Boosted by a robust economy, currently growing at about 5.5% per annum, the electronic media industries in Malaysia are thriving. Television is grabbing a larger slice of the advertising pie, at print’s expense. Media Prima Berhad (MPB), which owns all four private terrestrial channels, is healthily profitable. Dominant pay-TV platform Astro, enjoying upswings in subscriptions and revenues, is set for further expansion as it adds dozens of channels to its line-up. Media buyers are using a combination of FTA and pay-TV to reach the Chinese and Malay segments of the population, while the Indian segment can often be targeted by pay-TV alone. Questions remain, however, over the development of IPTV and Mobile TV, which are being hindered by bandwidth constraints. Telekom Malaysia plans to trial IPTV in 2008 and launch a commercial service in 2009. “Much of TM’s broadband network can’t support IPTV because the bulk of its subs have speeds of less than 4 Mbps,” notes Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Media Partners Asia Ltd. “Content issues are also problematic,” he continues. “Astro has exclusive access to a significant amount of popular content.”