More players to liven up the TV industry

More players to liven up the TV industry

By Gatot

JAKARTA (JP): In Indonesia, privatization of television has
been rapid since 1989, when the first private pay-TV service was
introduced.

There are now six private channels (RCTI, SCTV, TPI, Indosiar,
ANteve and MetroTV) and one government channel (TVRI).

Metro TV, the newcomer, which made its debut as the country's
first round-the-clock news channel on Nov. 25 last year, was one
of five new TV stations granted an operating license by the
government in 1998.

So far, the other four players have yet to disclose plans on
how they are going to liven up the broadcasting competition. But
it is believed that one or two of them would go on air this year
or next year at the latest.

Indonesian TV broadcasters operate at the UHF channel using
PAL system.

PAL TV broadcasters in Indonesia use VHF and UHF radio waves
as audio video signal carriers when transmitting to any TV VHF
which has 11 channels in the 47 MHz - 230 MHz range. TVRI Pusat
Jakarta is located at channel 6 at the 182.25 - 187,75 MHz range.

In this country, audio carrier signals of every broadcaster
are modulated by an audio carrier, which is 5,5 MHz higher than
video carrier frequency signals.

RCTI, for instance, located at channel 43, has a video carrier
signal of frequency 647,25 MHz and its audio carrier frequency is
652,75 MHz.

Frequencies at Indostar, a five-transponder bent-pipe
satellite for Indonesian TV broadcasting, also caters for TV
broadcasting in Asia.

Using X-band uplinks and S-band downlinks, Indostar is Orbital
Sciences Corporation's (OSC) first GEO and its largest commercial
project.

OSC, which recently acquired CTA Space Systems, is known
primarily as a maker of one-of-a-kind small satellites for DOD
and NASA.

Indonesia will need to construct and launch at least two new
satellites before the end of the decade to replace Palapa B2R and
Palapa B4, which will soon reach the end of their mission
lifetimes.

So we will just have to wait for the new players, namely PRTV,
Global TV, Duta Visual TV and Transformasi TV to come.