Pay TV operators feeling good for 2009 despite adverse global economic conditions

The Jakarta Post, JAKARTA | Fri, 01/30/2009 11:44 AM  

Pay TV operators are confident they can increase their subscribers by between 65 to 70 percent this year to push total users to over 1 million, regardless of the global financial crisis, an industry player say. 

The optimism comes from the fact that only about 7 percent of  the potential market has been penetrated, according to pay TV subscriber operator Indovision corporate secretary Arya Mahendra Sinulingga.

“The potential market for the industry is around 10 million users, while only 700,000 of them have subscribed to pay TV. It shows that there is still a lot of market share to fight for,” Arya  said.

With the prospect of increasing the number of subscribers by 65 percent, there would be at least 1.1 million subscribers that could  be registered by the end of 2009. 

With an average fees of Rp 140,000 (US$14) per subscribers per month, the total revenue projected is around Rp 1.87 trillion.

However, the projected number of official subscribers is still smaller than those subscribing to “illegal operators.”

According to Arya, illegal operators usually subscribe to one of the pay TV industry official operator services and then re-distribute the broadcast content for cheaper fees using illegal connection wires and analog signals.

“Based on our investigations, there are around one million subscribers to illegal operators, and they are clearly visible with their cable connections on their roof-tops,”

“There are government regulations for these violations, but in practice, the authorities have yet to make enough efforts to punish the illegal operators,” he added.

Sinulinga said that another challenge the industry would face during the coming year would be the unclear anti-monopoly broadcasting regulations.

The industry saw similar  growth in subscribers from 2007 to 2008, growing from 450,000 subscribers to 700,000 in one year.

This growth was the largest in the Asian pay TV industry scene, according to the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA).

Six major companies — Indovision, First Media, IM2, Aura, Telkom Vision and Oke Vision — are participating in the country’s pay TV industry, with Indovision having the largest market share of around 480,000 subscribers (68 percent).  (hdt)