W

orld-renowned sports content provider ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) plans to take advantage of what it says is a golden opportunity by expanding its business in the Indonesian market, with pay-TV penetration here still only reaching around 3 percent of the population.

“Indonesia is a big country. But pay-TV penetration is only at around 3 percent, ” ESS head of sales for Southeast Asia, Adam Zecha, said during a media gathering in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The sports channel said it had at least 300 million viewers in 24 countries in Asia, and that Indonesia was among the top five in terms of subscribers.

“We cannot disclose which country is the No. 1 … but let me put it this way — Hong Kong has 60 percent in pay-TV penetration, Singapore also has 60 percent, the Philippines has 16 percent, while Thailand is at 8 percent,” he said.

With a population of around 240 million, Indonesia is a huge market to work on, Zecha said, adding that the Singaporean-based company was expecting to increase its viewer subscription base by about 5 percent next year, from the current 32 million.

Zecha explained that as a content provider, ESS was fully dependent on the popularity of pay-TV. He said this was because the company’s income from pay-TV services were much higher than from the channel’s broadband services (ESPN Player), digital content (espnstar.com, mobileESPN) or Event Management Group.

So far, ESS has worked with Indovision, TelkomVision, First Media, Aora TV and Skynindo in Indonesia, Zecha said.

“We’re planning to also work with Topaz and Biznet [soon].”

On a larger scale, ESS hopes to increase its viewer numbers across Asia by 10 to 15 percent a year from the current 300 million.

“Even so, this growth will surely depend on the rates charged by each pay-TV service provider, as well as occasional sports events, such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics,” Zecha said, adding that these occasional events saw a significant increase in the number of ESS viewers.

Establishing over 15 years ago in Indonesia, ESS has also produced shows specifically for local audiences, such as the 1st Achilles Formula Drift Indonesia and the 2nd Guinness World Series of Pool this year.

In 2012, ESS plans to showcase the 2nd Achilles Formula Drift Indonesia and Extreme Power 5’s streetfootball.

The London Olympics, Spanish’s La Liga, Barclays Premier League, Formula 1 and MotoGP, are among the world events ESS plans to air in 2012.

“We’re looking forward to doing more with Indonesia … possibly for Indonesian soccer league or basketball league,” said Zecha.

Meanwhile, ESS vice president of marketing and corporate communications, Paras Sharma, said badminton would be a potential sport to cover in Indonesia. “We’ve done it in India, so why can’t we do it here?”.