Tencent’s Digital Media Marketing Department manager gives speech regarding the collaboration between HBO and Tencen Video (v.qq.com)

Web-TV service, such as Netflix and Hulu Plus, is growing rapidly, which has forced pay-television network HBO to release its own online-streaming services and step further into Asian market: to distribute TV dramas and movies through the Chinese Internet giant’s online video.

Globally, different from Netflix that directly launches its service in foreign countries, HBO licenses its programming to Tencent, a famous investment holding company whose services include social network, mass media, e-commerce and online games.

Its new deal with Tencent hasn’t disclosed the financial details or broadcast schedules. According to Wall Street Journal, HBO’s international business accounts for about one-quarter of the company’s $4.9 billion in annual revenue. And last year, it added 10 million users overseas, which is twice as many as HBO and Cinemas added domestically in the past decade.

Nonetheless, customers outside of the U.S. pay much less money than Americans for HBO’s programs, which, in other words, the company doesn’t generate a lot of revenue from licensing its programming.

Besides, the Chinese government censorship and local competitors – Youku Tudou Inc. and some internet-pirate sites – still make people feel uncertain about HBO’s future in Chinese market. Bloomberg reporter Xin Zhou said that a pay-to-view channel run by China’s state broadcaster CCTV aired a cut version of “Game of Thrones.” To maintain the program quality and satisfy the viewers without provoking the government seem to require a longtime negotiation among different parties.

HBO Go: An online-streaming site that is only available for cable subscribers in the U.S.

Thus, as HBO is shifting its sights on international markets, it’s also ready to create a broadband-only service, which further disrupts the pay-television industry.

In the U.S., since it has to split the revenue with cable distributors, HBO finds it’s getting tougher to profit and dominate the market with current business model. Netflix charges subscribers $7.99 to $11.99 per month, while HBO charges $13 to $15 per month. Although Netflix’s total subscribers were not even half them of HBO, its subscriber revenue inched past that of HBO in the second quarter of 2014: $1.146 billion compared to $1.141 billion for HBO.

Also, HBO didn’t plan to offer its online services to non-pay-television subscribers until Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeffrey Bewkes announced on Oct 16, 2014 that HBO will offer its own online-streaming in 2015. This announcement immediately led TWX stock to soar 8.7 percent.

TWX stock soared 8.7% in just over 30 minutes

The online-streaming service will bypass the cable middleman and deliver the shows directly to the viewers. It aims to adding 10 million broadband-only users who consume video online.

HBO’s series of plans do provide an alternative for cable providers.

L.A. River Bike Path

A $1-billion restoration project, which aims to recreate the ecosystem and develop business spaces adjacent to Los Angeles River, is becoming a gentrification plan.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, on May 28, recommended approval of spending $1.08 billion on creating wetlands, restoring habitat, and building bike trails along 11 miles of the Los Angeles River. This project, also known as Alternative 20,  is a critical part of the L.A. River Revitalization Master Plan that is dedicated to transform the concrete river channel into a comfort, livable environment. Before the funding is pledged, however, real estate and land prices in some places have already risen steeply, which concerns many low-income residents.

According to Zillow.com, the median list price per square foot in Frogtown rose almost 85 percent from 2012 to 2013. And the median home value in Frogtown rose 10.2 percent over the past year to $469,300.

Listing & Sales Price Per Square Foot in Frogtown and Los Angeles in General

Frogtown, whose official name is Elysian Valley, is a tiny, isolated, lip-shaped neighborhood. Blogger Isaac Simpson described this town that “there are no retailers but the streets are packed with yard sales. There are no restaurants but tacos fry in front yard… It’s a community that supports itself in its own way.”

Now this town is about to lose its own serenity. Under the Master Plan, nonprofits, such as Friends of L.A. River is leading the river revitalization: building bike path, and cleaning up the river bed. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a $3.2-million plan to transform Frogtown’s river-adjacent Marsh Park. And luxurious waterfront houses next to the park are midway through construction. The Frogtown Art Walk, an annual arts festival, where thousands of Angelenos show up every year, also helps promote this eco-friendly suburb to the rich.

A colorful 660-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow in Elysian Valley (Frogtown). The property’s asking $499,000.

The rising home prices in the Frogtown raises a question: is it possible for the poor and the rich to co-exist? The answer actually depends on how many jobs and how much wealth the revitalization plan can provide for the local community.

The $1-billion plan, according to a L.A. River Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study conducted by the Army Corps, is estimated to generate 16,833 opportunities in a variety of industries – construction, food services, real estate establishments, and wholesale trade business- and $4.68-billion labor income in total.

Also, city officials said that revamping the entire river could create recreational opportunities, such as kayaking, fishing and bicycling, and attract more than $5 billion in investment over the next 10 to 15 years, according to Los Angeles Times.

However, few officials can tell whether the river will be entirely restored in the next 10 or 15 years. Revamping the entire river, which means to un-pave the concrete banks, and preventing the floods at the same time require a whole transformation in L.A.’s urban form: building parking lots that could absorb rainfall during storm, narrowing streets to reduce runoff, or replacing neighborhoods away from floodplains.

Tujunga/Pacoima Watershed Pojects

Otherwise, the restoration of the entire river might end up like the one in the Tujunga Wash. The Tujunga Wash, according to Grist reporter Christian MiNeil, is one of Los Angeles’ first restoration site, which has a small parallel stream next to the larger paved river channel and surrounded by native vegetation and a cycling path. Melanie Winter, a watershed advocate, said the scope of the Tujunga Wash restoration project was too narrow.

Winter also said that until Los Angeles embraced those broader changes, restoration effort like the one at Tujunga Wash would end up spending more tax money to achieve less.

The billion-dollar proposal requires the federal government and local sources to share equally. According to Post-Periodical, 13 members of Congress representing districts in the Southland called on President Barack Obama on Nov. 24 to include this funding in his 2016 budget.

Thousands and thousands of green glow sticks are waving, the crowd is cheering. Then a blue light gleams in the darkness when a sound of spaceship whooshes up. This reveals the opening of Hatsune Miku live concert in Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles, in October 11, 2014.

On stage, Miku is around 20 feet tall and looks like a young girl with long turquoise bigtails, dressed up in a black skirt and gray thigh-high tights. She is 16 years old according to the data sheet released by Crypton Future Media, Sapporo Japan, while the company launched this program.

The phenomenon may look the same to any concerts you have been to, except for the singer is not real. Hatsune Miku is a virtual character voiced by a singing synthesizer application. But she can move and dance like a real pop star on stage by using projected holograms. [Read more…]

Alcohol has never been seen as essential as the bread and milk for people’s life. But for a long time, alcohol consumption has played an important part in some country’s economy, and in some ways, helped indicate the economic growth, employment issue, and even social problems.

Alcohol has never been seen as essential as the bread and milk for people’s life. But for a long time, alcohol consumption has played an important part in some country’s economy, and in some ways, helped indicate the economic growth, employment issue, and even social problems.

Anton Reed, from Washington and Lee University, used Figure-1 demonstrating a strong correlation (79.5%) between household alcohol consumption and GDP. When GDP decreased and fluctuated afterward, in response, alcohol expenditure also decreases.

Figure-1
1st graph: %change in Income and %change in Alcohol Expenditures
2nd graph: Japan’s Alcohol Expenditure and Average Annual Household Income

And the statistic implies more, when it touches on the drinkers, the consumers. Figure-2 reveals a correspondent increase/decrease between alcohol consumption and income. And the statistical correlation is as high as 96.34%.

Figure-2
1st graph: %change in Income and %change in Alcohol Expenditures
2nd graph: Japan’s Alcohol expenditure and Average Annual Household Income

Similar results showed up in the study commissioned by the European Brewing Sector regarding beer consumption in European countries. An article named It’s a Beer Recession by Jack Ewing illustrated how unemployment rate and the European debt crisis influenced people’s drinking habit. Figure-3 shows that the EU brewing sector suffered from a severe economic downturn from 2008 to 2010, when Europe’s economy fell down under the strike from the U.S. Great Recession. People became pessimistic of European economy, and both government revenues as well as employment in brewing sector fell dramatically.

Figure-3 Developments in the Impact of the EU brewing sector 2008-2012

Along with that, in Figure-4, beer consumption decreased by nearly 9%, and the value of beer market and production also responded in the same way.

Figure-4 Developments in the EU brewing sector 2008-2012

Ewing pointed out that “…the employment in the beer industry fell by 12 percent, or 260,000 jobs, the study said…Job losses can exacerbate the debt crisis because unemployed people typically collect benefits rather than pay taxes. When beer consumption declines, governments also collect less sales tax on beer sales.”

On top of Japan and European countries, China, considering its successful and tremendous alcohol market, also showed a trace of the relationship between alcohol consumption and economic growth. According to Consumer Trends: Wine, Beer and Spirits in China released by Manitoba government, off-trade* sales make up 80% of spirit sales in China, and the total expenditure increased by 7%. At the same time, the volume of on-trade spirits decreased from 2008 to 2009, because of reduced expenditure on entertainment during hard economic times.

Figure-5 Beer consumption in the world (billion liters), 1961-2007

Also, Felix Salmon from Reuters showed Figure-5 demonstrating a boost of beer consumption in China, as the broken line tilts up after 1977. Comparing beer consumption after 1995 with Figure-6, the statistic reveals a corespondent increase in both values. Salmon explained that, “what we’re seeing here is largely the China effect — and, more generally, a world where poor people, once they reach a certain minimum income, start hitting the hops.”

Figure-6 China’s Minimum Wages in Shanghai and Beijing

Thus, from the above cases, we may see that once the country is in recession, the unemployment rate goes up, then people’s drinking money shrinks, then the alcohol consumption decreases. So if people want to know how a country’s economy looks like, they may take a look at its alcohol market, unless it doesn’t have a strong culture of drinking.

For an endnote, what’s interesting but opposite to the alcohol index is that, in the U.S., alcohol consumption goes up even when the economy goes down. Michael French from University of Miami found that binge drinking increased with a rise in the state-level unemployment rate. Driving while intoxicated and alcohol abuse and dependence also increased for both genders and across ethnic groups. This has been said that alcohol index is not enough for us to peep into one country’s economy.

*On-trade = alcoholic beverages sold in restaurants, bars etc.
 Off-trade = alcoholic beverages sold in retail stores