Every year more touchable in Cannes and now both at MIPLondon and SeriesMania, we see Asian companies —especially from Japan and South Korea, but also other countries— lead the main sub-events, the main investments at the markets. Other territories as Spain, Turkey or Israel are also growing with product and services for the international arena, but the Asian rise seems to be now a global trend. Even in Latin American niche events, now we see Asian pavilions and many new companies per market. Is it just the momentum? Is there a global answer here for what the content market is looking for?
This is a very special context where both Europe and the US market are complicated. Most of European titans suffer OTT project reductions, production costs and macro-economic situations, facing staff cuts and other alike moves. UK, France, Germany for the first time, are on the same. The US domestic market, on the other hand, is still down because of the writers strike and the lack of product. The recovery is coming but very slow. So, both regions need the Asian progressive growth as a main source of good partners for production, expansion and investments in general.
But Asia has also advantages on its own. The Korean dramas are now a strong asset accepted everywhere, with series as ‘Squid game’ which are current global successes, among many others. At Netflix, beside English, Spanish and Korean are the two languages with more content in the platform worldwide, and growing. About entertainment, Japan has been an icon of ‘out of the box’ formats for the last 10 years, and every year their product have more acceptance. And they exchange… Korea in entertainment, Japan in fictions, are now very steady too.
We have also India, China, Taiwan and Honk Kong as the other four Asian pillars, more open and prepared for business from and towards Asia. Indian traditional Bollywood engine is adding also high-end international productions. Singapore and Malaysia, the main actors at ATF every December, are strong production hubs with important support from their governments. And dramas from The Philippines in particular, Indonesia, Thailand… there are many Asian medium countries producing and gaining international sales.
There is a myth that Asian companies are slow and difficult to move forward, that you need to live in Asia to understand the different culture… all of this stuff, as soon as Internet makes the world global, is more and more relative. Business with most of Asian people can be done the same as with Europeans, MENA players, Americans, and the differences are usually in favor: Asian executives see business simple and direct, with focus on the important tips, thinking of the long term more than other regions.
Especially, they are tech leaders, so the digital era and the new media are more natural for them, taking advantage of Youtube, Tiktok (from Singapore) and other platforms that now rule the world. Also, main Connected TV referents are from the region: Samsung, LG, etc. This is a very good moment to get involved with Asian issues. Both MIPLondon, with a special segment dedicated to Asian entertainment formats, and SeriesMania, with the key Asian players present, can be good first steps for who are not with solid Asian relationships so far.
Nicolás Smirnoff
