TrueVisions to keep base via partnerships, shows
To compete with new rivals entering the cable-TV business next year, TrueVisions, a leading subscription-based television operator, is continuing to develop its shows to retain its premium subscribers and to draw in new ones via partnerships.
Managing director Anat Mek-paiboonvatana reaffirmed yesterday that the company intended to spend a total of Bt5 billion to procure international and local sports and variety programmes and to produce its own shows after losing the audio-visual broadcasting rights of the English Premier League.
However, Anat insisted that his company had no plan to become sub-licensee of Cable Thai Holding (CTH) to air EPL soccer matches on the TrueVisions network.
“Our key focus is still on premium customers who pay for our Platinum and Gold packages. So we keep investing in premium content to retain them and also to lure new customers via our local cable-TV partners,” he said.
Currently there are about 800,000 premium-package customers who pay about Bt1,400 in monthly subscription fees, while the remainder are Knowledge package customers who pay Bt300 to Bt400 a month.
Apart from programming development, TrueVisions believes that high-definition broadcasting will keep its premium customers satisfied, so it plans to add another 10 HD channels next year to the seven offered currently.
TrueVisions and True Online, another subsidiary of True Corp, plan to invest in a hybrid fibre coaxial cable network throughout the country to offer “triple play” services and new HD channels. Triple play refers to the provision of high-speed Internet, television, and telephone over a single broadband connection.
The cable-TV business is likely to witness fierce price-led competition, particularly in the middle-to-low-income segments – so-called mass consumers – as there are a number of newcomers entering the industry. Besides CTH, they include music and entertainment giants GMM Grammy and RS.
Ong-ard Prapakamol, chief commercial officer of TrueVisions, said that under next year’s strategic plan, the company would penetrate this market via its existing partners both in cable and satellite TV.
An example is its partnership with PSI Holding, the largest manufacturer and trader of satellite-TV receivers, to offer a new box accessing free-to-air service, providing about 200 channels, some of them exclusive to this service. This service takes aim at GMM Grammy’s GMM Z and RS’s Sunbox.
Yesterday, TrueVisions partnered with 150 local cable TV operators to broaden its viewer base. The company hopes this will draw in additional advertising revenue.
Under this deal, Ong-ard said, TrueVisions would offer 18 exclusive channels and another 12 free channels to cable TV operators that partnered with the company. Local cable TV operators must pay for one of three packages to access this content: Bt40,000 a month for small operators, Bt80,000 for medium-sized ones and Bt120,000 for large cable TV operators.
Anat said the company aimed to reach 3.5 million households that are pay-TV subscribers.
This appears to be a direct challenge to CTH, which also expects to have more than 7 million household subscribers by 2015. Currently it claims to serve 300 cable-operator members with 3.5 million subscribers across the nation.
