Asian broadcasters urged to united to face the West

JAKARTA (JP): A senior business executive warned yesterday that broadcasting companies in Asia may lose business in the region if they fail to cooperate with each other to compete against western broadcasters.

"We need to get together and agree that innovation and meeting customer demands are the right ways to go. This will help Asia communicate and keep the region on an equal footing with our global competition," Peter Gontha of the Bimantara group told a three-day seminar here on "Open Skies Policy: Towards an Open Society, the Challenge of Public Broadcasting in Asia."

The seminar, which will end today, is organized by the Indonesian Institute for Press Studies, the unrecognized Alliance of Independent Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists.

Gontha, who is also the top executive of private pay television provider PT Matahari Lintas Cakrawala, stressed that Asia should urgently employ flexibility to compete on a global basis, and that working together is necessary to serve the needs among the firms.

He said that Asian broadcasting firms, for example, must provide interconnection and access to the existing telephone cable network and satellite technology.

Gontha, who controls Indovision -- one of Asia's largest digital satellite television operators -- reminded seminar participants that if the Asian firms miss the opportunity for cooperation, they will have to follow the giant businesses from the West.

He said that recently, the world's largest provider of consumer online services, America Online (AOL), announced the establishment of a joint venture company with Mitsui of Japan, one of the world's international trading companies, and Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), publisher of Japan's leading business newspaper.

"The joint venture company, owned 50 percent by AOL, 40 percent by Mitsui and 10 percent by Nikkei, aims to offer an interactive consumer service in Japan with a broad range of localized Japanese language content. This means that the western world is establishing itself in this part of the world, notably Japan," Gontha said.

He said that Asia's open skies make it easy for any global competitor to come into the market. "They have the advantage of the name and recognition in other markets: something local media/broadcasters do not enjoy." (icn)