WCA January 2018

Telecom news

The American Cable Association insists that Canadian retransmission fees should play no part in NAFTA discussions President Donald Trump has long assailed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a bad deal for the USA that requires to be revisited, a position he is currently pressing. On 16 th October, the American Cable Association (ACA), representing nearly 800 small and medium-sized operators, took a pre-emptive step to protect their interests in any renegotiation of the decades-old trade bloc uniting the USA, Canada and Mexico. In a letter to the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), the ACA urged that office to exclude the issue of Canadian video retransmission payments from any discussions on overhauling the pact. (“ACA: NAFTA Should Not Be Vehicle For Retrans Boost,” 16 th October) USTR trade policy committee chairman Edward Gresser was strongly advised against pursuing changes to domestic Canadian law “to establish a separate retransmission consent regime in that country under which United States broadcasters could demand payment from Canadian MVPDs.” A multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) is a service provider that delivers video programming services over more than one channel, usually for a subscription fee. As reported by Washington bureau chief John Eggerton of Multichannel Newswire , the overture harked back to arguments advanced last spring by USA broadcasters that Canadian MVPD should be paying border stations for carrying their signals. The ACA stance is that requiring payment from Canada’s MVPDs would prompt Canadian TV stations to start charging American MVPDs for carrying border Canadian stations in the USA, further driving up the price of service to consumers. The ACA had already averred that the retrans system confers an unfair advantage on broadcasters that leads to higher prices for consumers – and not necessarily to greater investment in local programming, as claimed by the broadcasters.

Globally, mobile devices (including smartphones and tablets) will account for 73 per cent of time spent on the Internet in 2018, up from 70 per cent in 2017 and 65 per cent in 2016. Mobile Internet use has doubled since 2011, when it accounted for 36 per cent of all Internet use. By 2019, it is expected to account for 76 per cent. The data, from Zenith’s Mobile Advertising Forecasts 2017, also supports a finding that, in the UK, mobile accounted for 57 per cent of average daily Internet consumption in 2017, with a rise to 64 per cent expected this year. London-based Zenith attributes the 13 percentage-point differential from the global average in part to the large installed base of desktop and laptop computers in the UK. In some markets with the highest mobile shares of Internet use (eg China and India), many consumers have gone straight to smartphones without having had a preliminary fixed Internet connection. Zenith also found that the markets where mobile devices have the highest shares of Internet use are geographically diverse. Spain is first, with an estimated 81 per cent of Internet use from mobile devices last year, followed by Italy (78 per cent), China and the USA (each at 77 per cent), and India (73 per cent). As for smartphone penetration worldwide, the Zenith research here indicates that 66 per cent of individuals in 52 key countries will own a smartphone in 2018, up from 63 per cent in 2017 and 58 per cent in 2016. In the UK, penetration is expected to reach 69 per cent in 2018. Reviewing the forecasts, Advanced Television Ltd (also London-based) pointed out the Zenith researchers’ confirmation that the rapid expansion of smartphone ownership across the world, “which has transformed the way that advertisers communicate with consumers,” is slowing down as penetration reaches 80 to 90 per cent in the most advanced markets. The number of smartphone owners is seen as increasing by 7 per cent year-on-year in 2018, compared to 10 per cent growth in 2017, 14 per cent in 2016, and 21 per cent in 2015. Other pertinent takeaways from Mobile Advertising Forecasts 2017: Ø Western Europe and Asia Pacific continue to lead the world in smartphone ownership. Zenith predicts that five markets will have smartphone penetration above 90 per cent in 2018: the Netherlands (94 per cent), Taiwan (93 per cent), Hong Kong (92 per cent), and Norway and Ireland (each at 91 per cent). Ø Eleven markets will have penetration levels between 80 and 90 per cent, all of them in Western Europe and Asia Pacific with the exception of Israel (86 per cent penetration). Ø The country with the highest number of smartphone users (1.3 billion) will be China, followed by India (530 million). The USA will be third, with 229 million users. Ø Global tablet ownership is much less common than smartphone ownership, partly because tablets are likely to be shared within households and partly because consumers in some markets prefer larger smartphones. Ø Tablets have not caught on at all in China, where Zenith estimates penetration at just 4.8 per cent in 2017, compared to 85.4 per cent for smartphones. Prepared for those who must set Internet advertising outlays in advance, some pertinent information about mobile consumer habit

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2018