The dual dramas of war in Iraq and the outbreak of atypical pneumonia had Asia's consumers on the edge of their seats and took television viewership numbers to record highs.
Now, cable and satellite broadcasters are hoping those viewer figures will translate into advertising dollars.
When the first salvo of missiles hit Baghdad on March 20, television focused sharply on live reports from the war zone, and captivated millions of people throughout the region and the world.
News channels watched their ratings soar, in some cases to more than double their levels of just a few weeks before.
Five days later, fears of a worldwide pandemic were raised when the first case of Sars hit Hong Kong. Asian consumers again tuned into television, making it their first choice not only for information and updates on the disease, but also as entertainment to replace cancelled shopping trips, business meetings and any other activities that were perceived as risky.
Despite this pan-regional surge in viewership, it came as no surprise to the pay-TV industry when this tide of "bad" news led many advertisers to either postpone campaigns, or scrap them altogether.
But, as relative calm is gradually restored, network executives say there is reason to believe that the turmoil may actually jolt clients out of their spending inertia, and the rest of the year could yield strong revenues - not just for the news channels covering the drama, but the entire cable and satellite industry.
Nielsen Media Research data shows that in the key markets of Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore, not only were more people watching television, they were tuning in for longer than usual, from the time that war began.
In the last week of March, for instance, the average Singaporean spent 23.3 hours a week watching television, compared to 20.6 hours earlier in the month. When the health crisis took hold in early April and schools were closed, that figure rose to more than 25 hours per week. In Hong Kong, the number of viewing hours rose 30 per cent between early March and early April, while in Beijing, the average time spent watching TV hit a record high of 35 hours per week - nine hours more than during the same period last year.
The biggest winners in the broadcasting world were clearly the news networks who tracked both the war and Sars, and Nielsen figures show that BBC World, CNBC and CNN all posted double-digit percentage growth in reach during that time.
"It's difficult to say whether Sars or the Iraq war had a greater effect," says Shawn Galey, vice-president, business and legal affairs, with CNBC Asia-Pacific.
"Given our regional focus, we took a conscious decision - especially after the first few days of the war - to ensure that CNBC placed a very high priority on Sars coverage. And we did in fact cover the Sars situation, in my opinion, to a significantly greater and more in-depth extent than the other international news channels. Anecdotal evidence based on viewer feedback suggests this was a big plus for us," he says.
BBC World's gains included five million extra viewers in India during the first three days of the war.
The network also signed deals with at least three terrestrial broadcasters in Asia - ATV in Hong Kong, NHK in Japan and CTITV in Taiwan - to broadcast BBC World's breaking news.
Meanwhile at CNN, which forged its international reputation during the first Gulf War, new affiliates were signed up in markets including China, India, Pakistan and the Philippines. Mainland China's national broadcaster China Central Television broadcast CNN's war coverage live and in full - the first time it has ever done so - and more than 10 times the usual number of people applied to subscribe to Japan's JCTV, which carries CNNj.
But it was not just the news networks that benefited from this viewing bonanza. Although some of the general entertainment channels undoubtedly lost share to news when the war's opening shots were fired, as the weeks progressed, most genres either gained audience or held firm especially as the Sars outbreak drop them back to their homes.
"HBO viewership remained fairly constant... which illustrates the importance of home entertainment in our everyday lives," says James Marturano, executive vice-president of HBO Asia. "What HBO offers, in terms of the best of Hollywood, provides a form of escapism from the turmoil around us."
At Star, a spokesman said viewership was steady across all markets and all channels.
National Geographic Channel Asia was similarly resilient, reaching 50 per cent of the Hong Kong cable audience in the four weeks ending April 20 - the channel's highest reach figure so far this year.
As children in Singapore, Hong Kong and China were kept home from school due to Sars, kids' viewing time, not surprisingly, went up, helping channels such as Cartoon Network to higher-than-usual ratings figures.
Of course, not all the increase in TV viewing time went to cabsat channels - terrestrial channels also took a slice of the pie, especially in markets heavily affected by Sars, where viewers wanted up-to-the minute local news. International news networks, meanwhile, ploughed millions of dollars into satellite time and maintaining editorial teams across the Middle East, in the hope that their coverage would bring not only new viewers who would stay on after the conflict was over, but also a not-so-easily quantifiable - but nevertheless important - boost to their reputation and image.
And even as the conflict began in earnest in Iraq, developments on the business side of Asia's cable and satellite industry continued apace.
Nickelodeon celebrated the launch of a 24-hour English-language channel with Korean subtitles in Korea, AsiaSat 4 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, The History Channel began broadcasting in Thailand, and in Kuala Lumpur, Binariang and Boeing announced a deal on the procurement of Malaysia's next-generation broadcast satellite.
A few TV advertisers saw opportunity in adversity and upped their level of spend to make the most of a captive audience. Drug companies, health food companies and cleaning-product manufacturers were among those to increase their spending during March and April.
The general trend, however, was for marketing bosses to put campaigns on hold, especially in Sars-affected countries.
In mid-April, media consultancy R3 Asia Pacific found that 94 per cent of marketers in Hong Kong had significantly reduced their immediate advertising plans or had at least put their activities under review because of Sars. In Singapore, that figure was 64 per cent.
More than one-fifth of marketers in the region said their budgets for the year would be cut by at least 10 per cent because of the outbreak; several said their budgets were being cut by 20 per cent or more.
As it did during the September 11 coverage, CNN actually decided not to show any advertising during the first four days of the war, before allowing back on those who wanted to continue with their campaigns.
"Some advertisers recognised that many, many millions of eyeballs were glued to CNN, and they wanted to benefit from that," says Duncan Morris, vice-president, research, at Turner International Asia Pacific, which operates CNN.
The guns of war have since been silenced and the spread of Sars has, for the moment at least, slowed to a pace that has put fears of a pandemic at bay. Robert Wilson, media and research director with Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (Casbaa), says the passing of the war and the decline of Sars mark a turning point in advertiser sentiment - that means revenues are now set to take off. Advertisers are no longer trimming budgets and wondering when war will finally come, but are now in the mode to restarting campaigns.
"The beginning of the Iraq war was a signal for everybody to start chilling out, because they'd all been waiting for something to happen and had been holding back. Once the war started, sentiment started to change. Then, of course, Sars hit and blew everybody away," Wilson says.
"But Sars now looks like it's going to be very well contained... so I think business will start to return to normal fairly rapidly. A lot of marketers' and advertisers' plans have been on hold and they're ready to roll - then business will start to pick up."
CNBC's Galey says he is "cautiously bullish" about revenue prospects for the rest of 2003.
"I think that we've got a real chance to see the advertising community break through the logjam that we've been experiencing for one reason or another for the last couple of years, which would obviously provide some much-needed oxygen to the overall industry," he says.
"For CNBC, although the advertising market remains down from all-time highs... second quarter for us is looking good - we're well within striking distance of our original ad revenue targets for the quarter. That's true despite the fact that those targets were established well before anyone knew about Sars or the timing of the war."
CNN says most of its partners who pulled advertising during the war are either back on the air already or are about to restart their campaigns.
And National Geographic is already reporting a year-on-year rise in advertising revenue. "Now, travel and tourism advertisers are looking seriously at recovery programmes. Regional airlines have advertising briefs out in the market, and we expect tourism bodies to be launching aggressive campaigns in the next couple of months," says Justine Moss, NatGeo's account director, advertising sales and integrated marketing.
Of course, political and economic uncertainty still clouds the future of all business sectors in the region; stock markets remain shaky, Sars has not been beaten and the threat of terrorism lingers. But with the war over, at least, the advertising market looks to have been given the long-awaited shove it needed to get moving again, and the longer-term forecast is good.
"The last few years have been difficult for everyone," says HBO's Marturano.
"I'd like to think that we'll begin to see some improvement in general market conditions during the second part of the year.
"We're very bullish on our long range growth prospects in the region given the strong demand for our Hollywood blockbuster movies and award-winning HBO Original programming. One has to be patient doing business in the complex Asia marketplace."
But even if closure in Iraq doesn't bring immediate fortune, pay TV industry leaders are resolved not to let events of recent months throw their expansion plans for Asia off track.
Casbaa estimates revenue across the region to rise 11 per cent this year and hit $10.6 billion, rising to $15.4 billion in 2007. The number of TV households, meanwhile, is tipped to grow from 504 million this year to 533 million in four years' time.
"On viewership, there's really only one thing to say for the cable and satellite industry: Nobody is getting in the way of this train," says Galey.
"I can't say what will happen on an industry-wide basis in the short-term, but nothing will stop ultimate regional growth."
VIEWERSHIP IN CHINA: MOVIES AND DRAMA TOP THE BILL
BEIJING
Rank Channel '000 TVR % Share Reach Reach
No % '000 %
1 Beijing TV 2 - Art 147 2Å“3 14 5622 89Å“2
2 Beijing TV 4 - Drama & Movies 140 2Å“2 13 5280 83Å“8
3 Beijing TV 1 - Variety
(Satellite) 135 2Å“1 12 5773 91Å“6
4 China Central TV 1 67 1Å“1 6 5562 88Å“2
5 Beijing TV 5 - Economic 61 1Å“0 6 4916 78Å“0
SHANGHAI
1 Shanghai TV - Movie & Drama 227 2Å“5 20 8573 92Å“6
2 Shanghai TV - News & Variety 163 1Å“8 14 8509 91Å“9
3 Oriental TV - News &
Entertainment 91 1Å“0 8 8273 89Å“3
4 Oriental TV - Art 82 0Å“9 7 7881 85Å“1
5 Shanghai TV - Sports 49 0Å“5 4 6904 74Å“6
GUANGZHOU
1 Guangzhou Cable TV - TVB Jade 81 2Å“0 16 1847 46Å“1
2 Guangdong Nanfang TV - TVB Jade 78 1Å“9 15 1886 47Å“1
3 Guangdong Nanfang TV - ATV Home 45 1Å“1 9 1791 44Å“7
4 Guangzhou TV 34 36 0Å“9 7 3450 86Å“2
5 Guangzhou Cable TV - ATV Home 34 0Å“9 7 1722 43Å“0
Source: Nielsen Media Research, Date: June 5, 2003.
Share is the percentage of the viewing audience accounted for by a
particular channel at a specific point in timeœ
TVR (television rating) is the category audience expressed as a
percentage of the category populationœ
Reach or penetration is a measure of the percentage of the population
who viewed a specific amount of a programme, daypart of channelœ
INDIA: star pulls ahead with a line-up of local shows
Rank Channel '000 TVR % Share Reach Reach
No % '000 %
1 Star Plus 1036 1Å“3 13 49916 39Å“1
2 Cable Regional 954 1Å“2 12 57334 44Å“9
3 Sun TV 631 0Å“8 8 23295 18Å“3
4 Gemini TV 401 0Å“5 5 14796 11Å“6
5 Sony Entertainment TV 298 0Å“4 4 44041 34Å“5
Source: Nielsen Media Research
Date: June 5, 2003
KOREA VIEWING PATTERNS
TERRESTRIAL
Rank Channel '000 TVR % Share Reach Reach
No % '000 %
1 KBS1 621 2Å“4 26 22575 88Å“8
2 MBC 611 2Å“4 25 23249 91Å“4
3 KBS2 554 2Å“2 23 23157 91Å“0
4 SBS Local 531 2Å“1 22 22742 89Å“4
5 EBS 79 0Å“3 3 15158 59Å“6
CABLE & SATELLITE
1 Tooniverse 71 0Å“4 10 6945 41Å“4
2 MBC Drama 57 0Å“3 8 9203 54Å“9
3 Orion Cinema Network (Movie) (DCN) 55 0Å“3 8 10346 61Å“7
4 SBS Drama Plus (FOOT) 32 0Å“2 5 6741 40Å“2
5 Super Action (DCNA) 27 0Å“2 4 6942 41Å“4
Source: Nielsen Media Research.
Date: June 5, 2003.
HONG KONG VIEWING PATTERNS
TERRESTRIAL
Rank Channel '000 TVR % Share Reach Reach
No % '000 %
1 TVB Jade 533 8Å“2 67 6295 97Å“1
2 ATV Home 200 3Å“1 25 6031 93Å“1
3 TVB Pearl 36 0Å“6 5 5070 78Å“2
4 ATV World 22 0Å“3 3 4496 69Å“4
CABLE & SATELLITE
1 News 2 18 0Å“6 20 1360 41Å“6
2 Movie 1 12 0Å“4 13 1338 40Å“9
3 Movie 3 8 0Å“2 9 1159 35Å“4
4 Entertainment 8 0Å“2 8 1160 35Å“5
5 Children 8 0Å“3 9 902 27Å“6
Source: Nielsen Media Research.
Date: June 5, 2003.
SINGAPORE VIEWING PATTERNS
TERRESTRIAL
Rank Channel '000 TVR % Share Reach Reach
No % '000 %
1 Channel 8 121 3Å“3 33 3041 83Å“7
2 Channel U 113 3Å“1 31 2758 75Å“9
3 Channel 5 59 1Å“6 16 3016 83Å“0
4 Central 29 0Å“8 8 2483 68Å“3
5 Channel 1 18 0Å“5 5 2481 68Å“3
CABLE & SATELLITE
1 Sun TV 17 1Å“2 21 238 16Å“6
2 VV Drama 10 0Å“7 12 372 25Å“9
3 TVBJ 5 0Å“3 5 201 13Å“9
4 AXN 4 0Å“3 5 701 48Å“8
5 ESPN Sports 3 0Å“2 4 575 40Å“0
Source: Nielsen Media Research.
Date: June 5, 2003.
