G

lobal media rights company MP & Silva has gained a foothold in the country through a partnership with beIN Sports channel, broadcasting a variety of world-renowned sports tournaments. During a recent visit to Indonesia, MP & Silva managing director for Asia Pacific, Beatrice Lee, spoke to The Jakarta Post'€™s Khoirul Amin about her firm'€™s growth expectations as well as how local pay TV broadcasters may take advantage of its presence.

Below are edited excerpts of the interview:

Question: What have been the challenges to the growth of the pay TV market in Indonesia and how is the sports genre starting to drive the take-up of pay TV?

Answer: I think a challenge for pay TV in Indonesia is accessibility, the possibility of reaching subscribers because of the geographic location of all the islands and the population. The other challenge will be that free-to-air TV is quite dominant in this market. Those are the main challenges for pay TV growth in Indonesia.

The role of sports in pay TV? I believe that today, for many viewers to make an appointment with the TV set to watch a program there are not many events left, I think sport is one of the very few daily events that subscribers will actually schedule time to sit down at their TV set. Most of the entertainment programs, you can watch anytime anywhere you like without having to make an appointment with your TV. So, I think the exclusivity of sports on pay TV will be able to drive pay TV'€™s subscribers and growth.

How has beIN Sports done things differently and how has MP & Silva managed to grow such a young brand in the country?

We'€™ve localized the content. I believe beIN Sports is the first foreign channel in Indonesia to have Bahasa commentary on live soccer matches and also local studio shows that actually have a studio base in Jakarta. ['€¦] We launched the channel with top-class content, the main one is the Barclays Premiere League, and then we have Serie A, the French League, the FA Cup, the League Championship and ['€¦] we even have Bundesliga on beIN Sports. So, four or five major European leagues are on beIN Sports and that'€™s the thing that is the first step to letting everyone know about the brand. When we launched the channel on July 1, 2013, we also did a trophy tour. So, it was the first time that all the trophies, the Barclays trophy, the Serie A trophy, the FA Cup, the League Championship trophy ['€¦], were all in Jakarta at the same time.

What kind of sports have been popular on beIN Sports in Indonesia and does your company aim to add more sports, including local ones, to beIN'€™s content?

I think the nation itself is already very passionate as sports fans, with soccer being the most popular sport in this country by far. ['€¦] We can see on our Facebook whenever there is a discussion about soccer, there are a lot of comments so from that trend, we can see that soccer is obviously the most popular sport [in Indonesia].

We [also] believe in local sports, to grow domestic sports. Of course, if we have the opportunity to acquire domestic sports we will be happy [to do so]. We are always in discussion with the domestic federations or associations because we are also the exclusive advisers to the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the next [Asian] Olympic Games in 2018 are [in] Jakarta. So, through that relationship, we are also connected to local organizing committees and different sports federations in Indonesia who we are constantly in discussion with.

How have the broadcasters been able to leverage beIN Sports to grow their subscriber base and how do you expect your future business will grow in the country?

From the data we'€™ve seen, all our affiliates have managed to grow their subscribers from before they had beIN Sports to 18 months later, we'€™ve looked at the latest figures, up 10 times on average. Some get a lot more, some get lower growth. Nexmedia, for example, its reach is only in Jakarta, so the growth is less than the others. ['€¦] currently we have Orange TV, Nexmedia, Transvision and K-Vision [that broadcast beIN Sports channel]. ['€¦] We hope that by the end of next season, 18 months later, they can double the numbers they have at the moment.

I am pretty much optimistic about the future. The penetration of pay TV in households in Indonesia is less than 9 percent of the total TV households. [In addition], for many years, most of the pay TV subscribers have been targeted only in Greater Jakarta, where most of the wealthier people are focused [living] in. But today'€™s technology, with the satellite C-band and Ku-band, we are able to reach a lot further than Greater Jakarta. So for all those viewers outside, I believe that now they can finally have access to quality pay TV, ['€¦] and we believe accessibility now is greater than before, and also with the competition with different pay TV platforms at the moment the subscription fees are quite low, more affordable for people and I believe that the middle class in Indonesia is growing.