This week the International Monetary Fund again cut its outlook for world economic growth—blaming trade tensions as one reason. But there’s one part of the economy that’s showing surprising growth in Asia—and it’s related to media.
Video content is on fire in Asia.
Overall spending on film, television and online video grew by 12% — a much brisker pace than the previous year’s growth of 8%. That word comes from Media Partners Asia, which breaks down the spending by country and region — as well as by type of video content.
The fastest growth came from India, where spending rocketed ahead by 24% over the past year — to more than 3.5 billion dollars. The biggest reason: video rights for cricket. But another factor is stronger demand for broadcast programming specializing in regional languages.
South Korea remains a regional powerhouse — producing video content for export to much of the rest of the area. Increased domestic demand for movies and pay TV drove spending to more than 3-billion dollars last year.
Southeast Asia presents a mixed picture.
Vietnam and Indonesia both show double-digit gains — in part because of online video. But falling spending on traditional television has hit both the Philippines and Malaysia.
The report’s author told Variety that as more channels become available in many Southeast Asian markets, what he called the more “marginal TV channels” are suffering declining audiences.
Although online video is still growing.
