THE 24TH CSTB.PRO.MEDIA FORUM 2022 IS ENDED
THE 24TH CSTB.PRO.MEDIA FORUM 2022 IS ENDED
The main event of the Russian media industry - the CSTB.PRO.MEDIA Forum was held in Moscow on June 20 and 21, 2022. This year the forum was held in a completely new format - the classic stand building was replaced by comfortable negotiation and discussion spaces in the stylish interiors of the old mansion LOFT HALL.
The emphasis in the program of the CSTB.PRO.MEDIA 2022 Forum was placed on the new working conditions of the video market and anti-crisis strategies of pay TV operators and broadcasters.
The CSTB.PRO.MEDIA 2022 Forum opened with a discussion session “Spectators or business: who really forms the content market in Russia”, moderated by expert Ksenia Boletskaya. In recent years, analysts have recorded a shift in viewer preferences towards non-linear video consumption. This change is primarily due to the expansion of libraries and the convenience of content selection. At the same time, technological boundaries between different players are blurring - pay TV operators and online cinemas are gradually becoming a single market.
Aleksey Ivanov, COO of MTS Media, General Director of MTS Satellite TV, considers the transformation of television viewing to be a sign of the times – linear viewers are increasingly moving into the category of so-called “situational consumers of on-demand services”. The line between types of viewing is blurred, viewers vote for a hybrid model from different types of content. The progressive movement of the entire market towards non-linear viewing places special demands on operators and online cinemas. In essence, it is about creating an individual personalized channel for each consumer.
The Russian VOD market today is 80 million connected devices. According to Sergey Storozhev, General Director of Vitrina TV, in technical terms, today it is possible to create an online cinema quite quickly, simply and cheaply. Of particular importance for channels is broadcasting through online cinemas - this is a way to transfer the viewer from unconscious to conscious watching.
Kirill Makhnovsky, General Director of the Orion Group of Companies, confirmed that the trend towards a shift in non-linear viewing is natural, but one should not be afraid that linear viewing will disappear. All over the world, the largest ecosystems do not divide subscribers into linear and non-linear at all. At the same time, he noted a purely Russian phenomenon - the number of TV channels the operator has remains one of the "selling" factors.
Diana Samoshkina, Vice President for B2C Digital Business at PJSC Rostelecom, spoke about a significant increase in IPTV, and there is a trend towards additional purchases in addition to a subscription. The use of TV channels is regular, while the consumption of VOD (non-linear content) is situational. At least 80% of the operator's users consume VOD at least once a year. Any VOD service requires additional costs from the operator to purchase original content, and big market players will have to bear these costs in order to keep their business model efficient.
Sergey Isakov, director of the TV and content department at J'son and Partners Consulting, presented statistical data on pay TV consumption, telecom operators, online cinemas and their subscribers. According to analysts, in 2021, in terms of audience indicators, online cinemas reached their maximum: their total audience reached 45 million users, which is twice as much as a year earlier. Almost all major players have created their own online cinemas, as they see it as a way to bind the subscriber to themselves.
The pay TV market earned almost 100 billion rubles in 2021. ARPU is growing. However, VOD has little effect on the performance of classic pay TV, whose audience remains at a stable level. J'son and Partners Consulting conducted an online survey of viewers aged 18-55, and found that 65% have a paid subscription to pay TV, and not to online cinemas. 35% use free services.
The Forum continued with the session “Original Russian Content in Modern Reality: Ways of Development”. The co-organizers of the session are the Association of Film and Television Producers (APKiT) and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. In her opening speech, moderator Susanna Alperina said that this year online cinemas will spend 15 billion rubles on creating original content. Given the vast libraries of online cinemas, the stock of content will last at least a year. What do online movie theaters plan to show their viewers next? The moderator offered to tell the speakers of the session about it.
Igor Mishin, General Director of MTS Media / KION, believes that online services are guided by stories about a person's private life. Therefore, despite the changes in the market, KION decided not to change anything: projects about people's relationships will continue to be created. In the next two years, according to Igor Mishin, the market is expecting a major restructuring, which should lead to the fact that more and more new people will create content, including through increased government funding.
Makar Kozhukhov, Deputy General Director of Premier, also believes that projects about people in the world of people “shoot out”. Everyone has about the same problems - conflicts, love, friendship, concepts of what is good and what is bad. The main mistake of the manufacturer is to shoot secondary content. Therefore, the future belongs to original, not secondary projects.
Lily Sherozia, director of the TV-3 channel, told how the channel taught the viewer to watch premium series in prime time. When Hollywood studios switched to making eight-episode series, TV-3 had to look for new mystical content in a suitable format. It was found in South Korea, and, according to Lily Sheroziya, this country has become a world exporter of new formats.
Janik Fayziev, Okko's general producer, agreed with his colleague, specifying that Korea allocates 1% of GDP to creative industries, which is more than all the budgets that anyone spends on the development of creative industries. According to Janik Fayziev, the industry in our country has changed with the departure of the majors, since earlier in the production of content everyone was oriented towards the West. At the moment, the most important battlefield of producers: you need to choose new criteria for self-esteem and incentives for self-realization.
Natalia Klibanova, chief producer of Amedia Production, is sure that content creates a new reality. Movies and series allow the viewer to feel like a different person, so producers need to focus on human values, personal stories. The desire of producers to "mass viewing" is meaningless - it must be borne in mind that the audience is extremely segmented, and it is impossible to please everyone.
Elena Lapina, executive director of ANO "IRI" spoke about the areas supported by the IRI - content for bloggers, content for social networks, large-format projects about people of the future (all topics are published on the site). Of the 1,000 applications received, 148 received grants. At the same time, Elena Lapina noted that the biggest shortage of content is for teenagers aged 10-15. And despite the 15 billion rubles that are allocated for content creation, this is still not enough, there are not enough programs or distribution channels.
The first day of the Forum ended with an event for broadcasters and operators CONTENT PROMO, during which large companies presented their projects. Regina Yurkina, General Director, MediaBrand, became the moderator. Among the participants are speakers from the First TVCh, UNIVERSAL DISTRIBUTION, Sky Media, Media Telecom, THEMA RUS, Red Media and representatives of the Live Active HD, KinoJam and ducktv channels.
The second day of the Forum was opened by a large-scale session “Pay TV: monetization in the conditions of market transformation”, which was held with the support of the Medialogistics project of MSK-IX and the START online cinema. The moderators were Daria Boyarinova (The Cable Guy) and Grigory Kuzin (Media Logistics).
The session was divided into two blocks. In the first "Pay TV market in 2022: figures and trends", the Forum participants got acquainted with the analytics of the pay TV market and discussed business development forecasts.
Sergey Isakov, Director of the TV and Content Department at J’son and Partners Consulting, spoke in detail about the results of 2021 for all market segments. For the year, the growth of the pay TV market was less than 1 percent. The analog TV segment is shrinking rapidly. Satellite and digital cable TV are also seeing some decline. Only IPTV is growing, which is the main point of growth for the entire pay TV market. Sergey Isakov provided subscriber and revenue statistics. According to the analyst, cable analog will continue to slowly decline, satellite TV will remain relatively stable, IPTV will grow, but at a slow pace.
Andrey Trufanov, Deputy Director of the Department of Telecommunication Services of the Orion Group, spoke about the success of the HbbTV technology. To date, the number of TVs in households that support Smart-TV is about 40 million, and every 2 years this number increases by about one and a half times. Internet penetration in Russia is about 80%, which also affects Smart TV penetration rates. Orion system. Mediameter allows you to track user behavior on the Internet in real time.
In the second block of the session, a panel discussion "Pay TV: monetization and development in the new conditions" took place.
Alexander Kosarim, General Director of Media Telecom, reassured that nothing had changed dramatically with the departure of foreign majors - many partners had not left yet, although they considered crisis scenarios. At the same time, the company has a large package of Russian channels that show good results. In addition to TV channels, it offers VOD libraries - this is the main monetization growth point. Media Telecom admits the creation of Russian analogues that can replace the TV channels that have left the country, but now it is difficult to predict anything.
Roman Stolyarsky, Deputy General Director of Red Media, assured that the company has a sufficient number of long-term contracts concluded, so no shortage is expected by the end of 2023. Unfortunately, some of the planned premieres were withdrawn, but the majors are behaving correctly, fulfilling contractual obligations. At the same time, Red Media produces many of its own programs, and all of them will continue to exist. The company received grants to produce new content. If we look beyond 2023, we can expect the arrival of new independent content distributors, including from majors.
Maxim Polukhin, CEO of First TVCh, believes that any crisis is a matter of readiness for change. In 2020-2021, during the pandemic, all companies had difficulties with production due to lockdowns, now there are problems with foreign content, and companies just need to look for new markets. Mediascope data confirms that the market has found a worthy alternative to the departed companies. The situation is changing very quickly, some partners are already returning, even new ones are being found. Despite this, the company plans to increase the share of its own content production.
Ekaterina Yakushenko, Sales Director of Thema Rus, described what slots were opened for the remaining TV channels and new projects. Thema channels have confirmed that they will remain and will not change content. In addition, the company thought about local projects. Colleagues around the world help in the search for "friendly content", in particular, Chinese and Korean.
Stepan Kovalev, CEO of Time Media Group, spoke about cooperation with the Middle East and South Korea. The company has been working with South Korean producers for six years, during which time the demand for content has grown tenfold. The proportion of viewers who watch dramas is skyrocketing. Moreover, if earlier it was predominantly a young audience, then over the past two years it has significantly replenished with older viewers.
Alla Lazovskaya, General Director of Universal Communications, said that the company has long-term cooperation with most partners, which allows us to look to the future with optimism. The distributor works with European TV channels, and they, unlike the American ones, are in no hurry to leave the Russian market. Moreover, the company began to produce its own thematic channels. According to Alla Lazovskaya, enough content is produced in Russia, so that with the departure of a number of players, the market did not suffer dramatic losses.
Then a technological session CASE STUDY took place with the support of the session partner - GS Labs. The moderator was Yaroslav Gorodetsky, CEO, CDNvideo. During the session, the participants shared their successful experience in creating and implementing solutions for the media market. Anton Gorbunov, director, B2B Yandex devices, spoke about Yandex TV, Alice and smart devices for operators. Alexey Goylo, Director of Sales and Marketing Department, GS Labs, made a presentation about OTT on an all-inclusive system: content, set-top boxes, applications and special conditions for operators. Maxim Levin, lead programmer, CDNvideo, presented the CDNvideo infrastructure as a model for building an OTT project and a case for the viju streaming service. Mikhail Shadrin, Director of the Multimedia Department, SoftLab-NSK, spoke about SoftLab-NSK solutions for content regionalization. Tatyana Moskaleva, CTO, Microimpuls, and Andrey Grivko, Marketing Manager, Microimpuls, gave SAFE advice for operators when launching IPTV/OTT services. Andrey Klimenko, CEO of Teleport Media, presented a Teleport Media case. The presentation by Nikolai Milovanov, director of Elecard, was devoted to content delivery during its remote production and distribution quality control. Sergey Astakhov, SberDevices, spoke about the joint solutions of telecom operators and SberDevices for the B2B market. Umedjon Ibodov, Founder of SOMON TV, and Nikita Devyatov, Head of PR Service, EdgeCenter, presented a joint report on how SOMON TV, the largest online cinema in Tajikistan, delivers content using the EdgeCenter platform. In conclusion, Grigory Kuzin, Director of the MSK-IX Media Logistics project, spoke about the company's solutions that allow operators to assemble the best package of TV channels.
Sports content plays an important role in television broadcasting, and the session “Sports Broadcasting. Changes in the sports content ecosystem. The session was moderated by Vladimir Voloshin, managing partner of Newman Sport, co-founder of Ironstar, Rosa Run.
Alexander Frolov, Digital Development Director of Match TV, told how the broadcasting network of sports channels of the Match family has changed in the last three months. Many championships have indeed gone, but the “exodus” has not begun now – it has been going on for almost two years since the start of the pandemic, when many events were canceled and postponed. During this time, the sports VOD market has almost quadrupled. According to Alexander Frolov, lost content can and should be replenished. The speaker believes that now is the best time for the development of Russian sports, and you can make a quality show.
Anton Shirokov, managing director of the Start TV and radio company, considers the main problem of sports broadcasters to be the rising cost of television rights. Fans want to see a particular sport or championship. The company is looking for opportunities for cooperation, turning to those sports that are potentially interesting to the viewer, for example, handball. According to Anton Shirokov, the audience for linear and VOD broadcasting is very different. It is difficult to predict audience growth, but it can be estimated from the results of broadcasting on digital platforms. Now the company uses Mediascope and Mediahills measurement systems and, according to their data, interest in sports has grown. The common goal of broadcasters, platforms and content producers is to increase the pool of people who watch sports.
Konstantin Vladimirov, commercial director of Media Telecom, listed the key sports championships that have passed away. “Quite a few iconic competitions have gone, but no one says they are gone forever. There is hope that many will return,” says Konstantin Vladimirov. He believes that the main trend in the sports broadcasting market is that viewing is changing towards hybridity. Sports are mostly watched live, but can also be watched on VOD. The VOD market is growing at 40% per year, and this is one of the markets where you can earn money from sports broadcasting. Plus the betting market, which has tripled in three years. Alas, the cost of rights to the championships has also increased significantly due to increased competition in the sports rights market.
Within the framework of the Forum, a large-scale session "Operator's Day at the CSTB.PRO.MEDIA Forum" was held under the moderation of Oleg Grishchenko, President of the Rosteleset Association, and Daria Boyarinova, Editor-in-Chief of the Cable Guy internet portal. The technology partner of the session is SberDevices. During the session, Mikhail Makhov, Head of Service Monetization at SberDevices, presented a report on the synergy between the Sber ecosystem and telecom operators. Oleg Grishchenko, President of the Rosteleset Association, and Alexei Amelkin, President of the MACATEL Association, spoke about the assessment of the FAS methodological recommendations for calculating the tariff for placing communication networks at infrastructure facilities. Olga Sergeeva, Executive Director of the Rosteleset Association, discussed in detail the topic of strengthening the requirements for the storage, processing and destruction of personal data. Irina Shlyonkina, Director of Legal Affairs, Ufanet JSC, made a presentation on the increase in demand for security, the implementation by a telecom operator of a security system, video surveillance, access control systems.
Also, two round tables were held as part of the Operator's Day. The first discussion was devoted to the topic of cooperation between telecom operators in the development of software for key business processes, it was attended by: Oleg Grishchenko, President of the Rosteleset Association, Alexander Vasilyev, General Director, Lanta, Tambov, Mikhail Ivanov, Lanta , Tambov, and Igor Gamov, director, AXIOSTV, Lipetsk. The second round table on the topic ““How the departure of foreign TV channels affected the communication services market. Import substitution in the content market” took place immediately after. The speakers were: Oleg Grishchenko, President of the Rosteleset Association, Alexey Amelkin, President of the MACATEL Association, Vitaly Korneev, Deputy Director, Vidikon-K, Ryazan, Irina Shlenkina, Legal Director, Ufanet JSC, Maxim Polukhin, General director, First TVCh, Anton Konshin, director of the development and distribution department, TVPO Red Media and Ekaterina Vechkanova, director of the directorate of the NTV television network.
The final event of the Forum's business program was the session "Online cinemas: how the video service business is being rebuilt", which was held with the support of the Media Logistics project of MSK-IX. This session was moderated by Ksenia Boletskaya, director of industry relations at Yandex. According to the moderator, today any topic of media in one way or another relates to online cinemas, which is why so much attention was paid to VOD services at the Forum.
Denis Kuskov, CEO of IAA TelecomDaily presented his own analytics on the video market. In his opinion, linear TV is no longer so interesting to many, and even pirates show non-linear TV. Almost half of the users watch pirated content in one way or another. According to TelecomDaily, in 2021 the online cinema market amounted to 55 billion rubles, which is about half of the entire pay TV market in Russia. The growth of the online video market for the year is 40%, this is the fastest growing segment of the pay TV market. Smart TV penetration has reached 25% and continues to grow rapidly. The original VOD content production market tripled in 2021. At the end of 2022, the market is expected to fall in money by 20%.
Alla Maslova, Development and Marketing Director of Media Telecom, provided data on the number of subscribers. According to reports, the subscriber base has grown in most online cinemas. The percentage of terrestrial TV viewing is falling, but not significantly, while the share of entertainment TV channels is growing. According to Alla Maslova, theatrical releases are a good opportunity for VOD services, but there is a danger of reducing the quality of content in pursuit of volumes.
Grigory Kuzin, director of the Medialogistics project at MSK-IX, expressed the idea of platform diversification. The main operator trend is the creation of their own video services (OTT products, audiovisual services), which gives good results in terms of audience growth. Although there are some problems with VOD services (amount of content, departure of majors), platforms need to look for new directions. Grigory Kuzin suggested introducing various games and entertainment through video services.
Makar Kozhukhov, deputy CEO of Premier, said his online cinema intends to increase the number of original productions. About 30 original projects are planned per year - that is, the release of new original content every one and a half weeks. The long-term plan is to tighten the grid even more. He noted that many people are returning to the entertainment agenda, and it is important for the platform to provide the viewer with the opportunity to connect with their favorite characters.
In turn, Ksenia Boletskaya said that Kinopoisk showed a record viewing in May 2022. The platform relies on “feel good” and long stories with a happy ending. Ksenia concluded her report by saying that now is the best time to capture the audience with original content. At the same time, recommender systems are very important so that services know the consumer of their content.
Gavriil Gordeev, media manager and producer of Okko, does not yet feel the fall of the market, but believes that piracy has begun to progress again. However, in his opinion, the situation is unlikely to become as serious as it was, for example, in 2006. The impossibility of technological forecasting and the rise of piracy are the two main problems of online cinemas today. But the look and the market as a whole will grow. The main thing is to look at the needs of the audience. Before there was a demand for realistic content, now there is a need for fantasy content that will distract and immerse the viewer into another world.
Maria Smirnova, director of content at MTS Media/KION, said that due to the low cost of a subscription, her company does not feel any decline. At the end of February, interest in news channels increased, VOD viewing decreased. Now the situation is exactly the opposite: the number of audience requests for VOD is growing, including for original content of our own production. Kion continues to produce "originals", and due to this, it does not depend much on major studios and new products from the West. The turnover of own content production does not decrease: every 3-4 weeks a new original series is launched. In total, approximately 30 projects per year are planned.
As part of the CSTB.PRO.MEDIA 2022 Forum, the 13th National Award in the field of multi-channel digital television "Big Digit" was held and the Festival of original content of streaming platforms ORIGINAL + was held for the first time. Detailed information on the project website: Big Digit Award and ORIGINAL+ Streaming Platform Content Festival.
The organizer of the CSTB.PRO.MEDIA 2022 Forum is MIDEXPO.
The event was held with the general support of the Media Communication Union, with the support of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development.
The general partner of the Forum is Gazprom-Media Holding.
The title partner of the Forum is SberPrime.
The main partner of the Forum is Channel One. World Wide Web".
The official partner of the Forum is Media Telecom.
The Forum partners are the National Media Group, Digital Television, KION, Red Media, More.tv.
Operator Day partners are Time Media Group, First HDTV, Thema Rus, Universal Distribution.
The technology partner of the Operator's Day is SberDevices.
The partners of the Forum sessions are Medialogistics, GS Labs, Start Air.
The partner of the "Big Digit" award is the Edge Center.
Information partners of the Forum are Rossiyskaya Gazeta, TelecomDaily, Cable Guy, ComNews, AdIndex, Vokrug TV.
Supported by the Rosteleset Association.
The Forum partners are the Association of Film and Television Producers (APKiT) and ANO Institute for Internet Development.
Industrial partners of the Forum are AKAR and IAB Russia.