10 Stories You Should Know: 10/19/2022

Global streaming news from Saudi Arabia, Romania, Germany, the Philippines and more.

Singapore Is Becoming A Key Regional Co-Producer (The Hollywood Reporter)
International co-productions are now the bread and butter of the content industry, offering direct access to new markets and audiences. With the regional headquarters of studio heavyweights like Netflix, The Walt Disney Co. and HBO Asia in its backyard, Singapore has emerged as a key player in matchmaking global projects with local companies and talent. 

Studiocanal Renews Nickelodeon Global Deal On ‘The Adventures of Paddington,’ Season 3 (Yahoo UK)
Marking most surely one of the biggest single title content deals unveiled at this year’s Mipcom, the Nickelodeon renewal for Season 3 comes as Studiocanal has also unveiled a slew of second-window deals on Season 1 after the title’s hugely successful global rollout overseen, like Season 2, by Nickelodeon. It comes, moreover, just months after Studiocanal announced in June that Dougal Wilson is attached to direct “Paddington” 3, the third feature film in the franchise.

Streaming Drives Turnover Of German Media Industry (Broadband TV News)
For the net advertising revenues of all audio-visual media – radio, TV and advertising in streamed audio and video offerings – the association expects a decline of 2.2% in the current year. Television is affected by this negative development with an expected advertising revenue decline of 6% and radio of 3%. At the same time, advertising sales in the streaming market will continue to grow in double digits, but will not compensate for the declines in linear advertising.

Vue CEO Tim Richards Reveals How Landmark ‘Glass Onion’ Deal Came About With Netflix & Which Streamer Could Be Next (Deadline)
I think there was an attempt to make it look like good guys and bad guys, and that was not the case. We love Netflix and we love their movies. The frustration was that they weren’t releasing their movies to cinemas globally. There was no war going on, we were just trying to work with Netflix, nothing more than that.

A lot of operators have been playing Netflix movies day-and-date, but this is the first time Netflix have released a film respecting the theatrical release window, embracing a model that has been in place for close to 100 years.

Saudi-Owned MBC Group Forges Pact With Turkish TV Powerhouses Medyapim, Ay Yapim, Officially Ending Ban On Soaps (Variety)
MBC, which is the top satellite free-to-air player in the Middle East and North Africa, and also a major MENA region premium streamer, in 2018 had pulled highly popular Turkish dramas from its channels, allegedly for political reasons stemming from tensions at that time between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The move was also believed to have been made to give greater impetus to local production. Since then, several Turkish shows had gradually seeped back into MBC programming. But this deal signals a complete policy reversal.

Global Connected Living Room Market To Reach $84.2 Billion By 2027 (Yahoo Finance UK)
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Connected Living Room estimated at US$51.3 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$84.2 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 7.3% over the analysis period 2020-2027. Smart TVs, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record a 7.3% CAGR and reach US$35.6 Billion by the end of the analysis period. After an early analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the Smartphones segment is readjusted to a revised 8.3% CAGR for the next 7-year period.

‘The Lord Of The Rings’ IP Broker Says Franchise Can Be As Big As Marvel & ‘Star Wars’ (Deadline)
ACF Investment Bank CEO Thomas Dey told Mipcom Cannes Lord of the Rings is one of around six “pieces of IP of this magnitude on the planet,” which will now have its potential unlocked by Embracer. Embracer picked up the motion picture, video game, board game, merchandizing, theme parks and stage production rights relating to The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises over the summer as well as matching rights in other Middle-earth-related literary works authorized by the Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins, which have yet to be explored. The timing was good, coming a few weeks before Amazon’s Rings of Power TV series launched.

Romania Imposes Financial Contributions On Streaming Platforms To Support National Film Fund (Business-Review EU)
Included in the changes is an obligation on streaming platforms, also known as video-on-demand providers (VOD providers), to pay a financial contribution on proceeds from local subscriptions and single transactions, along with a set of regulatory obligations. A part of this contribution may be in the form of investments in the local film industry, under certain conditions.

Why Prime Video Execs Want To Boost Its Streaming Market In The Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
“As to your question about how we intend to remain competitive, it does come back to our ‘local first’ approach. And to that, my example is India. We were definitely not the first streaming service there. In fact, we were many years behind other services. But because we focused on customers and great local storytelling, we quickly became one of the largest in the country.

“Our customers tell us what they want. We have so many touch points with them because we have all the data on viewership. And we spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to figure out what they want, and that informs our strategy so much.”

Iran To Criminalize Sale Of VPNs: Minister (Arab News)
The recently imposed restrictions include blocking access to Instagram and WhatsApp — until now the last remaining unfiltered social media services, in addition to clamping down on apps like the Google Play Store, as well as VPNs.
Zarepour cautioned Iranians against using anti-filtering software as they risk causing “vulnerabilities” on the devices.