Netflix Tools Up in SE Asia

FILE PHOTO: A smartphone with the Netflix logo is seen on a keyboard in front of displayed "Streaming service" words in this illustration taken March 24, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File photo
FILE PHOTO: A smartphone with the Netflix logo is seen on a keyboard in front of displayed "Streaming service" words in this illustration taken March 24, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File photo
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Netflix Tools Up in SE Asia

FILE PHOTO: A smartphone with the Netflix logo is seen on a keyboard in front of displayed "Streaming service" words in this illustration taken March 24, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File photo
FILE PHOTO: A smartphone with the Netflix logo is seen on a keyboard in front of displayed "Streaming service" words in this illustration taken March 24, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File photo

US streaming giant Netflix is ramping up its mobile-only subscription plans in Southeast Asia and expanding local content, senior executives told Reuters, just as arch-rival Disney arrives in the fast-growing market.

The world's biggest video streaming platform by paid customers, Netflix told Reuters more than a million of its nearly 200 million subscribers around the world are in Southeast Asia, home to around 655 million people. But the market is ripe for rapid growth, analysts say, with the Disney+ Hotstar launch in Indonesia next month set to become a key battleground.

"What we see in Southeast Asia is that it's a very mobile-centric market", Netflix director for product innovation Ajay Arora told Reuters in a recent interview. That's led the company to push cheaper mobile plans and adapt its product to fit lower-end smartphones, Arora said.

Southeast Asia is estimated to have generated $600 million in overall subscription music and video revenue in 2019, according to a study by Google, Temasek Holdings and Bain & Co - but that's set to explode to an annual $3 billion by 2025, the study said.

Starting with India in August 2019, Netflix has now launched mobile-only plans in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia - all priced at below $5 a month. That's a departure for Netflix, which has held firm on pricing in Western markets.

Repeated coronavirus lockdowns across Southeast Asia have also increased the appetite for content streaming at home across the region.

A Netflix spokeswoman told Reuters that the firm "has well over 1 million subscribers in multiple Southeast Asian countries", but declined to provide details.

Consultancy Media Partners Asia estimates that Southeast Asia video streaming service subscribers will reach 14.7 million in all by the end of 2020.

Netflix executive Arora said his firm is also working to expand its payment options in countries with low credit and debit card penetration. In markets like the Philippines, subscribers can pay for Netflix through their mobile telephone plans, or by purchasing prepaid Netflix cards at convenience stores.

The company faces competition in the region not just from Disney+, a distant, but ambitious, global no. 2 in the industry.

Other regional rivals include Hong Kong video service Viu, popular for its Korean dramas, as well as Chinese tech giant Tencent's WeTV, which in June bought the assets of Malaysian streaming platform Iflix.

Disney+ is currently in the middle of a hiring spree across the region and is expected to launch broadly in the coming months jointly with its Indian streaming platform Hotstar.

Disney's family and superhero movies have proven consistent hits in Southeast Asia.



‘The Osbournes’ Changed Ozzy’s Image from Grisly to Cuddly, and Changed Reality TV 

Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
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‘The Osbournes’ Changed Ozzy’s Image from Grisly to Cuddly, and Changed Reality TV 

Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
Metal-rock star Ozzy Osbourne holds a replica of his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as he poses with his family during a ceremony on April 12, 2002, in Los Angeles. Pictured with Osbourne, from left, are Aimee, Sharon, Kelly, Jack and Louis. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

There was Ozzy before "The Osbournes" and Ozzy after "The Osbournes."

For much of his life, the Black Sabbath founder and legendary heavy metal frontman who died at 76 on Tuesday was known to much of the public as a dark purveyor of deeds.

Wild stories followed him. Clergy condemned him. Parents sued him.

But with the debut of his family reality show on MTV, the world learned what those who'd been paying closer attention already knew: Ozzy Osbourne was soft and fuzzy under the darkness.

During its relatively short run from 2002 to 2005, "The Osbournes" became a runaway hit and made stars of his wife Sharon and kids Jack and Kelly. But more than that, it made a star of the domesticated version of Ozzy Osbourne, and in the process changed reality TV.

In 2025, when virtually every variety of celebrity has had a reality show, it's hard to see what a novelty the series was. MTV sold it as television's first "reality sitcom."

"Just the idea of the Black Sabbath founder, who will forever be known for biting the head off a bat during a 1982 concert, as a family man seems strange," Associated Press Media Writer David Bauder wrote on the eve of "The Osbournes" premiere. But on the show, Osbourne was "sweetly funny — and under everything a lot like the put-upon dads you’ve been seeing in television sitcoms for generations."

Danny Deraney, a publicist who worked with Osbourne and was a lifelong fan, said of the show, "You saw some guy who was curious. You saw some guy who was being funny. You just saw pretty much the real thing."

"He’s not the guy that everyone associates with the ‘Prince of Darkness’ and all this craziness," Deraney said. "And people loved him. He became so affable to so many people because of that show. As metal fans, we knew it. We knew that’s who he was. But now everyone knew."

Reality shows at the time, especially the popular competition shows like "Survivor," thrived on heightened circumstances. For "The Osbournes," no stakes were too low.

They sat on the couch. They ate dinner. The now-sober Ozzy sipped Diet Cokes, and urged his kids not to indulge in alcohol or drugs when they went out. He struggled to find the History Channel on his satellite TV. They feuded with the neighbors because, of all things, their loud music was driving the Osbournes crazy.

"You were seeing this really fascinating, appealing, bizarre tension between the public persona of a celebrity and their mundane experiences at home," said Kathryn VanArendonk, a critic for Vulture and New York Magazine.

The sitcom tone was apparent from its first moments.

"You turn on this show and you get this like little jazzy cover theme song of the song ‘Crazy Train,’ and there’s all these bright colors and fancy editing, and we just got to see this like totally 180-degree different side of Ozzy which was just surprising and incredible to watch," said Nick Caruso, staff editor at TVLine.

Like family sitcoms, the affection its leads clearly had for each other was essential to its appeal.

"For some reason, we kind of just fell in love with them the same way that we grew to love Ozzy and Sharon as like a marital unit," Caruso said.

What was maybe strangest about the show was how not-strange it felt. The two Ozzies seemed seamless rather than contradictory.

"You’re realizing that these things are personas and that all personas are these like elaborate complex mosaics of like who a person is," VanArendonk said.

"The Osbournes" had both an immediate and a long-term affect on the genre.

Both Caruso and VanArendonk said shows like "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," which followed then-pop stars Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey after they married, was clearly a descendant.

And countless other shows felt its influence, from "The Kardashians" to "The Baldwins" — the recently debuted reality series on Alec Baldwin, his wife Hilaria and their seven kids.

"'The Baldwins’ as a reality show is explicitly modeled on ‘The Osbournes,’ VanArendonk said. "It’s like you have these famous people and now you get to see what their home lives are like, what they are like as parents, what they’re eating, what they are taking on with them on vacation, who their pets are, and they are these sort of cuddly, warm, eccentric figures."