Casbaa releases updated pay TV and OTT regulatory review for Asia

HONG KONG – Casbaa, the Association for the Asian video industry, has released their long-awaited review of OTT and regulatory policies for the video industry in Asia. Based on a year-long study of legal frameworks and government policies in 17 Asian markets, and using the UK and USA as comparators, Casbaa examines key issues in regulation of the pay TV and online video industry.

The Casbaa-released booklet titled ‘OTT TV Policies in Asia’ focuses on policies for professional, curated over-the top services. It is freely available for interested parties and the public to download.

In parallel, more detailed matrices looking at a broad range of policy issues for both traditional pay TV and OTT are also available online, but for members only.

Together, these publications provide an in-depth picture of the diversity of regulatory approaches prevailing across Asia. Overall, findings have shown that Asian policies remain relatively static for pay TV, while more chatter is seen for OTT.

Speaking at the launch event last night, Louis Boswell, CEO of Casbaa, stated: “We are providing a unique resource through this study and the accompanying online database. As OTT continues to grow around the region, so governments continue to look at how and if they need to regulate it. It is essential for any content provider in the OTT space to understand these dynamics and as the video industry association it is our job to keep the industry updated”.

Casbaa continues to engage with governments to advocate for light-touch regulation, for new and more traditional video services. “It will take time and effort to persuade Asian governments to move beyond their legacy regulatory approaches for video,” said Chief Policy Officer John Medeiros. “We aim to help our members navigate the changes in what still remains a very unclear operating environment.”

The new publication follows on from the regulatory review titled ‘Same, Same but Different’ released in 2015. They analyse key issues such as governance, copyright protection, content regulation and licence restrictions. For OTT regulation, both written and unwritten policies are in substantial states of flux and attracting much high level political interest with many governments talking about “how” to regulate, not “whether” to regulate.