People have long had a love-hate relationship with free-to-air television stations ANTV and TV One. Even though their track record is plagued with violations, viewers keep coming back to boost the broadcasters’ revenues and pave the way for their further expansion, including deeper digital penetration.

Publicly listed PT Visi Media Asia (VIVA Group), the operator of both stations, recorded Rp 96.2 billion (US$7.31 million) in net profit in the first half of this year, marking an annual increase of 7.9 percent.

The group, owned by politically well-connected tycoon Aburizal “Ical” Bakrie, also booked a 9.6 percent increase in revenue to Rp 1.2 trillion, beating average growth of 7.7 percent among all listed media companies during the same period.

“We aim to achieve a total of Rp 2.4 trillion by the end of this year, up from Rp 2.1 trillion last year,” VIVA Group president director Anindya Novyan Bakrie said during a shareholders meeting in Jakarta on
Friday.

ANTV, operated by VIVA’s subsidiary PT Intermedia Capital (MDIA), has turned itself into a family television channel since 2013 by focuses on comedy, game shows and soap operas, particularly series from India and Turkey, which have become a major hit in the country lately.

The station’s new concept has led to a significant increase in possible violations of the Public Broadcasting Guidelines and Program Standards (P3SPS), with the number of complaints over its programs soaring to 2,246 last year from 992 in 2013, according to the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI). The alleged violations include physical and verbal abuse in its comedy shows and Indian soap operas.

Apparently unfazed by the complaints, ANTV plans to take entertainment to a whole new level. “We want to stick to entertainment and explore more soap operas options besides India and Turkey. We also plan to develop more interesting game shows for our viewers,” ANTV managing director Otis Hahijary said.

Meanwhile, data from market research firm Nielsen show that TV One led the news market with a share of 3.6 percent in the first half of this year, beating fellow news stations like Metro TV with 2.4 percent, iNews with 1.7 percent and Kompas TV with 1.5 percent.

In recent years, TV One has often been warned by the KPI following public dissatisfaction with its inaccuracy, most recently over the terrorist attack on Jl. MH Thamrin, Jakarta, earlier this year.

TV One plans to grab more male viewers by adding more sports to its programming, especially boxing and mixed martial arts.

Meanwhile, VIVA’s online news portal viva.co.id reached 225 million page views during the first half of this year, with an average of 34 million visits through mobile sites and 6 million visits through mobile applications.

Market research firm eMarketer predicted the number of smartphone users in Indonesia would rise to 103.6 million people in 2017 from 61.2 million last year.

Hence, VIVA Group director David Eric Burke said the broadcaster had developed several new mobile applications connecting directly to its TV programs to grab more online viewers, particularly from the millennial generation.

“One of the most powerful things in our group is social media. We have optimized it since 2015, so now we can broadcast anything about our new show to at least 25 million of our total followers [in various social media accounts] within only five minutes,” he said. (vps)

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