Monday December 1 9:49 AM EST
DirecTV Debuts In Crowded Japan Digital TV Market
By Yuko Inoue
TOKYO (Reuters) - Satellite broadcaster DirecTV today launched the newest service in Japan's crowded digital TV market, but analysts said viewers may wait before subscribing as the broadcasting competition heats 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 (4676.T), will start beaming 100 pay-channels in April.
"We are firmly committed to the successes of digital satellite broadcast in the U.S., Latin America and Japan," Michael Smith, chairman of Hughes Electronics Corp, told a news conference.
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 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 program 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 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 analog-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 analog satellite service is already available in one in four Japanese households. |
