This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 26, 2015.

KUALA LUMPUR: Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd’s chief operating officer Henry Tan Poh Hock said whoever claimed television is a dying medium was “talking nonsense” — and he had the statistics to back it up.

In his presentation titled “Are you ready for the TV Renaissance? TV is bigger than ever. Better storytelling. Stronger cast. Bigger following”, Tan said the broadcasting industry is undergoing a shift where content is now liberated from the confines of immobile medium and fixed schedules.

“Nobody watches television. People watch content; it’s just that back then, content was bound to a static medium,” he said, before adding that content has now outgrown the television set and is now available on mobile devices.

While there have been arguments that social media has distracted consumers away from television, Tan said it instead becomes a platform for people to discuss about television content online and spurring interest among others to check out the shows. According to his presentation, the 2014 Fifa World Cup’s digital viewership in Malaysia almost doubled to 3.6 million from the previous edition. On television, the number grew to 8.4 million from the 6.9 million garnered by the 2010 World Cup — eventually becoming the most-watched World Cup in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, he said that comedy has become the prevalent genre in Malaysia, especially among the Malay audience. Maharaja Lawak Mega, a reality contest where the audience vote for their favourite comedians, saw its viewership jump 95% to 5.9 million in its 2014 edition, from two years prior. The digital views, however, took the cake. Between 2012 and 2014, there was a 2,033% spike in viewers who watched Maharaja Lawak Mega’s full episodes or short video clips, according to Tan.

He said successful media companies have been able to “reinvent” themselves to adapt to the current viewing landscape. Using the example of Time Warner Inc’s CNN, Tan said the 24-hour news channel has made itself “more relevant than ever” by embracing social media. “When CNN came (in 1980), it figured out that the prime time for news was in the evening. But now people can go to its website while taking a break from work and during lunchtime. And then when they get back home, they’ll watch CNN in the evening, and they can go to their tablets to check the news again before they go to bed.”

He also pointed out that broadcasting companies’ content budgets are at their highest to suit different audiences. Thus, he urged marketers and media buyers to “treat content with respect”, as each show is a brand that caters to different audiences. “Advertising piggybacks on the quality of the content,” Tan added.

Tan was speaking at the 11th Malaysian Media Conference, organised by Marketing magazine.