The march towards the digital age has gone underway with the launch of the Vinasat-2 satellite this year after 2008’s Vinasat-1 satellite, with officials confident of Vietnam meeting broadcast demand until 2020.
Potential for digital growth
The outlook is in line with Vietnam’s plans to fully digitalise broadcasting in the same time frame, with terrestrial digital TV accounting for 45% of all transmissions. Under the plan, approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, the project will develop a digital terrestrial TV market as part of restructuring plans of Vietnam’s nationwide broadcast network. The plan hopes to cover 80% of TV households with access to digital broadcasts.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) says of the 20 million TV subscribers in 2011, 13.5% or 3.7 million people were pay-TV households, leaving the way open for future growth. Analysts say opportunities lie in the growing cable, digital, satellite, mobile and IPTV services markets. Deputy Prime Minister of MIC, Le Nam Thang, said the government will support digitalisation with subsidies to lower income families to ensure access to set-top boxes. Le Nam’s comments came as Vietnam TV executives also called for common standards in terminal equipment.
Demand for local content
The plans add further excitement to the Vietnam broadcast outlook where local production companies are stepping up output, says John Medeiros, Deputy CEO of CASBAA. “There is such a hunger for Vietnamese language content. Vietnam has consciously moved to a competitive environment in its TV broadcast industry.”
But demand for local productions remains unsatisfied. An MIC report says consumer pressure remains for more local content and lower subscription fees. The report noted while Vietnam has a diversity of channels, monthly subscription rates remained “relatively high”. It also pointed to local content at “less than 30%” and the remainder being “repeat transmission programmes.”
In a market heavily influenced by Asian productions such as those from South Korea, as well as the United States through cable channels such as HBO, more investment is heading into local productions. Ho Chi Minh City TV’s (HCMTV) HTV9 is but one channel attempting to provide greater balance. It has launched a new series, Truong Noi Tru (The Boarding School) in the hope of luring audiences away from the popular South Korean drama series. Earlier this year, HTV7 also localised NBCUniversal Formats’ gameshow Minute To Win It and cooking competition series Top Chef, and CBS Studios International’s infotainment programme, The Doctors.
Healthy competition
CASBAA’s Medeiros says a key success of the Vietnam cable and satellite market was the intense competition between the major platforms as well as production houses. “All these platforms that we are talking about are owned by the government and they are now fiercely competitive with one another.” This has left an “interesting model of privately owned companies developing channels”, using state-owned platforms and competing with other private companies selling channels to other state broadcasters.
Than Mai Tran, Managing Director of Ho Chi Minh-based media analysts, Kantar Media, told TV ASIA Plus that Saigon Tourist Cable TV (STCT) is the current front runner in the race with its 118 channels over rival Hanoi Cable. Meanwhile, HCMTV penetrated the Hanoi market with local productions by cooperating with other pay-TV networks. SCTV, Mai Tran says, had consolidated in 2011 in audience shares ahead of HBO, StarMovies and Cinemax channels. In Hanoi, the front runner was VCTV7 (Dramas) and VCTV2, followed by VCTV8 and SCTV14. The pressure to produce more local content has led to Vietnamese script writers drawing on story lines from Korea and China as a guide.
VTV has also boosted investment in productions overseas, including drawing on foreign actors, with projects located in the Czech Republic, Germany, and the Ukraine. A new production for VTV is the 40-part series Mat Tam Giac Vang (Secret of the Golden Triangle), directed by Nguyen Duong, and produced in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. VTV Broadcom is also looking “to commercialise” its digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) service after a two year trial run. DMB was launched in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2010 on 10 VHF (Very High Frequency) channels with a planned investment of US$2.4 million, and enables multi-media broadcasts such as TV, radio and data-casting to mobile devices.
Looking to the future, Vietnam has plans by 2020 to broadcast news via satellite to North America, Europe, and Asia with up to 20 hours a day in satellite feeds. The aim, Vietnam reports say, is to “provide a better understanding of Vietnam’s political, socio-economic development, culture, and life-styles through TV Channel 4 (VTV4) in English, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German and Spanish.”
