Obama: The Early MonthsThe Asian media melting potA global stew, but with strong local flavours

Overview

>Many common themes across the region, but also some key differences to be aware of

>Intermediation – opportunities and considerations

>Traditional – not changing as rapidly as the hype may suggest, government involvement still strong in most areas

>Country by country analysis – key statistics

>Conclusions and implications

Commonalities

Commonalities and trends

>Massive growth in online media, 39 million new Internet users in last 12 months, driven by China

>Google, Yahoo and Microsoft sites the top 3 internet properties across Asia-Pacific

>YouTube and Blogger strong contributors to Google’s traffic

>Facebook number 10, and growing strongly

>50.8% of total online Asia-Pacific internet population visited a social networking site in February

> Source: comScore

Commonalities and trends

>Strong growth in online video – driving usage and engagement

>Twitter not strong in Asia-Pacific comparatively, but increased 3-fold in last year (comScore)

>Mobile access growing exponentially

>Can be a primary tool of online access

>Replacing internet cafes as leading access point

>Traditional media is stable. Not growing as significantly as online, but still influential

>Generally high levels of government investment and regulation

Diversity

Diversity

>May be one channel, but that channel can be used for very different things> Indonesia – social connection

>China – instant messaging and gaming

>Malaysia – politics

>Google, Microsoft and Yahoo dominate online, but not exclusively:

>Baidu 4th, Tencent 5th ranked internet property by reach> Source, comScore – State of the Internet APAC July 2010

>Localisation is very important – Friendster in Malaysia, QQ in China, Naver in Korea

>Geography and economic development dictate delivery platforms

News sites

>57% of APAC internet users accessed a news site from a PC in April 2010> Source: comScore

Obama 09 – rise of news websites

GFC – blogs not prominent

>Pew Research Center study July 2010 – 99% of stories linked to on blogs came from traditional media online news sites

Intermediation

Intermediation

Traditional media audiences shrinking?

-

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

400,000

450,000

Yr 2005 Yr 2006 Yr 2007 Yr 2008 Yr 2009

Straits Times

Apple Daily

The Star

Sydney Morning Herald

Berita Harian

Lianhe Zaobao

Australian

South China Morning Post

Relevance more critical than ever

Relevance more critical than ever

Relevance more critical than ever

Singapore

Singapore

>Very internationally focused

>No local websites in top 10 for reach or time spent online

>High proportion of pan-regional or global content consumed

>Strong government involvement

>Singapore Press Holdings and Mediacorp

>Online video is critical

>More people view online video than visit social networking sites

>Average internet user spent more than 10 hours viewing online video in April 2010

> Source: comScore

Singapore – International focus – Obama 09 case study

Malaysia

Malaysia

Hong Kong

Hong Kong

>The most open media market in the region

>Ranked 48th in Press Freedom Index – Reporters without Border

>Traditional media based on British tabloid model

>Yahoo, Microsoft and Yahoo the top internet properties

>Yahoo dominates Google in search

>Internet Protocol TV has significant penetration

>PCCW’s Now TV expected to grow by 37% this year to 750,000 subscribers (Source: www.dailyiptv.com)

>Online video is critical

>Average internet user spent more than 10 hours viewing online video in April 2010 – mostly on YouTube (Source: comScore)

China

China

>31% growth in Internet users in last 12 months (Source: comScore)

>Tencent , Baidu and Sina dominate local internet usage

>QQ instant messaging platform has up to 80 million simultaneous users (source QQ)

>Gaming and shopping very popular uses of internet

>China based micro-blogging very popular

>Traditional press publications still influential, many with multi-million circulations

China - GFC

Thailand

Indonesia

Indonesia

>Strong local focus to media

>Blogging extremely popular

>Blogger and WordPress over 6m unique visitors (comScore)

>Blogging generally used for lifestyle or entertainment, less politically orientated

>Social networking also extremely popular

>Facebook overall number 2 site

>Bahasa Indonesia 5th largest language used on Facebook> Source: www.insidefacebook.com

>Twitter has highest reach in Indonesia of all Asia-Pacific countries

> Source: comScore

Conclusions

> The Asian media landscape is incredibly varied. A “one size fits all” approach is not the best strategy

>Notwithstanding the variances, online media is incredibly powerful and prevalent in Asia

>The breadth of media provides opportunities for media relations professionals – social networking, microblogs, online video, mobile

>Traditional media is still a main channel – it needs to be a big part of the media relations mix

Implications

> The opportunities and threats for organisations communicating with their stakeholders through the media are both greater and more varied than ever before

>It works both ways - stories originating in traditional media stories can be boosted by social media and items originating in social media can receive far wider coverage through intermediation into traditional platforms

>Professionals in the media on all sides are trying to do a lot more with a lot less – Interesting, relevant and compelling content is more valuable than ever.

Questions?

@bpswalenzbrendan.swale@mediamonitors.co.nz