'RCTI' slammed as 70 million viewers miss W. Cup matches

'RCTI' slammed as 70 million viewers miss W. Cup matches

Muhammad Nafik and Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Holding the sole rights in Indonesia to broadcast the World Cup
on television could turn out to be a poisoned chalice for RCTI as
the House of Representatives condemned the country's oldest
private television channel for ignoring the fate of 70 million
potential viewers who were missing out on the month-long
spectacular.

Considering the number of viewers that RCTI was unable to
reach, the House urged the nation's largest private TV station to
share the rights with state broadcaster TVRI, which could reach
80 percent of the country's viewers.

"RCTI should be willing to collaborate with TVRI or other
television networks so that the public's rights can be adequately
catered for," legislator Bambang Sadono told a hearing with State
Minister for Information and Communications Syamsul Mu'arif.

"This is not about only one or two people, but more than 70
million Indonesian viewers," Bambang added.

The criticism came after dozens of people in the South
Sulawesi capital of Makassar held a rally at the RCTI branch
office there following technical problems that halted the
broadcasting of several matches on Tuesday.

Happy Bone Zulkarnain, another House member, agreed with
Bambang, suggesting that TVRI seek to cooperate with RCTI in
broadcasting the World Cup so as to meet the public demand.

"The money for this could be set off against RCTI's debts to
TVRI," he added.

TVRI president Sumita Tobing has said that RCTI owes the state
broadcaster Rp 80.5 billion.

Barita, a senior TVRI official who represented Sumita during
the hearing, said the state-owned television company was ready to
broadcast the international games, but the matter was largely in
the hands of RCTI.

RCTI spokesman Teguh Juwarno admitted that the private station
could reach only 160 million Indonesian viewers.

Asked about the 70 million viewers who were excluded from the
World Cup party, he simply said: "That's the government's
business. We should not be blamed for that".

He said RCTI had offered TVRI and the other private
broadcasters the chance of jointly purchasing the broadcasting
rights from the world soccer body FIFA, but they were unable to
afford the cost.

Teguh said the rights cost US$5 million and his company had to
spend another $5 million so as to cover the total operational
expenses of broadcasting the games from May 31 through June 30.

"On paper, we've already broken even. All the revenue is
generated from advertisements," he said, but declined to reveal
the potential profits from the venture.

Teguh said the main sponsor was the energy drink producer
Extra Joss, which was contributing more than Rp 35 billion in
advertising revenue to RCTI.

Other main advertisers included the Panasonic electronics
company.