Sending out combat signals to the broadcasting big-guns of Asia,
Channel News Asia (CNA) has announced the decision to turn its local
Singaporean feed regional, come September 2000.
Celebrating its first birthday on March 1, throughout the channel's
fledgling year it has kept diminutively quiet about regionalisation,
focusing on building marketshare and loyalty in the Lion City.
Today, however, CNA is ready to venture into Asia's broader, more
critical, viewer markets - intending to tackle the likes of CNN, CNBC
and BBC World with an Asian twist.
"In the face of competition from cable and the Internet, we've really
got to put our news on tap - so while the big networks do a good job,
they're only reporting on the main headlines in Asia," said Channel News
Asia chief operating officer Shaun Seow.
"We want to supplement that content by covering the second, third and
fourth tier stories, from a more Asian perspective," he said.
Citing the recent economic downturn as the catalyst behind the channel's
regionalisation, Mr Seow added, "we noticed a lot of people wanting news
and information on how to survive the crisis - and our terrestrial
channel ratings (in Singapore) went up as a result".
Garnering a range of pan-Asian programming, 30 per cent of the channel's
regional feed is set to differ from its more "Singapore-centric"
cousin.
"Our newsroom is here (in Singapore), but in the course of last year we
built up a fairly expansive (correspondent) network of nine bureaus
Asia-wide," he said.
"We'll be opening a tenth in Taipei by mid-June, a newsroom and studio
in Hong Kong and commissioning a production house in Mumbai to do strip
programming and a talk show".
Foreign lifestyle and documentary programming will also make up 25 per
cent of the regional feed.
"We want to showcase what's important in Europe and the US, if (we feel)
it will have implications on Asia or a parallelism here," Mr Seow
said.
Aside from the US$150 million investment which, over the next
five years, will foster new talent and finance satellite links, he
stressed that joint ventures spelt the way forward for CNA.
"We won't rule out JV partners because for us to do really well in key
markets we've got to tie up with a strong local partner, who either
gives programming strengths or marketing as well."
Getting "a foot in the door" with the cable operators was key with a
series of roadshows targeting the broadcasting trade, regional
publications, advertising agencies and cable operators rolling out in
Hong Kong to Australia from April to June.
Beaming out on Indonesian satellite Palapa within the year, Mr Seow
earmarked the potential five million Indonesian eyeballs as a step up
from the Lion City's limited viewership.
"Singapore is a small market, we're targeting half a million
professionals, reaching only 30 per cent of those daily - and to really
satisfy Asian consumer's need for news we have to cover China as well,"
Mr Seow said.
With "the Asian perspective" hinging on local language subtitles and
feeds, he is pragmatic about the inroad to the mainland.
"At this point our official entry into China, with the approval of the
authorities, will be through hotels and serviced appartments - but we're
considering local language versioning in a few years time."
Meanwhile, upping awareness, CNA is pouring US$4 million into its
advertising and marketing directive, backed-up by its website
(www.channelnewsasia.com).
"It's our advance guard before we're seen by satellite (viewers)," said
Mr Seow.
Brandishing the site's news advantage of 24-hour real-time news feed and
streaming video content, Mr Seow added that its dotcom offering had
delivered credibility to the channel.
"We're getting some advertising, but all dotcoms are lost leaders at the
moment - we may talk about money, but the real traffic is yet to be
seen."
