Event Asia Pacific Pay TV Operators Summit (APOS)
Venue Ayana Resort and Spa, Bali
Organiser Media Partners Asia Limited (MPA)
Delegates 250
Date May 6-7




The brief
Media Partners Asia Limited (MPA) is an independent media research and publishing company based in Hong Kong.

The company wanted to bring together more than 30 of Asia Pacific’s leading pay TV operators for this inaugural summit to focus on strategic opportunities in the region.

As it was the first event of its kind, MPA’s objective was to establish the event as a leading annual attraction for Asian media operators.

Challenges
The dates for APOS fell within Japan’s Golden Week holiday, which is traditionally a full-occupancy period for Ayana. However, Ayana’s management team worked with MPA to meet their accommodation needs for the event.

“Firstly 50 per cent of the guestrooms we anticipated we would need were made available to us and then, as demand increased, 75 per cent of the rooms we needed were made available,” says Rupert Wilkinson, executive director of MPA.

One of MPA’s media clients also requested their brand of service be provided at Ayana. “Politically it could have been a showstopper,” says Wilkinson. “But Ayana demonstrated complete commitment by enabling the services to be swapped."

Execution
The event attracted operators from Australia to Vietnam, serving a combined subscriber base of 40 million pay television and broadband customers across Asia Pacific.

The summit programme featured executive speakers from 16 leading regional owners, distributors and investors.

More than 250 delegates from ten countries attended the summit, which featured speakers from 30 platforms discussing strategic issues in distribution, content, technology, advertising and government policy in local markets and the region.

At the Fox gala dinner on the opening night, guests were entertained by performances from American Idol finalist Allison Iraheta and a comedy skit by National Geographic explorer Mireya Mayor, before dining on a menu of baked red snapper and vanilla panna cotta.

The BBC-sponsored the lunch on the second day at Padi restaurant, with a menu featuring dishes inspired by BBC celebrity chefs like Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay, and the popular television series Masterchef.

Comment
MPA’s Wilkinson says: “For this historic summit, our venue of choice had to outperform our highest expectations. We could not have hoped for more. APOS is now truly established as the industry event of choice for the region’s leading minds in Asia media and we can’t wait to go back to Ayana next year.”