New TV stations plan to broadcast in December

New TV stations plan to broadcast in December

Luas Samudera, Contributor, Jakarta

Two of the four would-be commercial stations have succeeded in
running their color bars trial days before the government
deadline of Oct. 25, but their fate remain unclear as most of
them cite December as the best time to launch their service.

Surprisingly, Global TV, the station technically lacking in
manpower and programs, has delivered a strong signal as a serious
competitor to the three other new stations with a successful
color bars trial two weeks before the deadline.

Global TV project officer Satya Ganeshwara said the first
color bars broadcast had been successfully launched on Monday
Oct. 8, 2001. Airing on UHF 51 frequency in Greater Jakarta, the
color bars broadcast lasted for about a week.

He said the station, which was taken over by RCTI's parent
company Bimantara earlier this year, will meet the deadline and
begin its trial broadcast on Oct. 25 with an initial two-hours
programing daily before going at full commercial speed in
December.

Satya said Global TV, which targets 15 year-old to 29 year-old
viewers, shares some technical facilities with RCTI.

Observers, however, doubt that operations will be smooth by
December because there are no reports that the station has
purchased any programs.

Following Global TV, is LaTV, owned by former minister Abdul
Latief who also owns the Pasaraya retail chain.

It has tried a color bars trial, three days ahead of the
deadline. Beaming its transmission from its 320-meter tower in
West Jakarta, which is boasted as the highest in the country,
LaTV will keep broadcasting color bars until Nov. 21. It plans to
run a three-hour daily trial program the following day until Dec.
1 when it will launch a seven-hour daily commercial broadcast.

"Full commercial broadcast is anticipated in March next year,"
said Chrys Kelana, LaTV's managing director and former general
manager of RCTI's news department Seputar Indonesia.

Unlike initial predictions, the fate of the third station
Trans TV remains unclear.

The third station, Trans TV, had not launched its color bar
one day before the deadline.

A late boost of a Rp 300 billion loan from Bank Mandiri is
expected to help it meet the deadline. With technical facilities
now properly installed, it expects to be on schedule.

There is no question about the caliber of the people on its
board of directors, such as former director general of state
television Ishadi SK, former vice president of RCTI Alex Kumara
and former SCTV news director Riza Primadi.

The station has also trained hundreds of fresh graduates to
operate the station both in TVRI's multimedia training ground in
Yogyakarta and in a television studio environment owned by a
production house in South Jakarta.

Ishadi said a month after the government deadline, it will air
a four-hour daily program before going commercial on December 1.
However, full broadcast operations of 20 hours daily are expected
to commence in April 2002.

"We will do it step by step," Ishadi said. Trans TV is
reported to have acquired several blockbuster programs from major
U.S. distributors such as 20th Century Fox, Paramount and
Columbia Tristar.

The fate of the last station TV7 is still questionable. The
station's frequency slot at 49 UHF in Greater Jakarta, which was
acquired by arguably Indonesia's largest media group Gramedia, is
currently utilized by commercial television station Indosiar.

"We might try our color bars broadcast at night," a source at
the station said.

TV7 expects to run a five-hour daily program starting December
1 and launch full operations in March 2002, the source said.

Indosiar's spokesman Gufroni Sakaril said the station would
leave the problem of the frequency to the related ministry to
decide on.

"We will see whether we can stick to the frequency, or we have
to let it go to TV7," Gufroni said.

So, the plan of the four budding commercial stations to join
the fast track of advertising competition with existing stations
Indosiar, RCTI and SCTV is still far from reality.

An analyst said it would take at least up until the end of the
year before the four stations would be able to convince
advertising agencies to run commercials, the backbone of the
industry, on the four stations.