TV industry in PNG headed for monopoly
The feeling was that with a new operator the level and quality of programming offered by the local stations would lift – and to a certain degree it has.
EMTV, the country’s leading free-to-air television station took steps to improve the quality and range of its product.
The television station long considered the number one in the country focussed on hiring young and vibrant reporters and presenters and with the skill to deliver the news and other programmes in keeping with current trends.
The development of more locally-oriented programmes was and is a factor in the station being relevant to the general populace.
Digicel confined its operations to the cable TV and satellite market with the acquisition of the two major cable/satellite operators in Hitron and Channel 8.
From there it actively chased customers, as all business enterprises are supposed to do, to get onto its platform though their Play Box, a decoder that would allow the customer to receive Digicel Play programmes.
The only catch was that outside of the initial cost of the hardware (ranging from K150 to K190) the public was now required to pay premiums for daily, weekly and monthly access.
Of course it did not help that most of the programmes offered on Digicel Play were of little importance to the average PNG consumer who watches three things on television: sport (NRL and State of Origin), news (PNG followed by Australia and then the world) and movies.
Digicel Play did not satisfy any of those areas adequately in its initial offering to the public.
Outside of a small percentage of the people who can and bother to pay for this service, it is highly doubtful this strategy bore the desired fruit in terms of an increase in the numbers of subscribers to the Digicel Play.
If anything, more and more people were turned off by the need to continuously pay for programming and access to channels.
The pay as you watch philosophy is not something one can successfully integrate into a society whose majority live on or below the poverty line.
After it became apparent that they did not have an attractive programming base, the powers that be in the communications multinational PNG office worked at improving its product by including live coverage SP Hunters match in the 2015 season.
That was a master stroke. Rugby league is the national sport for a reason. People watch it and follow it closely, more so than any other sport.
The next step was to acquire the broadcasting rights of the National Rugby League, the most watched sports product in this country. Nothing else comes close.
That was Digicel’s second master stroke. The only problem was they were content to keep it on their TVWAN channel which is part of their pay TV platform thus marginalising a large segment of the public.
If winning the public’s good will is the best way you to their wallets, this was the wrong way to go about it. You cannot take a product that has always been on free-to-air TV and put it out of reach of the majority of the people.
A pay TV operator wins the long term loyalty of its subscribers by giving it a quality product at a reasonable rate and in high definition if possible.
Digicel looked to have missed the boat in this regard in that they had the NRL rights but were happy to squeeze their small customer base which is really restricted to the major cities – Port Moresby and Lae.
The biggest criticism of Digicel’s foray into the television industry is that it almost expected to strong arm the public into getting on its Play Box bandwagon by cleaning up all the best programmes and giving them no choice in the matter.
The only solution was to give the public the best of both worlds. News that Telikom has opted out of the purchase of EMTV because part of its condition was for the station to have NRL coverage is instructional.
Digicel could buy EMTV and have a ready-made free-to-air service on which to offer the NRL and other programmes normally associated with the station.
Monopolies are not preferable most of the time but in a small market such as PNG it could work.
The National/PNG Today
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