VietNamNet Bridge - Television stations have lowered subscription fees in a scramble for subscribers.

The director of a solution providing firm said at a workshop that the TV subscription fee has been decreasing dramatically, and that the monthly fee is even cheaper than breakfast in large cities.

He said while consumers can benefit from the fee reduction race for short term, it shows that televisions cannot compete with good content and high-quality services, and that prices remain the major instrument they use in the competition to scramble for customers.

Though the race can bring benefits to customers in short term, it will make them suffer in long term, because television channels, which cannot earn enough money for re-investment, will not be able to upgrade their services.

K+ channel of VSTV has launched the service package with the monthly fee of VND125,000 a month, which is just equal to a half of the most expensive package in the past. Meanwhile, customers who watch K+’s programs on computers and mobile devices don’t have to pay a fee.

The move by K+ has surprised many people, because since its establishment, the TV channel has been focusing on providing high-quality services, with sports and exclusive programs.

It seems that K+, which always stood outside all price wars, has changed its mind after it announced it broke even late last year. 

It seems that K+, which always stood outside all price wars, has changed its mind after it announced it broke even late last year.

“We may have to encounter difficulties in the first months of applying the new price, but we hope we will gain high market share to obtain good business result,” said Le Chi Cong, CEO of K+.

K+ plans to obtain over 1 million subscribers in 2016, or 200,000 subscribers more than now.

In the past, some cable televisions joined the ‘low-fee race’, offering surprisingly cheap service packages with the monthly fee of VND30,000-50,000 only. However, the pricing policy could not help. Subscribers ‘said goodbye’ when new televisions joined the market and provided more interesting TV programs.

According to Nguyen Ha Yen from MIC, under the radio & television service development plan, Vietnam would see 60-70 percent of its households using pay-TV services by 2020.

This means that businesses would still have great opportunities to exploit. In general, they would target the families in the suburbs of large cities and rural areas by offering middle-class service fees. Therefore, it is necessary for businesses to set up reasonable fees.

However, he warned that businesses’ success won’t lie in the price competition, but in service quality and TV program content.

Analysts are cautious about the pay-TV market in 2016, saying that everyone is awaiting the moves to be taken by a new player in the market – MobiFone, a telco which jumped into the pay-TV market after taking over AVG.


VNE