Sat, 15 Sep 2001

Local cable firm targets Holland

By Luas Samudera

JAKARTA (JP): In a bid to tap into the huge Indonesian-related market in the Netherlands, Indonesian firm PT Candi Pandawa Pratama is to introduce round-the-clock all Indonesian programming cable channel Candi Television Network (CTN).

"We see a great market potential because nearly one million people, still the biggest, most integrated people in our country, are Indonesian related," said Jeroen Smeele, marketing and communication manager of Mediakabel, a Dutch digital network operator which will carry the service.

"CTN is to provide Indonesian people in Holland the channel they want to see," Smeele said.

"We expect to launch the service in November 2001," said CTN CEO Naratama Rukmananda, whose channel will be one of the premium channels in Mediakabel. CTN is now in the process of clearing cable rights for a thousand hours of Indonesian television programs. The acquired programs will later be subtitled into Dutch in CTN's studio here before being shipped to the Netherlands.

Naratama said various segments will be produced such as talk shows, variety shows, documentaries, music, info-tainment, tourism, travel, drama and films.

Smeele claims Mediakabel has a 62 percent market share of about 5.8 million television households in the Netherlands. It carries about 110 channels including pay per view services. The operator also provides channels in Arabic, Turkish and Hindi languages.

Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands for hundreds of years before declaring its independence in 1945. About 45,000 Indonesian people of first generation decent are residing in the western European country. According to CTN, there are some 900,000 people related to Indonesia in the Netherlands and its neighboring countries.

An industry consultant who prefers to remain anonymous said the service will depend a lot on how many subscribers there are.

"Do they have all those people subscribed to the channel?" he asked.

One obvious problem is how to obtain the rights for the program. "You have to pay for the programs, mostly owned by independent producers not television stations. And you have to pay good money for them. You also have to pay for the tape and shipping costs."

Smart move

However, Candi's move is seen by some as a smart move as the cable industry at home is undergoing stagnant growth.

After two years of preparation, Indonesian cable front runner PT Broadband Multimedia (under brand name Kabelvision) has delayed its plan to introduce three local channels: women, kids and sports channels.

"You have to run a local channel if you want to be successful," the consultant said. Besides carrying locally produced programs, local channels may be in the form of imported programs broadcast in an Indonesian-dubbed version.

Kabelvision's subscribers have shown disappointing growth levels in the capital Jakarta and in Surabaya. It claims a total of 200,000 homepassed, but 153,000 of them are wasted. In order to boost subscriber numbers, it has introduced a broadband internet service in addition to more than 50 channels it provides on its regular service. But it does not seem to be helping its performance in general. It has attracted only 47,000 subscribers so far, not even a quarter of its target this year.

Meanwhile, the first Indonesian pay-tv Indovision, subscribers have stayed at around the 30,000 mark over the past two years. The station is still struggling with repaying its debt to the Indonesian Banking Restructuring Agency and to Hong Kong-based STAR TV. The firm is not able to expand its business, a source said, before the problem with debt is resolved.

Another player, Indonusa, is in the same boat. To attract subscribers, it provides internet access in addition to multi- channel services. Indonusa has joined forces with French Alcatel to develop its multimedia businesses and has injected US$200 million earlier this year to provide the service in 10 major cities in Indonesia.

By utilizing the state telecommunication company PT Telkom's facilities such as the Telkom-1 satellite and fiber optic network, Indonusa expects to bring in two million subscribers from various cities in five years. Currently it has around 10,000 subscribers.

The firm's services include a broadband access and multi- channel pay-tv platform.

Indonusa shares are owned by PT Telkom (45 percent), the first commercial free television station RCTI (20 percent), PT Telekomindo (10 percent) and Datakom Asia (25 percent).