Asia's TV regulators can't ignore the threat of online piracy

The international television industry is meeting in Hong Kong for its annual Asian conference. This is a US$53 billion industry that has grown from nothing in the past 20 years, but it is facing an uncertain future - largely because while the industry is trying to live in the present and prepare for the future, Asian governments are living in the past.

In every Asian market, there are now competing free- and pay-TV services. But governments continue to approach this type of broadcasting as if we were living in the 1950s - with limited bandwidth and a small number of free-to-air licensees, providing programming aimed at a common-denominator mass market.

The reality, of course, is different: the number of channels available to most homes is now measured in hundreds, and audiences are fragmenting, seeking special-interest programmes. In wired markets like Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, consumers are choosing TV services that allow them to see what they want when they want on the device they want.

The internet has become a massive TV distribution network - mostly for unpaid pirated programming, but also for a few (in Asia) legitimate TV services.

But governments are still acting as if it were important to control the world of linear broadcasting even as people migrate to other forms of viewing. They pretend censorship of pay-TV content is effective, as if it were not easy for consumers to go online and find uncut versions. This gives a push to piracy (as the uncensored versions are usually pirated ones) and it entices consumers into the netherworld of internet bottom-feeders who advertise and support piracy websites.

This needs to change, and the changes should come on both the "demand" and "supply" sides.