DirecTV Japan Boardcasting.........................
Directv Debuts In Crowded Japan Digital TV Market
Received: December 01, 1997 07:45am EST From: REUTERS
By Yuko Inoue
TOKYO, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Satellite broadcaster DirecTV on
Monday launched the newest service in Japan's crowded digital TV
market, but analysts said viewers may wait before subscribing as
the broadcasting competition hots up.
Japanese television-watchers are putting off their
digital-viewing decisions until next spring, when Japan Sky
Broadcasting Corp (JSkyB) will become the third powerful digital
TV operator in the market, the analysts said.
Then, JSkyB, DirecTV and Japan's pioneer broadcaster
PerfecTV will have to jockey for position by boosting the number
of their channels and cutting down rates to gain as many
subscribers as possible, they said.
"Consumers have no reason to hurry a decision. Real
competition for viewers won't start until next April," said
Nanako Sakaguchi, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson.
All three operators want to repeat the success enjoyed by
digital broadcasters in the United States in the early 1990s,
when digital satellite TV, which can beam down hundreds of
channels, began its ascent to today's five million subscribers.
But the battle between the three operators will be intense
in Japan, raising speculation of a possible shakeup in the
sector even before all three main players get off the ground.
DirecTV Japan, a company in the U.S. Hughes Electronics
group, launched its service with an initial 63 channels
on Monday, adding to the 100 channels offered by PerfecTV that
begun service in October 1996.
JSkyB, which is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp
empire and has recently recruited powerful allies like Sony Corp
and Fuji Television , will start beaming 100
pay-channels in April.
"We are firmly committed to the succcesses of digital
satellite broadcast in the U.S., Latin America and Japan,"
Michael Smith, chairman of Hughes Electronics Corp, told a news
conference.
# Page 2
DirecTV Japan chairman Gareth Chang said the company planned
to raise the number of channels to 90 in coming weeks and to
apply for permission to launch more channels from the Japanese
government in February or March 1998.
DirecTV, a partnership between Hughes, Matsushita Electric
Industrial Co and other Japanese firms, will offer
films from Hollywood and Tokuma Shoten, an animation powerhouse
that has taken a 10 percent stake in the broadcaster.
It will also carry some U.S. programming from NBC, Japanese
soccer and rugby matches, but most of the content is similar to
that of PerfecTV -- a reflection of the difficulty of acquiring
channels attractive to Japanese viewers.
DirecTV's strategy is to become a price leader. It offers
two programme packages to consumers at rates 10 to 20 percent
cheaper than those of PerfecTV.
Viewers are closely watching the competition between the
three companies and growth in subscribers at PerfecTV, a
consortium of powerful Japanese trading houses including Itochu
Corp has been relatively slow so far, with 400,000
subscribers acquired since last October.
PerfecTV and JSkyB recently announced an agreement to share
an antenna and decoder system, allowing viewers to subscribe to
either of their services under the same system.
The strong popularity of the analogue-satellite service run
by the semi-public Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) is also cited
as a possible cause of slow growth for digital satellite
services.
NHK's analogue satellite service is already available in one
in four Japanese households.
((Tokyo newsroom +81 3 3432-8595
tokyo.equities.newsroom@reuters.com))
REUTERS |
