Media Partners Asia (MPA) has released its latest Asia Video Content Dynamics 2025 report, which tracks content investment, consumption, and production across seven key Asian markets: India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of consumption and investment trends across Asia’s fast-evolving video ecosystem, spanning television, online video, and film.
When it comes to content investment, total spending across the seven markets reached US$16.1 billion in 2024, reflecting a 9 percent year-on-year increase fueled mainly by sports rights and local content. India led the growth trajectory with $6.2 billion, up 19 percent, while Korea remained the region’s largest market at $7 billion, representing a 7.1 percent increase despite a rationalisation of streaming spend. By contrast, Indonesia saw a 7 percent decline to $855 million, and both Malaysia and the Philippines contracted by 3–4 percent. Thailand and Vietnam also recorded declines. Looking ahead, investment is projected to fall by 2 percent in 2025 to $15.8 billion, largely due to weaker TV content spending across FTA and pay-TV, which remain heavily dependent on advertising. At the same time, streaming platforms are cutting back on costly originals as profitability takes precedence. Notably, streaming is set to become the largest vertical for content investment in 2025, overtaking pay-TV with an expected spend of $5 billion across the seven markets. By 2029, investment is forecast to inch up to $16.7 billion, with India nearly closing the gap with Korea. In terms of distribution, TV’s share of spend will decline from about 59 percent in 2025 to 51 percent in 2029, while streaming rises from 31 percent to 38 percent and theatrical edges up slightly from 10 percent to 11 percent.
The report also highlights broader industry trends. Broadcasters are grappling with structural declines in advertising, prompting moves into aggregation and content licensing. Meanwhile, streaming services are shifting focus from growth to profitability, scaling back on original productions while expanding ad-supported tiers. Local producers remain well-positioned, benefiting from transferable skills across film, TV, and streaming, although scale is increasingly dependent on strong marketing and distribution partnerships.
Additionally, artificial intelligence is emerging as a transformative force, streamlining production workflows and subtitling, while also enabling data-driven commissioning, localized marketing, and dynamic ad monetization. Commenting on the findings, MPA Vice President Stephen Laslocky noted that although platforms and broadcasters face rising costs and weaker ad revenues, content investment in Asia Pacific remains resilient. He emphasized that sports rights in India and Korea are driving much of the near-term growth, while selective bets on premium drama and local storytelling continue to engage audiences in India, Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand. However, he also underlined the shifting dynamics of viewership: TV continues to anchor mass audiences in markets like Thailand and Vietnam, whereas streaming dominates younger demographics. The key challenge, he concluded, is to balance growth with profitability by investing smartly in stories that resonate, adapting to the ad-supported future, and embracing innovations like AI.
In terms of television performance, traditional TV remains resilient in Thailand and Vietnam, where free-to-air broadcasters continue to secure strong reach. India also maintains mass-market impact, particularly through regional-language programming, even though advertising spend is increasingly migrating to digital video. By contrast, Korea and the Philippines are witnessing accelerated erosion in TV ratings as younger audiences move to streaming, while Indonesia has managed to keep TV relatively stable, supported by strong ratings from networks such as RCTI and SCTV. Nevertheless, TV advertising is in steep decline across all measured markets this year.
Streaming consumption, by comparison, continues to surge. India generated 21.5 billion hours of premium video-on-demand (VoD) viewing in Q2 2025, led by JioHotstar with a dominant 56 percent share. Amazon, combining Prime Video and MX Player, followed with 25 percent. In East Asia, both Korea and Indonesia registered 1.2 billion hours each, while the Philippines recorded 0.9 billion, Thailand reached 0.5 billion with 41 million monthly active users, and Malaysia logged 0.4 billion hours. Netflix maintained leadership in most markets, capturing between 50–80 percent of viewing in Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, though its dominance is weaker in Thailand where TrueID competes strongly. Local champions such as Vidio in Indonesia and TrueID in Thailand also play crucial roles, while Viu has established a solid position across Southeast Asia with a mix of Korean dramas, variety formats, local programming, and Chinese content. Korean dramas and Hollywood titles together account for more than half of premium VoD viewing in East Asia, while variety shows are gaining traction in Korea—where reality and variety formats now exceed 25 percent of streaming hours—and in India. Sports continues to be a critical driver of streaming growth in India, with cricket anchoring engagement.
Finally, the theatrical sector shows signs of recovery across the region. India’s box office grew to $1.4 billion in 2024, powered largely by South Indian films. Korea, however, saw theatrical revenues decline by 17 percent to $808 million, though local films retained a strong market share, accounting for 61 percent of box office receipts. Indonesia posted modest growth with $294 million, while the Philippines and Vietnam experienced robust rebounds, with local titles commanding 41 percent and nearly 50 percent of box office revenue, respectively.
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