At a socialite-studded occasion in Singapore, Comcast International Media Group (CIMG) and Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks Asia (SPENA) celebrated the latter’s appointment as regional ad sales rep for E! Entertainment Television in South East Asia, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. Christine Fellowes, managing director, Asia Pacific, CIMG said, “Having reached a milestone in growth and distribution, the next logical step for E! is partnering with a regional ad sales group. Asian advertisers definitely appreciate the value of consumer brand association with celebrity. The appeal of E! as a brand that delivers the glamour and star power of Hollywood, coupled with the added value to advertisers featuring creative, promotional and sponsorship opportunities, has been a winning formula.” On behalf of E! Entertainment Television in Asia, SPENA will service regional advertisers with customised media, promotional and sponsorship opportunities and creative marketing solutions. E! Entertainment Television is available in over 15.5 millions households in Asia. E! Entertainment Television will join SPENA’s growing bouquet of channels that includes AXN, Animax, Sony Entertainment Television, AXN BEYOND, PIX, PIX Thriller, as well as AETN All Asia Networks’ (AAAN) History, Biography, Crime & Investigation and History HD. Upon the April 2009 announcement of that deal, AAAN’s general manager Louis Boswell commented, “As our distribution matures, regional ad sales is becoming a very important part of our business. A similar arrangement exists in Latin America, so both parties thought it made sense to replicate it in Asia.” History is now available in four million households in the region. Regarding ad sales progress since April, Boswell said, “Yes, in a very difficult year for advertising we are starting to make good progress with ad sales, signing up blue chip advertisers,” adding that no clients new to pay-TV have come on board as yet. Jack Lim, SPENA’s vice president, advertising sales & marketing said, “We have closed a number of campaigns to date. Interest has been very encouraging, advertisers see the value of the respective channels and the benefit of integrated campaigns across the bouquet. It helps that the genres and target audience between SPE Networks – Asia, AAAN and E! are hugely complimentary and synergistic enough to create a mutiplier effect.” “They are both long term multi-year deals. We work long and hard alongside our partners on structuring partnerships that make sense for future growth. We now have a big stake in each other’s success, and all sides are very motivated to build on this partnership in the years ahead,” said Lim. From Fellowes’ perspective, she says she has seen the value of pay-TV brands working together to boost ad sales, from CIMG’s experience with the Multi Channel Network (MCN) in Australia. Formed in 1997, MCN is now owned by FOXTEL, Austar, Premier Media Group and XYZ Networks. “MCN specialises in both the aggregation of audiences across multiple channels and the power of reaching highly targeted audiences across specific genres and demographics.” Around 95 percent of STV viewers are reached by MCN across 40+ channels on a weekly basis, delivering 70-75 percent of all the commercial ratings. Fellowes said that while it initially felt unusual being grouped with directly competing channels, MCN were ultimately proved right in that approach. “Channels are grouped by target demographic and sold to advertisers as a package. We’ve found this hasn’t in any way diminished a strong brand like E!, and has done a lot toward the collective strength of the pay-TV medium.” Asked whether SPENA’s deals with AAAN and CIMG are an example of pay-TV channels joining forces to promote pay-TV as a medium, rather than individual brands, SPENA’s Lim says, “Definitely so. Many regional broadcasters feel passionately about this. I am glad we found like-minded partners in AAAN and E! who, together with us, have gone out to do something concrete and positive about it. Pay-TV delivers millions of viewers daily in a targeted and well-defined fashion. This is validated by Pay-TV’s growing share of advertisers and advertising budgets, especially in this year with advertisers quickly seeing less value in increasing their budgets on declining media.” AAAN’s Boswell’s answer to the same question is less enthusiastic,“ Absolutely not. This is all about brands, but being able to offer advertisers top quality brands across different genres in a single offering from a top quality sales organisation.” Would AAAN and SPENA ever consider doing such a deal with any brands in the same genre space (to promote pay-TV) or would it be non-competing channel brands only? “We are sold together with competing channels on individual platforms in specific single markets, but there is no intention of doing this at a regional level,” says AAAN’s Boswell. Responds SPENA’s Lim, “No two channels are exactly alike, and with Pay-TV still in its teens and Asian economies rapidly emerging, there is plenty of scope for further growth and differentiation. We keep an open mind to all possibilities and are continuously on the lookout for new ways to make bouquet more compelling. If the bouquet grows, everyone in it benefits. But one thing is for sure, our current partners’ interests will always be amongst our top priorities.”