New Indonesian TV stations: To be or not to be

New Indonesian TV stations: To be or not to be

By Antariksawan Jusuf

JAKARTA (JP): On the Indonesian television landscape, the talk
of the town is whether the five new free television licensees are
ever going to hit the air at all. If yes, the next question is
whether they will survive in the competitive market?

The government last year granted five new free-tv licenses to
Trans TV, DVN TV, PR TV, Global TV and Metro TV to add to the
five commercial stations already in operation. They have been
given two years to begin their operations, until September 2001,
or else they will lose their one billion rupiah guarantees.

So far only Metro TV and Trans TV have set their launch dates,
respectively in November 2000 and June 2001.

Metro will go narrow casting with round-the-clock news,
including a 30-minute Mandarin news segment and 60 minutes of
English news. It targets itself to be the "CNN of Indonesia,"
says Metro's operations director Zsa Zsa Yusharyahya, a former
presenter of the first commercial station's, RCTI's, news
program Seputar Indonesia.

Metro is backed by businessman Surya Paloh, the publisher of
Media Indonesia.

But why all the round-the-clock news? "Changes happen within
seconds and they cannot wait for a deadline. With current reform
openness, it is the right time for Indonesian people to have a
portion of news any time they need. News is no longer a secondary
need, especially for busy viewers. So they can tune in any time
according to their habits."

Metro TV's coverage area in its first phase will take in
greater Jakarta at 57 UHF. It will also be accessible throughout
the country via satellite dishes. But it has yet to determine
which satellite -- Palapa of Satelindo or Cakrawarta of Datakom
-- to use. In the second phase, coverage is expected to reach
several other cities, such as Bandung, Surabaya, Semarang, Solo
(Surakarta), Makassar and Medan. "It depends on our investment
and cash flow."

While Trans TV, whose directors include Ishadi SK, former
director general of radio, film and television of the now-defunct
information ministry, and former RCTI director Alex Kumara, is to
take a broadcasting approach with general programming line ups
like RCTI, SCTV, TPI, ANteve and Indosiar.

To support their programming, Trans TV visited a television
programming market held in Cannes, France and LA Screening in Los
Angeles this year. During the event in Cannes last April, Trans
TV reportedly committed to hundreds of hours of programing from
international distributors.

PR TV, which stands for Pasaraya TV and is backed by
businessman Abdul Latief, former manpower minister and the owner
of the Pasaraya shopping stores, expects to make its maiden
broadcast in April next year. PR TV's managing director Chrys
Kelana, former head of RCTI's Seputar Indonesia, said the station
will have general programming in order to catch a wider audience.
PR TV hopes to secure 10 percent of the total advertising market
to survive.

Will they survive? Every station is optimistic and their
mantra is one of efficiency.

"As we are going narrow casting and the majority of programs
are produced by in-house, we can be very efficient. We aim to
employ a maximum of 280 people, very slim compared to a broadcast
station," Zsa Zsa said.

PR TV, which plans to reach three cities in its initial stage,
expects to run a slim operation in terms of human resources. "We
prefer to have a smaller staff but of highly capable people."

R.T.S. Masli, chairman of the Indonesian Advertising Agency
Association (PPPI), said the new stations would enjoy the growth
of advertising industry.

"Advertising agencies tend to buy programs, not television
stations. Pick an example such as Si Doel. It does not matter if
it is screened on RCTI or Indosiar," he said.

So, there is a chance that every player can grab a piece of
the growing advertising cake.

He said the country's advertising expenditure was predicted to
rise by at least 20 percent to Rp 5.6 trillion, 65 percent of
which is predicted to account for television industry. The
forecast is based on the performance of advertising spending
before the crisis which recorded year-on-year growth of 20
percent to 28 percent.

But some skeptics say the projected amount of advertising
expenditure does not reflect the actual growth which remains low
because of bonuses and discounts for advertisers. And if the
actual expenditure is divided by 10 stations, one or two stations
will meet their doom. Only time will tell.