'TNT & Cartoon Network' struggling in Indonesia

'TNT & Cartoon Network' struggling in Indonesia

By Johannes Simbolon

HONG KONG (JP): Within one year, the TNT & Cartoon Network has invaded many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, but it has to work harder before capitalizing on the Indonesian market.

The entertainment service, owned by American magnate Ted Turner, was launched in the region in October, 1994. Early this month, it celebrated its first anniversary in its townbase of Hong Kong.

Distributed on the Palapa B2P, AsStar 1, PanAmSat 2 and PanAm 4 satellites, the service can now be seen in around 1,780,000 households and 13,400 hotels via cable and pay TV throughout the region, including in Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

"We are pleased at the phenomenal growth," said Ted McFarland, president of Turner International, Asia Pacific.

"Through working closely with cable affiliates to bring this quality entertainment network to more television viewers, Turner not only looks forward to expanding its market but also contributing to the growth of the cable and industry in this region," he addressed reporters from across the region during the anniversary celebrations.

The global success has obviously added to the magnitude of the Ted Turner's business empire, which includes the famous TV news channel CNN.

TNT & Cartoon Network consist of two parts: the TNT (Turner Network Television), which features classical movies, and the cartoon program. In the U.S. and Latin America, both programs are aired through two different channels. In Europe and Asia-Pacific, they are combined. The cartoon program runs from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the classical movie program from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. (Hong Kong time for Asia-Pacific).

The service was first launched in the U.S. in 1988, then in Latin America in 1991, followed by Europe in 1993. Today it can be seen in more than 27 million homes worldwide.

Hanna-Barbera

Turner has a rich libraries of classics and cartoons to make its channel a must for many.

In 1986, Turner obtained a license to administer and distribute the collection of over 3,000 classical movies produced by MGM, Warner Bros. and RKO, including those featuring such legendary stars of Hollywood as Bete Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, John Wayne, Glenn Ford, Elvis Presley, and others.

His movie collection became richer when Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema joined his business empire in 1993. Castle Rock Entertainment produced such box offices like In the Line of Fire, When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers and Shawshank Redemption. New Line Cinema produced among others The Mask, Dumb and Dumber and Hoop Dreams.

Turner's collection of cartoons is no less cornucopian. In 1991, he acquired the entertainment assets of Hanna-Barbera, including their 3,000-episode library, distribution right and production facility. The Hanna-Barbera collection includes such time-weathered characters as Tomy & Jerry, The Flintstones, Yogi Bear and The Jetsons. With the cartoons he acquired from MGM and Warner Bros., Turner's cartoon library has a total of 8,500.

This doesn't mean that TNT & Cartoon Network only airs old stuff. Hanna-Barbera continues to produce new "toons" for the service. With the new cartoons, the service tries to keep its viewers in step with current issues.

To commemorate World Environmental Day, Hanna-Barbera made a series of Captain Planet, an environmental superhero. For International Children's Day, it cooperated with UNICEF to produce a TV serial entitled Meena, designed to promote community values to children.

"Our programming and marketing also reflect our efforts to build viewers' sensitivity to social causes as well," said Celia Wong, senior vice president and general manager, TNT & Cartoon Network, Asia Pacific.

TNT & Cartoon Network's success is not only because of those vast libraries. Turner's long experience in building the global news channel CNN should be considered, too. Like CNN, which no one expected to survive, much less gain success as it has, the cartoon network, which was considered to have too limited a fan base, was expected to fail.

"When we started with CNN (Cable News Network) in the 80s, people called it 'Chicken News Network'. But Ted (Turner) then had a vision of making CNN a global TV. When none would think about it, CNN International was launched in 1985. As it turned out, we made it," said Robert Ross, president of Turner International Inc.

Turner has also refuted the perception that cartoons are only enjoyed by kids. According to the 1994 survey, adults make up 39 percent of viewers of Turner's cartoon programs.

Indonesia

TNT & Cartoon Network may have gained success in many parts of the world, but not in Indonesia.

In the Asia-Pacific area, it has netted the largest number of viewers in Taiwan, where the service is received in 1,550,000 households. It is followed by China with 150,000 households and the Philippines with 32,260 households. In Indonesia, there are only 6,000 household subscribers, plus 5,778 hotels.

The distribution here is managed by Indovision, operated by PT Matahari Lintas Cakrawala (Malicak), the sole authorized pay TV distributor in Indonesia. It sells TNT & Cartoon Network in a combined package together with three other services outside of Turner, i.e. HBO, ESPN, and Discovery. Subscribers should buy four of them in a package, as opposed to many other countries where TNT & Cartoon Network is sold in a single package.

Subscribers in Indonesia need a 2.7-meter dish antenna, and pay Rp 660,000 for the decoder and an additional Rp 63,250 monthly subscription fee.

Thus far, Turner's people are still at a loss over the cause of the low sales.

Many thought it might be caused by Indovision's monopoly. TNT & Cartoon Network has no alternative but to wholly depend on the company in marketing their products.

The monopoly isn't the only reason for poor sales.

According to a random survey conducted by Indovision among its dealers in September this year, the favorite program offered by Indovision is HBO, followed by ESPN.

In promoting their service, the management of TNT & Cartoon Network must face the fact that Indonesian children have long been used to cartoons dubbed into Indonesian on commercial television stations, but Turner's cartoon programs are only available in English, Mandarin and Thai.

Also, they must compete with commercial television which air cartoons of comparable quality. Indosiar, for example, airs Walt Disney's best cartoons once a week. RCTI airs Doraemon, the Japanese cartoon, which has so far remained the number one favorite cartoon and has survived for more than five years.

Another factor is the widespread distribution of comic books containing popular cartoon characters. In Indonesia and maybe elsewhere, comics help popularize cartoon characters, and as such lure children to watch them on television. The comics sold here are also dominated by Walt Disney's characters and Japanese's cartoon characters. Comics on Hanna-Barbera's characters are not available here.

But, maybe the most important factor is that people prefer to watch free cartoon programs to paying for something that is available on commercial television.