A new pay television network called An Vien, invested by Audio Visual Global Co. (AVG), will be officially put into operation on November 11 after one year of test-airing.
An Vien TV network will supply TV programs using digital terrestrial television (DTT) and direct to home (DTH) technologies with three low-fee packages. Apart from channels of Vietnam Television and international channels, AVG will broadcast channels of other television stations.

With this TV network, AVG will become the second private media firm to operate in Vietnam’s pay TV industry after K Plus, a joint venture between Vietnam Television and France’s Canal Plus.

Chairman of AVG Pham Nhat Vu said his firm has spent around VND1.5 trillion to set up facilities for entering the local pay TV market and VND600 billion on buying TV signaling devices which will be sold to customers. The firm is estimated to break even after four or five years if having over one million subscribers, he added.

There are only two million pay TV subscribers among Vietnam’s 20 million subscribers while the ratio in other countries is between 40% and 60%, Vu said.

Entering the TV market much later than other TV network providers, AVG thus has adopted new technologies, and learned much from predecessors’ experiences. However, the firm may confront several challenges relating to building its brand name as there are many well-know providers such as VCTV, SCTV. VTC, K Plus and HCTV.

Therefore, AVG has invested VND150 billion to set up a Network Control Center monitoring broadcasting quality while there is no other pay TV provider investing in this before, Vu said.  

The technical system of AVG uses digital video broadcasting (DVB-T2) and single frequency network (SFN) technologies, which helps to save frequencies and facilitates AVG to provide more channels.

These technologies also enable the provider to transmit a signal at a certain point of time over the same frequency to many places, which is better than multi-frequency network. With the SFN technology and only three frequencies, AVG can still broadcast its programs nationwide.

VIR