'Trans TV' becomes seventh private network on air
'Trans TV' becomes seventh private network on air
Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Another private television station, Trans TV, aired its
inaugural broadcast on Friday, becoming the seventh local private
television station on-air today.
Seventy percent of its programming schedule will be filled by
entertainment shows, mainly imported but with the addition of
local talk shows and interactive quizzes, while the remainder of
its air time will be devoted to news.
Friday's broadcast was aired in the Greater Jakarta area and
Bandung, with plans to cover cities such as Surabaya, Yogyakarta,
Semarang, Surakarta and Medan from December.
For its initial broadcasts, Trans TV will be on air for six
hours a day until December, mainly presenting local talk shows,
music video clips and quizzes, said a member of the station's
marketing staff who refused to be named.
The station is being run by some of the television industry's
big names, such as Ishadi SK and Alex Kumara.
Three other private television stations are currently gearing
up for their inaugural broadcasts, namely LaTV, TV7, and Global
TV.
The government has imposed a deadline of October 2001 for the
private stations to begin broadcasting. Failure to meet the
deadline will result in the stations having their licenses
revoked and their Rp 1 billion guarantees forfeited.
To avoid the government's penalty, TV7 had broadcast a test
pattern since Monday while preparing for its experimental
broadcast on Nov. 25, said the station's news manager Nugroho F.
Yudho.
TV7, owned by the Kompas-Gramedia group, plans to start with a
five hour broadcast in November before moving to a 16 hour daily
schedule following its grand launch in early April next year.
Similar to Trans TV, TV7's will present mainly entertainment
programs with 25 percent of its air time devoted to news
broadcasts. The main target of the station were up-market
families, with some programs included to accommodate the lower
and middle class viewer, Nugroho explained.
LaTV is owned by former manpower minister Abdul Latif, while
Bimantara Group owns Global TV.