Story & photos by Pauline Joy M. Gutierrez
TELECOMMUNICATIONS giant Smart Communications has partnered with leading global video-sharing platform YouTube to provide its subscribers one-hour free YouTube access daily from April 17 to July 15. Subscribers can avail themselves of this promo by registering to any Smart, TNT and Sun surf packages.
“We want to allow more of our customers to enjoy and embrace the YouTube experience without the accompanying concern of using most of their data load or allocation,” PLDT and Smart Chief Revenue Officer Eric Alberto said during the launch of the Smart/YouTube partnership at Marriott Hotel in Pasay City on April 17.
Content delivery firm Limelight Networks, in a research report titled “State of Online Video,” reveals that the average online video consumption of Filipinos range from six to seven hours per week. Television consumption, however, still outweighs this figure as 96.6 percent of Filipinos watch TV daily, according to a 2016 report by media intelligence firm Kantar Media. The culprit? Consumer fear of consuming too much mobile data. “Because of this fear, they stick to YouTube when they’re on Wi-Fi or, even worse, they don’t go to YouTube at all. Our mission in Smart is to empower every Filipino to bridge the gap of what can be and what is. If YouTube wants to show everyone the world, Smart wants to connect every Filipino to the world,” said Oscar Reyes, senior vice president of Consumer Market Development for Smart and PLDT.
Aside from YouTube, another video service is also set to be part of the offer. Access to Smart360 (360.smart.com.ph), a Web portal where Smart, TNT and Sun subscribers can access various digital content like live TV, movies, series TV, music and games, will soon be free for a limited period. Other video content providers are also eligible to be included in the offer, subject to mutually agreed terms with Smart.
In 2013 only 33 percent of Filipinos watched online videos daily, but this rose to 53 percent in 2016 due to the rise of connectivity.
Digital media content is catching up fast in terms of viewership and consumption, and Zenith’s Online Video Forecasts 2017 reported that mobile devices pushed online video viewing by 20 percent in 2017. “Sixty percent of videos viewed is now seen on mobile devices and in a country like the Philippines, we practice ‘mobile first.’ We really see the traction,” said Ken Lingan, country head of Google Philippines.
In a short presentation, Lingan explained how access to the largest video library not only levels the playing field but also open opportunities for Filipino content creators.
“First and foremost, YouTube has an ecosystem which continuously create traction in our country. Just a year back, there were already eight data
creators in the YouTube channel with more than a million subscribers each. Today, we doubled that with almost 15 creators who have reached that million-subscriber mark. Every single week, three Filipino channels are crossing the hundred-thousand subscriber mark. It just tells you that not only is this platform growing but, more important for us, the number of creators is also growing.”
In the same study, Zenith Online Video Forescasts projects that due to the dynamic emergence of new video content, online video will account for 31 percent of total expenditure on digital display advertising in 2019. This also provides opportunities for both advertisers and content creators.
Lingan noted, “If you look at the historical way we see our celebrities, there are only few who can really be famous. But what sets YouTube apart is there are no limitations for anyone to succeed. Today, local YouTube creators are now the ones shaping the scene in the entertainment industry.”
While YouTube videos provide entertainment, users also depend on the online platform to learn new information. “We just did a study on YouTube and what we’ve seen is that how-to videos have become the fastest-growing genre on the platform. People are now looking more to YouTube for tips, instructionals and advice.”
The biggest impact of YouTube, however, is its ability to help raise positive social discourse, according to Lingan. “Because of YouTube’s reach and engagement, we now see that a lot more creators and influencers are using the platform as a force of good to be able to influence our public on any issues, and even help them draw positive social change.”
According to Eric Alberto, the partnership between Smart and YouTube is just one of many the telco is forging to provide Filipinos a wider array of digital content. Smart is accelerating the deployment of LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) and carrier aggregation technology to more areas this year. Carrier Aggregation (CA), a feature of LTE-A, enables the combination of two or more radio frequency bands in order to deliver bigger bandwidth and much faster data speeds, which are crucial in providing the best video-streaming experience to mobile phone users.
“By the end of this year, the PLDT Group is committed to having over 95 percent of the country’s population powered by high-speed mobile broadband, with a larger part of it over roaming, 4G and LTE networks,” Alberto concluded.
Image credits: Pauline Joy . Gutierrez