Ministry to tighten control of pay TV services

The Ministry of Information and Communications is finding ways to take the uncontrolled pay TV market into order via a master plan to develop broadcast and television services until 2020.

The ministry has introduced the preliminary draft of the plan to organisations and enterprises for comment.

Nguyen Lam Thanh, in charge of the development strategy division of VTC, said pay TV services are booming at home, with more than 50 firms using different technologies ranging from cable to satellite TV.

However, service suppliers find it difficult to survive with the current low average price of $4 for monthly subscription, Thanh said. As a result, the quality of service is poor, he noted.

According to deputy minister Do Quy Doan, authorities in the past issued a number of regulations to oversee broadcast and TV activities. But they are still unable to tackle issues like poor quality, overwhelming advertising programmes, and fragmented development, he said.

Thus, the ministry had proposed the government draw up and issue the Vietnam broadcasting and television services development plan towards 2020 and now it is executing the project.

Introducing the content of the scheme, Tran Minh Tuan, deputy director of the National Institute of Information and Communication Strategy, said each TV service from cable TV to internet TV should be led by three major companies only. The ministry sets a target of increasing the growth rate of the pay TV service industry to 25-30 percent by 2015 and 10-15 percent from 2016-2020.

It is expected that the ratio of household numbers registering for pay TV services will reach around 30-40 percent by 2015. As such, most cities and provinces will be able to gain access to TV services while all households throughout the country will use cable TV services of at least two service providers.

After 2015, analog cable TV service suppliers will have to stop operations. Meanwhile, digital TV services will be available in all cities and provinces and mobile TV services will be present at centre areas of provinces and cities, with the sales of the whole industry amounting to between $800 million to $1 billion by 2020. Besides, 60-70 percent of the country’s households will be able to watch pay TV by 2020.

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Category: Business