The Indian satellite broadcaster Asianet is studying the feasibility of beaming its programmes into the southern African markets, with one of the options being to do the uplink from its base at Dubai Internet City (DIC).
"We could lease the teleport from the DIC authorities for the launch of the service into Africa; another option is to beam direct from India," said Dr. Raji Menon, chairman, during a brief stop over in the city.
"But for any expansion of our broadcast area, the numbers have to justify it. There is some interest from Indians based in the southern African states.
"While we have set no deadline for Africa, if we do so, our target is to attain breakeven by the second year."
Asianet is well on its way to attaining that milestone this year itself in its recently introduced services to the US market, where it is a pay channel. Revenues from the Americas are essentially through subscriptions.
But breakeven from the operations in Europe is still some way "down the line". Again, it is offered as an encrypted service in those markets.
Hasn't the widening of its coverage area added to its costs? According to Menon: "The good majority of our programmes are done at our studios in India and are for our domestic channel. There is so far little dedicated programming for our viewers in the US or Europe.
"That being the case, our only cost is that for transponder space and personnel. It is not a high one."
Menon also dismissed any suggestion of diluting his stake in the company, where he holds a "significant" portion of the equity. In the recent past, there was some talk about overtures made by Zee, the other heavyweight Indian satellite broadcaster. But nothing came of that.
"Asianet is one of the handful of Indian channels making a profit. This by itself shows that we are doing quite well.
"In addition to this, if need be I can pump in more funds into Asianet. In such a situation, why should we bother trying to get an investor," said Menon, who was the key promoter at the time of Asianet's inception in the early 1990s.
But the slew of Malayalam language channels that have come into being in the last two years have proved to be pinpricks.
"When there are channels offering the cheapest rates possible for a ten second advertisement slot, it spoils the entire market, which itself has not been growing in a mature way," said Menon.
"It has been a very difficult task for us to grow our income base with all this happening.
"To counter the threat from these channels, Asianet which has a 50 per cent share of the viewer numbers in its category could have cut its tariffs and cornered the market. But we have refrained from doing so as it will only cause further instability.
"There is also the competition from the print media while everywhere else, the visual media seems to have taken the lead, it is still the print which has the advantage in India. More so in Kerala."
On whether he would consider venturing into more regional language channels: "There is certainly no room for a third or fourth player. Unless someone is willing to sacrifice Rs1 to Rs2 billion to start a channel, it would be better not to."
Presently, Asianet is in the process of rebranding its second channel, which is more into information programming. The channel has had a difficult start, but it is expected the proposed change in content and approach will turn things around.
On the Indian Government's plans to introduce the Conditional Access System (CAS) to regulate the satellite broadcast sector in the country, Menon said: "There are expectations this will be revived after the elections in May. My company is for CAS, as it allows advertisers and broadcasters to determine the actual viewer numbers, while it also helps viewers who can choose what channels they require rather than receive the full package as now.
"One day the free-to-air channel concept will die, unless its an official (government) channel."
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