The Pay-TV Innovation Forum is a global research programme for senior pay-TV and content executives, developed by NAGRA and MTM, and designed to catalyse growth and innovation across the global TV industry, at a time of tremendous change and disruption.
As part of the programme, we are publishing a series of interviews with leading TV industry executives from around the world to explore their views, perspectives and experiences of innovation. In this interview, Richard North, Chief Strategy Officer, and Alex Borthwick, Head of Subscription Sales and Marketing for RugbyPass, share their views on the future prospects for OTT sports streaming services, including challenges specific to APAC.
What key trends do you see shaping the APAC markets?
AB: The growth opportunities are greater here than in Western Europe: broadband and smartphone penetration is growing more quickly, and the OTT market is at an earlier stage of development. The prevalence of smartphones is also important: almost all OTT video is consumed through phones, whether watched directly or cast to a TV.
In addition, there is potential for major new players to enter these markets - as illustrated by Facebook's attempted acquisition of the Premier League rights in south east Asia (even though the deal ultimately fell through).
Where do you think the real value lies? In live coverage or on-demand content?
AB: Live is key, but on-demand content has a role as well. Consumers may miss the live match but still want to watch it, especially with European rugby matches that kick off at midnight (or later) Australia time. Consumers want the option to watch at a time that is convenient for them.
Is there a danger of similar levels of rights inflation in APAC to what we have seen in Europe?
AB: Tier 1 sports rights are very important to many of the telcos and pay-TV operators. If Singtel lost the rights to the Premier League, I cant imagine how much longer its business would remain sustainable. As a result, it is prepared to pay enormous amounts for these rights, offsetting the costs against profits from their mobile phone and broadband businesses.
In contrast, pure OTT players like us can only pay what we think rights are worth, because we dont have anything to offset those costs against.
To what degree is churn a major issue, and how are you dealing with it?
AB: Churn is always an issue. For example, we see significant drop-offs in our subscriber numbers at the end of the Six Nations.
Our response is to test and iterate our offer, so as to find the right balance between giving customers the flexibility they need, whilst maximising acquisition and minimising churn.
In general, customers want the flexibility of shorter packages. During the Heineken Cup last year we realized that we could triple uptake through the last few weeks of the competition by launching a weekly pass. This is great for acquisition, of course, but the majority of these customers churn off as soon as the season ended.
In contrast, we removed the weekly pass during the Autumn Internationals last year. The objective was to reduce churn, but we found that whilst people will buy the monthly pass, they are not happy because it is more expensive. We now think that it is actually more valuable to retain the weekly pass option, but just increase the price - people will pay because it gives them that flexibility.
How is the sports content industry having to adapt to drive engagement today?
RN: Many young consumers engage with their preferred sports through YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. It is important that we drive user engagement here through (for example) highlights and clips. However, rugby has been one of the last sports to adapt to YouTube - partly due to cable TV rights owners worries about piracy, but also because rights ownership is so fragmented across territories.
It is vital that we adapt to this new environment, empowering individual content creators to produce rugby content on these platforms. We need to recognise that individuals creating cool content mashups in their bedroom can play a key role in driving engagement among younger fans. We must move away from a world where individual rights holders can shut these people down, learning instead how to support and harness their work to the benefit of the sport.
How big a challenge is piracy?
AB: Piracy does exist and nothing will completely eradicate it, but you can reduce the threat. The Premier League has invested in an office of piracy lawyers in Singapore, which is expensive but appears to be working.
We have less money to invest but can still make a big difference by focusing on getting our streams perfect. Rugby is predominantly watched by the expat community across Asia: for them, having a reliable, high quality feed is more important than saving money on a free but low quality feed.
What do you think is the future for subscription OTT sports in the next five years?
RN: We are in a transitional period before the larger scale aggregators consolidate and dominate the market.
Currently there are multiple players trying to exploit the growth in OTT, from the major telcos and pay-TV providers to a handful of specialist sports OTT providers, such as DAZN, who are trying to be the Netflix of Sport. Then there is another, highly fragmented layer of small, D2C and niche sport offerings.
As a result, the market is fragmented, which is not good for the consumer, who has to maintain multiple subscriptions, and not good for the OTT providers. These providers are all building their own technical and operation solution, which leads to unnecessary duplication. Almost all are losing money. Over the next few years we will see a consolidation in this landscape, with aggregators playing an increasingly important role in bringing the content together into bundles that work better fo
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Download Now!
To receive a short case study showcasing Vivid Broadcast's audio setup, please enter the following details:
--
First Name* First Name ...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Witbe brings its AI-native testing and monitoring infrastructure to Amsterdam: demonstrations on real devices, a peer-reviewed technical paper in the conference...
23/07/2026
Quickplay, Caretta Research, Evergent, and Yospace have announced that the renowned IBC Pride Happy Hour will once again bring the vibe and fun back to IBC on F...
23/07/2026
At IBC2026, Interra Systems will present this year's focus: operational AI at scale for QC, monitoring, and captioning workflows. The industry has moved pas...
23/07/2026
Illusionfx is finally coming!
Alex Perea July 23, 2026
0 Comments
The new website is now live to mark the occasion.
Since the last update, feedback h...
23/07/2026
Evergent (5.A86) will showcase its Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform for streaming services, sports leagues, pay-TV operators at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterdam, 11...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
23/07/2026
RT Commercial has today announced Centra as the official food partner once again of The Traitors Ireland, coming to RT One and RT Player later this year.
Ce...
23/07/2026
RT Commercial today announced Honda as sponsor of Today with David McCullagh RT Radio 1, weekdays 9am 11am.
Broadcasting directly after Morning Ireland in ...
23/07/2026
RT News is pleased to announce Barry Gallagher has been assigned as the new journalist covering news from Cork, Kerry and the wider Southern region
Working al...
23/07/2026
Lock in and load up the cloud. GFN Thursday brings fresh updates and new adventu...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
The Pay-TV Innovation Forum is a global research programme for senior pay-TV and content executives, developed by NAGRA and MTM, and designed to catalyse growth and innovation across the global TV industry, at a time of tremendous change and disruption.
