Senate Democrats secured enough votes Monday to filibuster the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, making it all but certain that Republicans will change the rules of the chamber to ensure his confirmation later this week.

Democratic opposition to Gorsuch has been building for days, and four more senators announced Monday that they would vote against him. That gives Democrats the requisite 41 senators to block a procedural vote and compel President Trump and Republicans either to withdraw Gorsuch’s nomination or to change Senate rules to eliminate the 60-vote requirement.

“This is a new low,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in response to Democratic opposition. But he also reiterated his vow that Gorsuch will be confirmed by Friday despite the likelihood of a filibuster. That’s because McConnell is prepared to invoke what is known as the “nuclear option” — a change in rules to allow ­Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority vote. With 52 seats, Republicans would then have enough votes to secure Trump’s first selection for the high court.

The procedural vote known as cloture has long set the Senate apart from the House of Representatives — and it has long been hailed by members of the upper chamber for requiring bipartisan cooperation, and forcing consensus, on major legislation or confirmation votes.

If that step is eliminated, the Senate is “headed to a world where you don’t need one person from the other side to pick a judge,” warned Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). “And what does that mean? That means the ­judges are going to be more ideological, not less. It means that every Senate seat is going to be a referendum on the Supreme Court. . . . The damage done to the Senate is going to be real.”

McConnell won’t be the first to go nuclear, however. Now-retired Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) first invoked the option in 2013 when he was majority leader, allowing non-Supreme Court presidential appointments to be confirmed with a simple majority.

And McConnell will probably face more pressure to eliminate the 60-vote requirement in other cases — on budget bills, for instance, or on any legislation at all. If that happens, the need for bipartisan cooperation could disappear entirely from the Senate.

Graham’s comments came as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to refer Gorsuch’s nomination to the full Senate, which is expected to begin debating the pick Tuesday. The procedural step that Democrats have the votes to block is expected by Thursday, but if McConnell at that point seeks a rules change — which would succeed with a simple majority — it would start the clock for a final confirmation vote Friday.

[How many votes Democrats need to block Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination]

The outcome of the Judiciary Committee’s vote was never in doubt — Republicans hold a majority of seats on the panel, and Gorsuch was approved on a ­party-line vote. But the testy hearing foreshadowed what is likely to be a combative floor debate over the merits of Trump’s selection and the way both parties have behaved during years of feuding over the makeup of the federal court system.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) indicated Monday that they would oppose Gorsuch and vote against cloture — the motion to end a filibuster that is required to hold an up-or-down confirmation vote.

During an hours-long committee hearing, Leahy criticized Gorsuch’s answers during his marathon confirmation hearing as “excruciatingly evasive.” He said that a GOP move to end filibusters of Supreme Court nominees would damage the Senate, but he argued that he had to vote his conscience, even if it pushes Republicans to change the rules.

Judge Neil Gorsuch prepares to testify during the third day of his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

“I cannot vote solely to protect an institution when the rights of hard-working Americans are at risk,” he said, “because I fear that the Senate I would be defending no longer exists.”

[Home stretch for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee could forever alter the Senate]

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) shot back, blaming Democrats for years of partisan bickering over judicial nominees that he said started when President George W. Bush made several nominations for federal court vacancies.

“I disagree with those who somehow say this is the end of the Senate as we know it,” Cornyn said. “This is a restoration of the status quo ante before our Democratic colleagues directed this artificial 60-vote requirement.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) dismissed Republican attempts to blame Democrats for the change.

“I’m sure we could trace it all the way back to the Hamilton-Burr duel,” he quipped.

“The answer isn’t to change the rules,” Schumer added. “The answer is to change the nominee.”

In a sign that there is almost no hope of ending the impasse without a rules change, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — who helped quell previous fights about judicial nominees — said that this time, he is standing with fellow Republicans.

“I have to. I have no choice,” he told reporters. He said he would have to vote for the change “because we need to confirm Gorsuch.”

McCain has been part of fruitless attempts to reach a bipartisan agreement in recent days, including consultations with Coons and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) late last week. McCain told reporters that he was part of a similar conversation Monday, but he did not elaborate.

Manchin is one of three moderate Democrats who plan to vote for Gorsuch, and with Republicans, to end the filibuster. Manchin and the other two moderates, Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), have been the focus of a $10 million ad campaign by the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, which is pressuring Democrats facing reelection next year in states that Trump won in November to vote for Gorsuch.

Meanwhile, Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) on Monday became the fourth Democrat to say he would join Republicans in trying to end the filibuster. But in a sign of the incredible political pressure he faces as he votes on a nominee from his home state, Bennet did not say whether he plans to support or oppose Gorsuch. He has also faced pressure from JCN to back Gorsuch. So far, he is the only Democratic senator to oppose the filibuster who is not up for reelection in 2018.

[Democrats just took the filibuster off life support]

Carrie Severino, JCN’s chief counsel and policy director, said Monday that in the face of “unprecedented obstruction by Democrats, Republicans now have no choice but to invoke the ‘constitutional option’ ” — the nuclear option — to confirm Gorsuch.

Gorsuch was nominated by Trump on Jan. 31 and spent weeks privately meeting with senators and preparing for his confirmation hearings. He was questioned by the Judiciary Committee last month for almost 20 hours over three days, answering nearly 1,200 questions and later sending about 70 pages of answers to written follow-up questions, according to a team of White House officials assisting with his nomination.

As of Friday, Gorsuch had met with 78 senators — all but some of the most conservative and liberal lawmakers, whose votes are likely to fall along party lines. But three first-term Democratic senators, Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), complained that they were unable to get a face-to-face meeting with the nominee or were not offered the opportunity.

The two big, misleading statements senators can’t stop making in the Neil Gorsuch battle

This week’s anticipated change in Senate procedure dates to 2013, when Democrats, angered by Republican opposition to then-President Obama’s nominees voted to end filibusters of executive branch and lower-court nominees. Republicans warned then that there might one day be retribution.

“Changing the rules is almost inevitable; it’s only a question of when,” said Norm Ornstein, a longtime congressional expert and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Ornstein warned that with Republicans set to extend the filibuster ban to Supreme Court nominees, they may soon face pressure to end filibusters of legislation to keep major health-care and tax reform bills passed by the GOP-led House from stalling in the more closely divided Senate.

McConnell “will resist the change in some cases because it’s in his interest not only when he’s in the minority again but also to be able to rely on Democrats when the House sends you crazy things,” Ornstein said. “And because it’s not clear they have the 51 votes necessary to change the rules for filibusters on legislation.”

But McConnell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “I don’t think the legislative filibuster is in danger.”

Schumer, appearing on the same program, agreed. “I don’t think there’s any thirst to change the legislative rules,” he said. “Most Democrats and most Republicans have served in both the minority and majority and know what it means.”

Amber Phillips contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Bangladesh is the third-largest video gaming market in South Asia and 61st globally in a ranking of 100 countries thanks to robust growth of internet users and smartphone penetration.

The country’s video gaming market is worth about $62.22 million or nearly Tk 500 crore a year, according to Newzoo, a leading provider of market intelligence of global games, e-sports, and mobile markets.

In South Asia, Bangladesh lags behind India and Pakistan but is ahead of Sri Lanka. Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan could not grab a place in the top 100.

The report, published for the first time recently, was based on data available up to December last year. Newzoo officials told The Daily Star that they collected information from various sources in respective country as well as global market.

India was ranked 19th with a market size of $521.11 million while Pakistan was placed on 53rd position with its gaming market valuing at $109.05 million. Sri Lanka’s market is valued at $34.52 million.

“Our revenue estimates are calculated in a model using a variety of inputs, such as quarterly results from public and private companies, transactional of different application store’s data, our consumer research outcomes from 27 countries, population data, internet penetration rates and economic data,” said Cleo Sardelis, marketing and communications manager of Newzoo.

According to the report, there were 26.46 million internet users in Bangladesh in 2016, meaning every consumer spent Tk 188 for playing games in the same year on an average.

However, the total number of internet connections stood at about 66.62 million at the end of last year, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

Video games developers said although there is no official study on the size of games market in Bangladesh, the new figure seems reliable.

Ashraf Abir, managing director of MCC Ltd, a leading mobile app and games developer, said the games market accounts for 10 percent of the Tk 8,000 crore ICT market in Bangladesh.

“Newzoo is a renowned research firm in this segment and we can rely on its study,” said Abir.

Developers also say the gaming market is dominated by the free games segment, which also helps expand the market’s total revenue as the ad market is also linked to it. 

Only 5,000 to 10,000 gamers purchase video games, according to SM Mahabub Alam, managing director of MassiveStar Studio Ltd, the country’s first commercial video game developer. “Though 90 percent people want free games, it is valuable from advertisement perspective.”

Games developers say the gaming market is growing very fast keeping pace with the robust growth of internet users and smartphone penetration.

Last year the country’s total internet connections went up by 23.10 percent, while smartphone imports shot up 45.72 percent to 8.2 million units.

Mustafa Jabbar, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, said the gaming market is growing fast in terms of revenue as the number of gamers is increasing every day.

“But we are lagging behind because our game developers don’t come forward with unique ideas. Most ideas are copied. This is frustrating,” said Jabbar.

If local developers fail to grab the local market then it will be occupied by international companies, he said.

The government has undertaken a project worth Tk 281.97 crore for games development. The project will be implemented by next year and targets to grab a share of the $100 billion global games market.

China secured the top position in the Newzoo ranking with $24.27 billion gaming market and it has 746.94 million internet users. Second-placed US has a gaming market of $23.46 billion with 250.82 million internet users.

Japan ($12.43 billion), Germany ($4.10 billion) and South Korea ($4.05 billion) rounded up the top six markets.

 

It’s the prefix of the season—super. Add it to any word you can think of. And Nitesh Kripalani, country head of Amazon Prime Video, applies it with the felicity of any youthful startup chief executive out there: the customer segment for online video is ‘super-small’ in India. But Amazon’s local customers are ‘super-interested’ in video. Data charges are ‘super-important’ for them. So Amazon, he says, is making sure data consumption for video is ‘superlow’ while ensuring visual quality is ‘super-high’.

It’s hard to miss when Kripalani, in his late 30s, can go super six times in a five-minute span. But what’s behind etailer Amazon’s interest in online video—that too, a paid-subscription service— when its old nemesis Google’s YouTube pretty much built the advertising-supported market in India click by click?

The answer calls for a perspective of over-the-top (OTT) video on connected devices (laptop, smartphones, tablets, and smart televisions) in the past 15 months, against the incumbent cable and satellite television (TV) market in India.

The latter was a formidable Rs 47,500-crore market in fiscal year 2015, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). In contrast, OTT video is less than 20% of the Rs 7,300-crore digital advertising spends in 2016 (an estimate by advertising media company GroupM). Yet, this segment with few revenue shoots is seen as the next big thing in a market ruled by prepaid mobile customers.

The Indian Viewer
Internet-video services like Hotstar, Netflix or Amazon Prime are called ‘over-thetop’ because they don’t ride on traditional broadcasting or single-telecom networks. Thanks to net neutrality, OTT video doesn’t require any affiliation with any operator.

In 2011, the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act pushed local cable operators to digitise networks—basically organise the market (see ‘TV Market Gets Organised’). Call this traditional TV, where a single cable or satellite TV subscription is consumed by a household whose industry average is five viewers. Even with a conservative estimate of four persons per household, this is more than 700 million viewers.

In comparison, OTT video growth has been tangential to traditional TV market, thanks to price competition among smartphone brands, as well as between telecom operators after Reliance Jio’s largesse to unveil 4G networks. In 15 months, the online segment for video rose from 66 million unique users in 2015 to more than 80 million in end 2016.

It’s not the 15% growth that is exciting broadcasting networks (Star Networks, Tata Sky), content owners (Yash Raj Films, Balaji Telefilms) and telcos (Vodafone, Airtel) to push for OTT. It is the behavioural or habit shift that caught their eye.

“When distribution becomes free because of the internet to directly access consumers, then competition keeps the market honest,” says a digital media entrepreneur. “The distribution (cable) guy is not king—consumer is actually king.” “In absolute terms, the 80-million number is significant,” says Vidya S Nath, director, digital media, Frost Sullivan, adding that it is the population of European nations like France or Germany, where traditional cable networks are under threat. “We have got to this scale without adequate broadband infrastructure support,” she adds. The icing on the cake: “These are unique viewers, each of whom is present on one or more platforms.” Services led by data analytics of unique viewer habits make for more sharply-targeted advertisements – the raison d’etre of Google or even Hotstar, the OTT brand of Star Networks which has more than 70 million mobile-device installations.

Of the 80 million online viewers in India, the paid-subscriber base was at a minuscule 2 million last year. There is a 40% drop expected after promotional offers expire on services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Currently, Frost Sullivan pegs industry revenue from paid subscriptions at $8.5 million. That’s why it raises the intriguing question: What’s Amazon Prime thinking by bringing video as a paid-service when everybody else is fighting for the ad rupee?

A digital-media industry source, who has worked with content owners and telecom operators for more than a decade, notes this has to do with Amazon’s global strategy of high engagement on its platform. Just like in the US, Amazon is giving a lot more value for Prime than just providing video. “Video is clubbed with instant e-commerce delivery (for Rs 499 per year). You don’t pay extra for faster deliveries,” he says. Further, video helps Amazon because consumers keep returning to the platform, even when they are not shopping online for products. “For Amazon, investing in Prime Video is like investing in customer retention.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos no less spelt it out in the 2015 shareholder letter, justifying large spends on creating original video content a la Netflix. “(Video) shows are great for customers and they feed the Prime flywheel – members who watch Prime Video are more likely to convert from free trial to a paid membership and to renew annual subscriptions. … Prime has become an all-you-caneat, physical-digital hybrid that members love.” Amazon’s video play, which is less than four months old, cannot be seen in isolation of its overall digital ambitions, even in India.

Hunger Games
The first users of internet in the US were for paid-utilities like shopping (eBay, Amazon) and internet-enabled home services, apart from email. But in India’s next wave of growth, online users will consume video before buying products online. That’s the bet. “The top three app growth categories in India are music, media and entertainment,” says Pratik Poddar, vice-president at Nexus Venture Partners, a venture-capital (VC) firm in Mumbai. “People are hungry for content and we are seeing significant behaviour change where many users are spending more than 15 minutes a day on new content destination companies.”

If Amazon can ensure customer stickiness after getting new users from its OTT service, it can enhance their ecommerce business in the next wave of growth. For this, Prime Video has tied up with mobile operator Vodafone (and is exploring other such partnerships) to tap into new prepaid mobile customers. Until then, Amazon is focusing on increasing customer engagement on Prime, and converting Amazon in users to Prime subscribers.

Google and Facebook have done this naturally beyond core search and social network businesses, respectively. Until 2015-end, a lion’s share of the OTT market belonged to YouTube, part of the Google arsenal. And WhatsApp, a Facebook company, is emerging as a dominant channel for videos to go viral apart from the parent company’s video ambitions.

“Customers here are watching digital content for free, either via an advertising-supported video service, or because pirated video services are still high,” Kripalani explains. “But Amazon customers are super-interested in video. They are engaging with the service, our content selection, which is making Prime a high-growth product. It is reflecting in our consumption and sign-up figures.”

In the US, the $136-billion online retail giant has added Reading (Kindle-based), Twitch (gaming), Audible Channels (audio content), and Photo Family Vault as new Primeexclusive digital benefits last year. Stratecherry, a subscription-based newsletter featuring analysis of tech and media news, quoted a Consumer Intelligent Research Partners estimate in March 2016 that Amazon has 54 million Prime members, “which at $99/member would generate $5.3 billion in revenue” globally. Like in India, Prime Video is available at no extra cost to Amazon Prime members in Belgium, Canada, France, Italy and Spain.

The OTT fight between YouTube, Netflix and Amazon has been more than a wake-up call for broadcasters, telecom operators and content creators who are rejigging plans for the OTT consumer.

“They have to move,” says Brian Morris, general manager of global media and entertainment services at Tata Communications. “If they want to stay competitive, and provide reach to mobile consumers, OTT is not an option. It is a requirement.”

Launched in February 2015, Hotstar has stood out for its timing and heavy investment in marketing the brand whose live sports events usher in masses of users. “The biggest gain in OTT is from Indian Premier League T20 Cricket, which is why Hotstar is what it is,” Nath says. A sports series guarantees mobile-video platforms of 5-10 million users depending on the targeted geography.

Content Wins
OTT video means customers increase their data consumption, and mobile operators will see average revenue per user go up. Content owners too can choose from a range of platforms. They are in the spotlight. Only Much Louder (OML), which manages shows for comedy and live events for brands like All India Bakchod (AIB), are working with two OTT companies, Hotstar and Amazon Prime.

“The marketing heavy-lifting by these guys like what Hotstar is doing for On Air With AIB and what Amazon has been doing with comedy specials (14 stand-up comedy episodes of an hour each) has definitely got us new fans,” says Ajay Nair, director of OML. “With Amazon Prime or Hotstar, I know the subscriber is going to spend time there.”

The battle is on for content, as Netflix alone added 600 hours of original programming – apart from licensed TV shows and movies – to its year-old service here. In absolute numbers, online video advertising dominates subscription figures, but that is not sustainable as Vice Media, a digital media company headquartered in New York discovered in North America. (Times Group which publishes The Economic Times has a partnership with Vice.)

CEO Shane Smith says advertising cannot be a long-term solution with Google and Facebook having four-fifths of that pie. “We have an entire generation which has not seen advertisement because of ad-blocking, iTunes and Netflix,” he noted. Morris of Tata Communications says the revenue model has not been discovered yet anywhere around the world. On that front, Amazon Prime knows there is no such thing as a free lunch. It is a risky gambit for OTT in India, but smart for its consolidated plans.

Wendy Clark, the CEO of DDB North America, took part in a panel session on mobility and content at a March 28 event co-sponsored by Adweek and Bloomberg Media called “Marketing in an Interruptive World.” After her session with fellow marketers and Bloomberg’s U.S. director of research and senior media analyst Paul Sweeney was over, Clark shared her thoughts about video with Adweek.

“No consumer simply uses one medium,” Clark told Adweek. “They lead an integrated life and use integrated media.”

For more, watch the video above. Here’s more about the Adweek-Bloomberg breakfast event.