VietNamNet Bridge – Existing pay-TV service providers have been making every effort to prevent telecom groups from entering the TV service market. No official statement about the issue has been made by the watchdog agency, while experts say the market is large enough, while the opportunities should be reserved for everyone.

A strange petition

The national television channel VTV, the Pay-TV Association, VCTV and SCTV – the service providers all have lodged a competition to the watchdog agencies, requesting to reconsider the policies on the pay-TV service market.

The enterprises, with their arguments, try to prove that it would be better not to allow telecom groups to jump into the pay-TV service market – the business field that they do not have much experience, and tell them to focus on their core business rather than taking on too many jobs.

In its document to the watchdog agencies, VTV said emphasized that the pay-TV market in Vietnam remains too small, while there have been too many service providers already. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to allow Viettel, VNPT and FPT to make investment to develop cable TV, because this would be a big waste of money and resources in the context of oversupply.

VTV, while mentioning the government policy on requesting state owned economic groups to gather their strength on core business fields, has warned the joining of telcos, who do not have experience in the content production, would spoil the market, because they may create an unhealthy competition.

As such, telecom groups, which are now at the entrance door to the TV service market, are facing the barriers preventing them to set foot on the lucrative land.

The market still large enough

The reaction by the pay-TV service providers is foreseeable, described as a self-defense action of the members of the markets which still do not have full competition.

Analysts have commented that the reaction, to some extent, is similar to what happened in the telecom market 10 years ago when Viettel prepared to join the market and stopped the VNPT’s monopoly.

Experts have denied the fact that the Vietnamese market remains too small with the growth of new subscribers slowing down.

In the world, pay-TV has been used by more than 50 percent of families, of which 75 percent use cable TV. In Asia Pacific, cable TV accounts for 90 percent of the pay-TV services.

Meanwhile, the figures are very small in Vietnam. According to the Information – Communication Strategy Institute, only 16 percent of families, or 2.8 million subscribers use pay-TV services, which is just equal to 1/3 of that in the world and the region.

If counting one TV-pay subscriber for one family, then Vietnam has had only 3 million families using pay-TV out of the existing 21 million families.

According to Kantar Media, with the population of 85 million people and 21 million families, Vietnam is really a potential market for pay-TV services. Especially, the market would witness a strong development in the time to come, when the government has decided that Vietnam would digitalize TV services.

The Ministry of Information and Communication has decided that by 2015, Vietnam strives to have 30-40 percent of its families using pay-TV services, while the figure would be 70 percent by 2020.

Telecom groups, which can see the great potentials of the market, have decided to join the market to obtain the pieces of the good cake.

Dr Tran Minh Tuan, Deputy Head of the Information and Communication Institute, said there are 40 pay TV service providers, but most of them have small operation scale, including the ones that cover only several districts and several thousands of subscribers.

Buu Dien