audiences want and need was a key part of his strategy to move more content from East to West. Kirana Cheewachuen, Deputy Director, Planning & Business Development, Strategic Content Group, True Corporation, also added that with Korea leading in script development, there was also a need to attract and develop the right talent in order to discover the secret sauce behind the success of Korean content, and hopefully replicate it in other parts of Asia.

However, while content was king, it was not an 'either or' situation, it needed to be across content, activation, distribution, and pricing, said Manish Kalra, Chief Business Officer, ZEE5 India. Leading on to rebundling, Ricky Ow, Partner, Quest Ventures, also shared that it was not 'one size fits all' and that there was a need to meet personal consumer demand and at a price point that made sense. There was also the need to solve this problem as a benefit to consumers as well as content providers, for less churn and more sustainability. For Clarissa Tanoesoedibjo, Managing Director, Vision+, aggregation was the way moving forward, with more integration across the ecosystem.

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