[Satellite News 09-30-10] While India and China remain two of the largest pay-TV empires in the Asian region, Indonesia, with its population of 230 million people and low penetration, represents an untapped broadcasting opportunity for satellite DTH operators like SkyVision (Indovision), which has been trying to monetize and capture the market.
    SkyVision acquires 80 percent of its new subscribers from direct sales, with 15 million Indonesian households projected to take DTH services over the next five years. SkyVision CEO Rudy Tanoesoedibjo told Satellite News that he would be happy to have 6 million to 8 million subscribers in five years, and discussed his strategy, which includes looking beyond HD to focus on 3-D broadcasting.
 

Tanoesoedibjo: While we will probably launch HD services in Indonesia at the end of this year, I am not particularly excited about HD. Yes, consumers are excited about HD and the service will have its subscribers, but I think that only 10 percent of our subscribers will actually take up the service. The number of people that actually have more than one set-top box is small — less than 3 percent. We would expect to have less than 10 percent penetration of our customer base for HD services in around 12 months time. 

Tanoesoedibjo: 3-D is a more live experience. I think 3-D TV will be very appealing to market segments, particularly children. The only handicap for the take-up of 3-D TV is the price of the TV sets but we have been having discussions with TV set manufacturers. If we launch a 3-D TV service, we want to work very closely with TV set manufacturers. We expect to start seeing 3-D TV sets start proliferating the market over the next 12 months. I think we will be able to launch a 3-D TV service next year.
    To be honest, if I could do a 3-D TV service this year I would, but the market is not quite ready. There is obviously a lack of 3-D TV content right now. We will probably just launch the one channel to begin with, but I am very optimistic concerning 3-D. There is a significant value in 3-D TV, much more than HDTV.
 

Tanoesoedibjo: At the moment, we are using S-band capacity on the SES 7 satellite. We already have 10 S-band transponders, but there is also excess capacity that we can use. We think we will need more capacity at the end of this year. We are moving to MPEG-4 at the end of the year, so we will be adding more channels and only use S-band capacity. As demand for good content increases, Indovision will need more satellite capacity in the future. Satellite operators could generate new demand for satellite capacity by actively bringing new channels into Asia and serving as mediator between new channels and pay-TV operators.
 

Tanoesoedibjo: DTH came to Indonesia around 12 years ago, but it was too early and not managed properly so the restructuring of DTH operations only took place around 2005. If you look at the growth from 2005 to now, you are seeing significant growth. We are now taking 75 percent to 80 percent of the growth.

Tanoesoedibjo: I think the market is being regulated in a fair way. A number of licenses have already been issued. I understand last year, they issued more than 10 licenses. These are mainly DTH licences. In Indonesia, cable does not really exist. As far as the piracy situation is concerned, that is not much of an issue for us. We are happy to be part of CASBAA. We are fighting piracy, and are strongly supported by the Ministry of Information and the Police. This is working very well in Indonesia.
 

Tanoesoedibjo: Yes. As the leader in this market, we want to be on other platforms other than satellite. I still think over the next five to seven years, satellite will be the dominant platform in Indonesia. There is still relatively low broadband penetration in Indonesia.  DSL is still very expensive. In terms of being on mobile platforms, I am not a great believer in mobile TV. I don’t expect to generate much revenue from that. I think people still prefer to watch video through a bigger screen.