Catch the previews of the lastest VCDs at the Train Station.....
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MRT train's not here yet, so train eyes on the TV
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MRT commuters waiting in stations have more to fix their eyes on now than the electronic screens displaying the arrival time of the next train.
Catching up on some TV before catching the train... the Video ShowTime scheme will also broadcast advertisements and corporate announcements. - Picture by Samuel Chua.
Singapore Cable Vision (SCV) and Singapore MRT have set up TV screens in MRT stations to show trailers of popular movies and snippets of sporting events.
The Video ShowTime scheme will also broadcast advertisements, public-service messages and corporate announcements to the 1.6 million passengers that use the MRT monthly.
The six stations that now have them are Ang Mo Kio, Clementi, Admiralty, Woodlands, Yew Tee and Marsiling. Six more will follow by the end of next month. They are Orchard, Somerset, City Hall, Raffles Place, Tanjong Pagar and Bugis. Each station will have between three and eight TV sets.
The ads and trailers run from 5.30 am to 12.30 am.
SMRT will use about 10 per cent of the airtime in the scheme to show corporate advertisements and messages.
Mr Daniel Goh, president of SCV, said at a press conference on Monday that he hopes the new medium will help to promote SCV. The cable network currently has over 68,000 subscribers.
The Video ShowTime system costs between $80,000 and $100,000 per station to set up.
Mr George Foo, an advertising and sales executive for SCV, said over 20 advertisement contracts, ranging from banks to beverages, have already signed up with SCV.
The advertisements are currently recorded along with trailers on VCD in 18 one-hour segments, which are played continuously through the day and will be changed monthly.
Commuters say the screens take away some of the boredom of waiting.
"It is an innovative idea and gives people something to look at," said Mr Quek Yang Boon, a 21-year-old NUS engineering student, who was at Clementi MRT station on Tuesday. "But I don't know which channel the movie presented is being shown on."
He also said there were too many advertisements.
A 50-year-old hawker, who gave his name as Mr Kuek, said there were too many English trailers compared to Chinese ones.
The system will not be used for station passenger information services. It is not known if TV screens will be put inside the trains in the future, although SMRT officials are reported to be looking into it.
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