VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) may consider setting up the floor prices for pay-TV services in an effort to ensure the healthy competition in the market.

Le Dinh Cuong, Deputy Chair and Secretary General of the pay-TV Association (VNPAYTV) has emphasized the necessity of the existence of the floor price mechanism to prevent service providers from dumping their services which may distort the domestic market.

Cuong said that no case of dumping has been discovered so far, but it is very likely to happen in the future when the market grows rapidly and the competition gets stiffer.

In early 2014, the representatives from VTC Digital and VASC, the two pay-TV service providers, also urged the watchdog agency to set up the regulations to put the service fees under its control.

Hoang Le Son, Director of VTC Digital believes that it would be better for MIC to control the TV service fees like it has been doing with telecom services.

Son went on to say that the Vietnamese pay-TV market, though being a fledgling, has attracted foreign invested enterprises as well. The competition in the market is so stiff that a lot of the competitors are wiling to sell equipments below the cost prices, pay high for copyright and incur losses to scramble for clients.

The unhealthy competition activities, according to Son, have created unfairness in the market, which will not benefit the television industry’s development.

The market is now witnessing the confrontation between the existing televisions which have been providing pay-TV services for years, and the new comers – telecom groups.

Televisions once insisted the watchdog agency on refusing to allow telcos to join the pay-TV market. However, after deciding that the proposal was unreasonable, MIC decided that telcos can also be the pay-TV service providers as well.

Viettel, the military telecom group, one of the licensed telcos, has officially joined the market and become a redoubtable rival for the existing service providers.

The new comer, with the great advantages in good infrastructure system, is believed to try to dump the services to conquer the domestic market. Sources said that Viettel may set the monthly subscription fee at the surprisingly low levels, maybe below VND30,000 – the lowest level currently applied by televisions – to scramble for clients.

In an effort to bar Viettel’s and telcos’ way, the existing televisions have refused to cooperate with telcos in sharing TV contents.

This proves to be a strong “blow” dealt on telcos, which have great advantages in the infrastructure, but are not good at content production.

Therefore, Viettel and the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT) has asked MIC to set up a regulation on sharing TV contents to prevent the televisions’ monopoly.

Cuong from VNPAYVT confirmed that some televisions really do not want to share the programs they make themselves. They should understand that this would not be good for themselves to implement the plan to popularize the contents in the public.

However, Cuong admitted that it would be very difficult for the involved parties to reach the agreements on sharing contents. The problem, in fact, was anticipated some years ago already, but no proper solution has been found.

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