Newly launched 'INC' shifts gear on its Indonesia coverage
Helly Minarti, Contributor, Jakarta
The imbalance in news coverage about Indonesia abroad is probably felt the strongest by the Indonesians living in the U.S.
This is one of the reasons that triggered a group of Indonesian professionals to start an Indonesian TV channel, the Indonesia News Channel (INC), which has been on air for about a year.
Airing from San Francisco, INC first went on air for about 30 minutes a week, reaching only a limited area in California. Now, the privately owned TV channel has doubled the air time to one hour, with more coverage of several cities both on the west and east coasts.
"We were indeed tired of the bad publicity in the U.S. media about Indonesia, but we also noted the Indonesian Diaspora in the U.S. as potential viewers," said Hengki Koentjoro.
With his wife, Lana, Hengky gave birth to INC in 2004, not long after he moved back to the U.S. in 2002.
They launched INC as an extension of Annext Studios, a design house for web and graphic designs. Soon they set up a small team in Jakarta to cover the local stories up close, and generated ad revenue mostly from companies in the U.S. owned by Indonesians.
"Our target is to go on air 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said program director Oddie Octaviadi in a recent press conference in Jakarta.
Whilst launching the channel in Indonesia last week, they were also here to hunt for potential investors who are interested in helping them achieve the 24/7 air time target in 2006.
INC is now airing half the programs in Bahasa Indonesia (with English subtitles) and half in English (with Bahasa Indonesia subtitles).
"Many Indonesians have been living here for ages, and they miss listening to Bahasa Indonesia news since English has become their main language outside the home," said Oddie.
It is not easy to estimate the exact number of Indonesians living in the U.S.
"There are 7000 to 8000 registered in San Francisco alone, probably almost 100,000 registered Indonesians across U.S. I have no idea though about the illegal ones," said Hengki who studied cinematography at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara and lived in the U.S. for about a decade.
He later came back to Indonesia and worked at a production house.
This background proved to be useful as he and Lana set up the TV channel, which still has an amateurish feel about it when seen on the screen, but for sure, improvement is underway.
Apart from featuring headline news from Indonesia and entertainment, INC also incorporates local news.
"It's in a way functioning as a community TV. People love to watch themselves on the screen thus we cover all events held by the Indonesian community here, from Independence Day to Idul Fitri, Christmas, Waisak and others," said Hengki.
INC also does profiles on successful Indonesians in the U.S., and just two months ago, they started a pilot project Postcards From Indonesia, a program featuring travel, tourism, arts and culture of the archipelago, partly targeting American tourists.
"We also plan to screen sinetron (television soap opera) as we have had some requests to do so," said Hengki. Sinetron is short for sinema elektronik or television drama.
In such a melting pot as the U.S., community TV has bound ethnic communities together.
The biggest is run by the Hispanic community which has four channels, followed by the Filipino community, the Vietnamese and Eastern Europeans -- all with their own TV stations.
"I think the Indonesians living in the U.S. are the type A level. They are educated, intellectuals, former students and people who run their own business. So, I'm optimistic that INC will grow," said Hengki.
INC now also can be accessed online on www.IndoNewsChannel.com.