8
The economy of niches

Where are the new digital channels and services coming from?

‘What is happening is this. The more the unit cost of producing and delivering content is coming down, the greater the number of people are interested. The market, like Moore’s Law, is growing, and competition helps it grow even more,’ says Antonio Arcidiacono, who runs EUTELSAT’s new products division.

EUTELSAT, based in Paris, is a group of satellites, owned by Europe’s various telephone companies. It is currently in the process of privatizing itself, and expects to be fully independent by mid-2001. EUTELSAT is in the front line when it comes to new broadcasting opportunities, and Arcidiacono (in 1999) said that consumers only have a limited amount to spend on new broadcasting inventions: ‘But for business use I see an enormousgrowth for the near future. For the consumer the scope for new entrants is limited unless you start seeing the pro-sumer emerge. Then you produce wealth out of the use of your existing bandwidth.’

Niche channels, multiplexed channels, skip-hour channels all play their part in the expansion of choice, and the key to these new broadcasting niches is digital transmission. Claire Leproust runs Canal+ interactive division. She says broadcasters must ask what constitutes a new niche channel: ‘A broadcast shouldn’t just come as pictures with sound. It should also include questions like: should there be a teletext service attached to it, a web site promoting it, an interactive game supporting it, a home-shopping element as part of it, and asking third-party companies to be part of that, as another revenue stream, on your behalf. It is thinking of the whole package.’

Leproust suggests that each broadcast channel should be treated as its own portal site. ‘Because to offer a complete service, with games, or merchandising, or news, or pictures within the TV guide. [A portal] also changes the broadcasters’ relationship with advertisers which will no longer be passive, but active. We allow them to suggest direct mail or coupon-response, but also those advertisers will also become potential merchant-partners with us.’

The power of a pay-TV broadcaster in controlling the market, manipulating its subscriber base, is immense. ‘We have the database, we have the information a commercial broadcaster does not have. We can now e-mail all of our subscribers across the world, and this will become increasingly important as all free-to-air broadcasts become part of the pay-TV offer,’ added Leproust.

In November 1999 Canal+ celebrated its fifteenth Anniversary and on 4 November added ‘i>television’, a 24-hour news channel that takes its model from NY1, an innovative news channel from the USA. Unfortunately, NY1 also inspired the Channel One service in the UK, which failed in 1998. Canal+ seem to have recognized the risks. i>television promises to be truly revolutionary, sending out its video-journalists not with a bus-pass and ENG camera,but fully-equipped Satellite News Gathering (SNG) cars with self-tracking roof-mounted satellite dishes.

Allied to i>tv is ‘Le Journal de Chez Vous’ (‘Your Hometown Newspaper’) which delivers highly localized electronic news coverage. Viewers can pre-select their ‘favourite’ pages and regions, for example, looking at ‘Paris’ for national headline news or another town for its local news. Le Journal is also designed to provide regional classified ads, and earn itself a few francs. This is enhanced teletext and some.

Canal’s new on-screen activity extends to its ‘Foot+’ service which has expanded dramatically for the 1999–2000 soccer season. Foot+ helps combat rival Television Par Satellite (TPS), which can also show some live matches. Canal+ aggressively adds value with on-screen extras, video-in-video replays through its ‘interactif notepad’ device, and a fascinating 2–3 minute video-in-video summary, with commentary, of the missed action.

‘ZapFoot’ is the name given by Canal+ to its soccer service, which helps pay-per-view subscribers to monitor goal-scoring action on seven live channels. While watching one game a text message pops up saying a goal has been scored at another match, which the viewer can then instantly join.

Canal+ has more than news and sport on its channels. Its electronic wizardry is used on its flagship nightly entertainment show, Nulle Part Ailleurs; here viewers can call up a menu of what has happened and, again through picture alongside picture, watch a missed interview, musical number or the popular Les Guignols de l’Info, the Spitting Image-type latex puppets, who deliver their comic spin on the day’s news.

Leproust says an increasing number of Canal+ channels have sophisticated interactive overlays. Efforts include La Chaine Meteo, Canal Satellite’s own weather channel and Eurosport, Fox Kids and Canal J that shows Pikto Rezo, a bouquet of interactive kids’ games. Up to four players can interact from different locations via telephone or Minitel (France Telecom’s interactive mini-TV monitor in many French homes). Half a million people a month areusing Pikto Rezo. ‘Being able to play friends across town adds a completely new dimension to the experience,’ says Leproust in 1999.

However, E! Entertainment’s head of international, Jon Helmrich gives this view:

There are undoubted opportunities in the digital world, but we have to weigh the economics in the digital world and many of the channels that are springing up are just multiplexes or quasi-channels especially those coming from the music industry where they have a couple of extra staff reformatting a signal. They’re not real channels.

Helmrich agrees, though, that personalization and localization has always been the name of niche broadcasting.

Localization is absolutely vital, and it is the core of our international strategy. It’s why in some territories we have moved a little slower than expected. I will be blunt in saying that we were offered several years ago in the UK a channel that was just the imported US domestic signal and we said that was not good for the long term. Viewers might appreciate the novelty [of E!’s American-led content] at first but in the UK they would want a behind-the-scenes show on Eastenders or Ruby Wax.

EUTELSAT’s Arcidiacono comments on the economics:

There are some important economies of scale. When you pass 1 million users, you enter the consumer market. But if you cannot exceed 10 million consumers you do not survive for long in the consumer market. The advantage of using common technologies makes these targets easier, because you can have any number of 1 million niches. It is clear that multimedia and Internet by satellite is not yet in the consumer market, while DTH is very much in the consumer market. Likely in the next few years multimedia and Internet by satellite will be in the consumer market.

Those multiple small niches have been exploited, certainly in Europe by Ynon Kreiz, president of Fox Kids Europe. In addition to being present in almost every major European market, Fox Kids added Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Lithuania and Bulgaria between 1999 and 2000. ‘Our strategy is to be present in every country in Europe; we are now in 23 markets in Europe. The two key markets where we are not present at the moment are Germany and Italy. It’s not that we have been slow in getting into these countries, but we thought these two markets were unsettled with a lot of moving elements.’

Kreiz says each market must be taken on its merit. ‘In the UK to multiplex was an easy decision to take, where you have already over 1 million digital subscribers on Sky. Our pan-European strategy allows for this sort of flexibility, saying for example that the UK will have two feeds but France for the time being only one. It totally depends on the market, and the evolution of the market.’

Evolution was also on Gerry Glover’s lips. Glover runs National Geographic UK and a second channel from Nat-Geo is imminent. ‘We have a lot of original material we have commissioned, and that could allow us to offer a couple of different genres if we choose to do so.’ Glover added: ‘We seem to do well linked to the relative maturity of the market, for example in those markets where we came on to the scene reasonably soon after pay-television launched. In Poland, South Africa and Australia we are in the top five channels. Usually it is us and Discovery, switching positions, and then movies and sport ahead of us. But mainly it is the two documentary services that rate very highly. In Australia we have been in the top two or three since launch, and in Poland we are in the top six or seven channels. They are places where competitors didn’t have anything like the head start.’

In other words, you should get your channel idea in quick, but not so early that you are ahead of the market, and that ‘magic million’ subscriber base.

In France Canal+ is now (2000) carrying a test channel from banking group Credit Agricole. Claire Leproust suggests that thisbank’s entry into digital broadcasting will be the spur to bring in most of its competitors. ‘It will provoke other banks to run similar channels, and also hypermarkets like Carrefour and other major retailers. Retailers especially want to ally their brand and get much closer to TV channels. The problem is that these people must create good quality material and not just propaganda. That’s a challenge. Look at the banks, where the real added-value is to develop their home banking and the value of a TV set is to give them the ability to humanize this relationship.’

Localization, personalization, and now humanization. That’s what the new breed of television is all about. Whether it’s allowing viewers to choose their ‘own’ camera angles or calling up ‘Your Hometown Newspaper’ on the television, producers are continually seeking to drill down to their niche audiences. It’s what digital television is all about.

Twenty years to become clear

It has taken twenty years for the thematic channel picture to become clear. On 1 June 2000 CNN will celebrate its twentieth anniversary. Although HBO launched first – and films and sport are the foundation of any thematic platform – it was really CNN that broke the mould of broadcasting. The changes established by Ted Turner are now taken for granted, and most recognize that the world of broadcasting is changing. However, there are noticeable examples of even more dramatic shifts in the growth of niche and thematic channels. They are proliferating at a breathtaking pace, and there are other developments as seemingly every broadcaster on the planet starts offering web-based channels to the users, spawning a new word in some circles, hence ‘viewsers’.

News is just one sector. Documentary is another, and viewers are beginning to see a rapid deployment of new and fascinating ‘doc-channels’. There are few platform broadcasters which have not partnered with, or imitated, the Discovery model; but it seems every niche and sub-niche is being examined or developed for exploitation into a thematic channel. This dramatic shift to new content is confirmed by Michael Wolf, media consultant at UScreative giant Booz, Allen and Hamilton. Speaking to journalists after a presentation at the 1999 International Media Forum in Berlin, he said that the future of television belongs to viewers, allowing them to use interactive technology to call up programming that suits their interests and schedule. ‘In five years, the television of today will look like black-and-white television to us. TV networks will only prosper if they adapt to TV’s new age.’

Wolf suggests that television by the year 2004 will be unrecognizable compared with what exists today, with more than 1000 channels commonplace in viewers’ homes and video-on-demand, game-order services and the Internet on television creating ever-greater choice.

As if to confirm the trend, Europe’s two giant satellite players have recently confirmed just how important the explosion in digital choice has been. SES/Astra claim more than 800 video and audio channels, and promise another four satellites by the end of 2001. Romain Bausch, Astra’s director general says in his view the future programming will follow two styles: ‘The first being more TV channels where the programmer is packaging content for viewers but offering it a straightforward broadcast format. The second group will come from the electronic supply of all sorts of content, video, entertainment, education … in other words there will be the prepared, structured type of channel and the unpackaged style.’

His opposite number at EUTELSAT, director general Giuliano Berretta, claims more than 550 television channels plus another couple of hundred radio stations and says another type of channel is going to emerge. ‘We now have a total of 37 [digital] multiplexes. In fact, there is nobody more experienced in developing niche markets than EUTELSAT. There are new niches coming up every day but they need to find carriage and sell themselves at a much lower price. I can predict plenty of new niche channels if the price is right and it is my job to create gateways so that channels can get on the air.’

Berretta’s concept comes from technical improvements benefiting digital broadcasters all over the globe. He says that digital compression ratios are improving all the time, and with low-costnoise-reduction technology, further improvements will follow. ‘In the near future, thanks to these improvements, [we will] provide television channels at slightly lower video quality at a 2 Mbps bit-rate and at that level our prices would be extremely attractive and yet still provide acceptable video quality’, says Berretta.

Berretta calls this new television model, ‘micro television’. ‘RAI’s Net Uno is today transmitting perfectly acceptable pictures at 1.8 Mbps and there are many channels that we broadcast today at 3.2 Mbps. I see considerable scope for regional channels where viewers do not necessarily want entertainment in the conventional sense but news and information from their region. I also see another level of broadcasting emerge and I call this Industrial Television where companies need to talk to their customers or their own employees.’

EUTELSAT is boosting the number of opportunities for micro-stations. In early 2001, EUTELSAT will launch a new satellite (EUTELSAT Hot Bird 5-R) with space for at least 18 individual 2 Mbps channels. ‘We are currently in discussion with a major group who see great potential in bringing together single niche channels and who see a business in creating packages from them,’ says Berretta.

Choice – or a ‘heart attack within a year’

However, German network broadcasters seem not to share these predictions. Georg Kofler, who retired as CEO at Germany’s Pro Sieben Media Group in 1999, dismisses the ‘1000s of channels’ argument and says technology will not change the inherent laziness in most viewers. ‘Even in a multimedia market, people will continue to follow the laws of sloth,’ he says. ‘If a super-user for all this new media does exist in the future, he’ll be ready for a heart attack in a year.’

Kofler said most people would still want to use their free time to relax and would consider too many choices for entertainment stressful rather than exciting. Nevertheless, Pro Sieben was due to launch N24, its 24-hour news channel on 24 January 2000.

Three other German broadcasters also shared their views of the future shape of television at Berlin.

• SAT1 CEO Juergen Doetz says he is confident that network TV in its current form would remain central to the market. ‘Our core business will remain television, television and again, television’, he said, adding that the major networks were only using the Internet to enhance their programming with sites linked to popular shows and news broadcasts.
• Gerhard Zeiler, the head of RTL, Germany’s largest and most profitable network, admits the market will fragment but that RTL would rely on its strong branding: ‘The value of the brand will only grow more important.’ RTL, in exploiting the brand name, has promised four thematics, centred on soap operas, news/magazine programmes, action and a ‘best of RTL’ channel.
• Dieter Hahn, deputy CEO of the media conglomerate Kirch Group which in September 1999 re-launched its DF-1 digital multichannel direct-to-home package as Premiere World, said that because it had interests in commercial, pay-TV and digital TV, it could wait to see whether the passive or the active viewer won out. ‘It does not matter how we reach our viewers, whether it is over the Internet, via satellite, cable or antenna,’ Hahn says. ‘Just as long as we reach them.’

Canal+ Leproust recognizes the problems. ‘It is important we hold the subscriber’s hand. The TV is a passive media for entertainment. If we look at consumer habits, with our 60 thematic channels, most consumers have the ability to manage that offer. But some people have difficulty coping which is why it is important we help them navigate.’

Microsoft’s WebTV does take viewers by the hand, with its core business designed to add value to established programming and channels. Jim Beveridge is WebTV’s business development manager for Europe, and he predicts explosive growth in web-streamed channels. ‘There is no stopping it. In fact it reminds me of the evolution of radio and the early days when people had to use a primitive crystal set to start off with, then it got better andbetter. It’s junk today and one would have to be pretty keen to sit and watch or listen at these wonderful 2-inch-sized windows, but it is going to get much better.’

The key niches

Kids

Considered a vital element in any multi-channel bouquet, the kids segment is especially important because of the spin-off licensing and merchandising benefits. Whether Nickelodeon, Disney, Fox Kids, Kermit, Canal J or the other clones, kids are big business. As this book is written, the BBC is planning a pair of children’s channels (pre-school and general) while many thematic providers are extending their brands into directly adjacent age-groups (Noggin, ABC, Nick Jnr).

News

CNN set the pattern, since when practically every national broadcaster has launched its own stand-alone news service. CNN has extended its franchise with joint-venture channels in Spain (CNN+) and Turkey (CNN-Turk). Besides BBC World, EuroNews, CNBC, Bloomberg and Sky News, recent competitive offerings have come from Italy (Stream’s ‘Class Financial Network’), Turkey’s NTV, and Kanal EE (Economy and Entertainment). We are also beginning to see ‘foreign’ broadcasters attack CNN’s home ground, in other words an increasing number of channels are using the English language to break into the global news/business news market (Turkey’s NTV-I, Dubai’s Business Channel).

Documentary

Discovery Communications created the genre by taking the BBC/PBS model and beautifully packaging documentary and natural history into highly appealing niches. Arts & Entertainment’s History and Biography have also carved out a slice, as has National Geographic, France’s Canal+ (Multithematiques) and TPS, Italy’s RAI, Telepiu and Stream, and Spain’s TVE (TVE Tematica). But thepast year or two has seen Discovery segment itself even further, into travel (acquiring The Travel Channel in the process) as well as science, adventure and history strands. Amsterdam-based UPC has launched a clutch of factual channels including Avante and Expo: The Design Channel, which are being rolled out to their cable systems across Europe.

Music

MTV was first – and no other sector has seen as many imitators. Even MTV has spawned sub-divisions (Rap, Country, Blues) together with localized versions all over the planet. The next step might be to bring these distant relations back under one all-embracing MTV digital platform, containing MTV Asia, Latino, India and Russia. Some of the competitors have made significant progress, not least Germany’s VIVA and Channel [V]/Zee Music.

Exporting and importing niches

Niches can also travel from one region to another. For example, there is no shortage of European channels exported to Asia, or Far Eastern products exported to other parts of the globe. However, with precious few exceptions this international trade is limited to the state-backed broadcasters like the BBC, Italy’s RAI, France’s TV5 and Germany’s Deutsche Welle. Each of these broadcasters reflects in one form or other a wish to reach their own expatriate audience as well as portray something of a shop-window for viewers wanting entertainment, news and some cultural exposure from the broadcasting country. Other channels falling under this general heading, including Turkey’s TRT and a channel from Greece. Currently only the BBC makes any effort to produce localized content in an overseas market, of which more in a moment.

There has been little movement in the export of other, more commercially orientated channels from Europe. Most of the running has come from channels that are clearly identified as ‘American’ in origin, even if content has been localized for regional audiences. Indeed, one television insider described the prospects of sending more European channels to the Far East as ‘problematic’, addingthat audiences for language-specific channels were so fragmented, and cable and satellite delivery systems so numerous, that any immediate plans to expand services were ‘questionable’.

One exception is the Granada Television-backed UKTV channel on AsiaSat and ArabSat. This channel should not be confused with the similarly named UKTV channel available to Australian viewers, which is part-owned by BBC Worldwide.

The Granada channel may well benefit directly from a new venture announced in August which sees a new production company (GB Productions) formed with the BBC to develop jointly a new crop of dramas and situation comedies for the American market. If these concepts come to fruition, it is quite likely that both ‘UKTVs’ will benefit over time from fresh programme ideas.

The Granada/BBC effort is seen as a positive move to not only exploit the existing libraries of both broadcasters, but to create programmes that compete more effectively on a global scale. Scott Siegler (who is also president of Granada Entertainment USA) heads up the venture and said at the launch that the UK broadcasting scene was rich with high-quality concepts, citing Cosby ‘which is directly modelled on a ratings-winning BBC comedy show (One Foot in the Grave).

Another British broadcaster that attempted to get a foothold over the Far East and Japan was Carlton Communications. Their KTV (Karaoke) channel, in which they had a 31 per cent stake, was a financial ‘fiasco’ which they closed in 1997 having sustained ‘significant losses’ according to the company. A few months later, Carlton retreated even further, selling its interests in Home TV, a joint-venture Hindi channel launched with Pearson, the Hindustan Times, Hong Kong media group TVB and investment bankers Schroders. Mumbai-based Sahara Group picked up the shares.

While Granada’s plans might take time to mature, and Carlton is itself concentrating on expansion in the UK and Spain, two other European outfits have been aggressive in their export thrust. The first, BSkyB has placed a few channels in front of Far Eastern, Australian and Middle East viewers. Sky News, for example, iswidely available throughout Asia/Pacific thanks to Star TV’s feeds from AsiaSat 3S and ArabSat (as part of the Star Select bouquet). Though clearly targeted at UK expatriates, it is available and redistributed for Australian and New Zealand multichannel viewers.

BSkyB is also exporting its UK-produced [tv] computer channel to the Middle East, alongside Granada’s UKTV and the Arts & Entertainment-backed The History Channel. According to Altaf Alimohammed, chief executive at Star Select, The History Channel’s Middle East programming has already been localized for his region’s audience.

The History Channel is a classic example of how to create a documentary product that appeals to local audiences. This winter it will announce three key broadcasting distribution partnerships for India, Japan, and what they call ‘greater’ China and South East Asia. Whitney Goit, Arts & Entertainment’s executive vice-president for its television networks, expects services to start early in 2000. ‘The core of the content will come from our own archives, and that product will be dubbed into local languages with some interstitial material and possibly hosting inserted to make the channel appeal to local audiences. We strive to put a [suitable] product out there, so that the viewer sees us as an international channel with an obvious effort to relate closely to that local market.’

Goit says the Indian market is the easiest to adapt to, thanks to its English-speaking traditions and Anglo-American influences. ‘However, in China we are having to send every piece of material into the country in advance of being shown on air where it is checked. The mechanism is in place, but we are keen to create with the authorities a reputation for being ultra-sensitive and reliable to their needs. We want them to have programming that they are comfortable with, but it is a different market. We will start with a block of programming so that they can see how serious we are.’

The History Channel is most cautious about how it presents its programming. Goit says ‘Chinese audiences might know about Marilyn Monroe within our Biography strand, but there would be other key figures in our history that they would not be aware of. But we can turn this to our advantage, by hosting the show witha little introduction setting up the item, saying ‘This week we are going to explore great American film stars’, and then explain why John Wayne or Gary Cooper or Joan Crawford mattered so much. They might not know each individual but the theme will be appealing, same with musicians or politicians or generals. It is for us to tell the story and make the item interesting.’

By 2000–2001, Goit expects to have doubled The History Channel’s global distribution. ‘China alone should give us coverage on larger cable systems and a block on provincial TV stations. It’s been a long haul, but they are such huge markets with such long-term potential and we have been able to learn a little from those who have gone before us.’ Next on the list for History are similar deals in Turkey, Israel and in time Pakistan.

BSkyB is also firmly behind (with the NBC network of the USA and Fox) the remarkably successful National Geographic channel, Nat-Geo. BSkyB owns a 50 per cent stake in National Geographic’s European operation, and this includes the Middle East service. National Geographic has been a resounding success globally, even though it has yet to launch in North America. Sandy McGovern, president of National Geographic Channels Worldwide, speaking at the MIPCOM programming market in September, was especially optimistic about National Geographic gaining further carriage in the Far East. ‘In Australia for example we are in the top five channels. Usually it is us and Discovery, switching positions, with movies and sport ahead of us. But mainly it is the two documentary services that rate very highly.’

Nat-Geo has just multiplexed its digital service for the UK (Nat-Geo+1hr) and over time, and where digital capacity allows, this policy might be extended. Nat-Geo has extensive distribution in the region (mainly on AsiaSat 3S and Palapa C2) and is one of the few international channels to gain total acceptance in China, where it has more than 12 million homes viewing. McGovern says Nat-Geo’s roll-out has been one of the fastest-ever in cable and satellite history, now topping 13 million homes (plus China). Besides the Asian region, Nat-Geo is also concentrating its sights on the USA where it plans to launch later in 2000.

Nat-Geo’s concept, in the words of chief operating officer Ken Ferguson, is straightforward, and includes localizing content for the 57 countries it is now available in: ‘We’re not just about the animal kingdom. We’re extending subject matter to include modern culture and religion; one programme examines why 30 million people visit Rome and the Vatican. But we are also reaching new audiences, in India and several Asian markets either via various licensing deals or new channel launches.’

As part of Nat-Geo’s global awareness programme it has created a competition where filmmakers from all over the world are invited to submit ideas for ‘Blue Planet Heroes’, a series of four-minute documentaries.

The other European outfit which is beginning to make a considerable noise throughout the Far East is a little-known Paris-based company which has created two fascinating entertainment niches. MCM International is now making its signals available throughout the region and already successfully exporting its Fashion TV and MCM (music) channels. Indovision, for example, carries Fashion TV while Indonesia’s embryonic cable systems (Metra and Kabelvision) additionally carries MCM as well as Fashion TV.

The Fashion TV concept is so easy; it is a never-ending lineup of attractive models displaying the latest from the world’s top fashion houses. Broadcast without commentary, the images are universal and easy to absorb. Its sister-channel MCM is France’s unashamed alternative challenge to MTV. No specific changes are made to either Fashion TV or MCM to suit local audiences. Indeed, it is the very nature of the programming that it is left untouched.

BBC Worldwide

The BBC is largely recognized from its BBC World flagship news channel, but much more is happening under the BBC banner. ‘By 2006 we will be contributing around US$300+ million to the BBC’s commercial activities,’ says BBC Worldwide’s chief executive Rupert Gavin, speaking at a television programme sales market in Cannes in October 1999. Gavin added that by 2006 BBCWorldwide will be a ‘very large organization’ in its own right, ‘because to deliver a US$300 m cash flow benefit our sales revenue will be something around US$1.9 billion, which contrasts with the BBC’s current licence fee which draws in around US$3.5 bn.’

BBC Worldwide was formed in 1994 to develop a co-ordinated approach to the commercial activities of the otherwise publicly funded BBC. BBC World operates from within BBC Worldwide. It is also home of the 50/50 joint venture with Discovery Communications to launch a number of channels (marketed in the Far East by Discovery Networks Asia or India). One of these channels is Animal Planet, which over the past year or so has gained almost immediate acceptance by cable and satellite operators within the Asian region. Some 5 million Indian viewers receive Animal Planet.

BBC Worldwide’s vision, in the words of chief executive Rupert Gavin, is to be ‘recognized in our own right as one of the UK’s leading international consumer media companies’.

Its flagship channel, BBC World, is already well known around the world. Patrick Cross is BBC World’s MD, charged with taking BBC World to every corner of the globe, and he explained in 1999 why the channel’s existing distribution success is soon to get a boost:

We will be introducing a new programming schedule in April 2000, which packages news at the top of the hour and documentary material at the half-hour. It becomes a very tidy schedule, easy for viewers to understand. But news always takes priority, and we will always stay with important breaking news.

In India, at 10 p.m. every evening we have our ‘made in India’ slot, which features programming from India about India. The highlight of the week is Friday’s Question Time India show. We were coming under increasing ratings pressure from the other competitive news channels, and Star News started up in April last year, so these slots were created and have enabled us to regain control of that key 10 p.m. slot. Our reach hasbeen maintained, with around 10–11 per cent viewership from the available audience of around 8.5 million connected television households.

Cross says the Indian model is one the BBC would like to replicate to other major markets, ‘Except to say this sort of programming is expensive. We are very careful to maintain BBC editorial control, which means close liaison with the local production company. Question Time is especially onerous because it’s an unashamed political programme with all the special needs of balance and fairness.’ Cross admits that maintaining a balance has often been hard work, with the show regularly creating fireworks of its own.

The BBC were planning a similar opt-out programme for Pakistan, but the October political changes have placed that concept on to the back burner for the time being. ‘But we can only consider these sorts of special shows where there is a viable local audience,’ says Cross.

Japan is a case in point for the BBC. ‘We do some “opting in ” shows in Japan. They draw down the signal from PanAmSat and insert programming from the BBC archive specially for the Japanese audience on satellite and cable, which carries Japanese advertising.’ These seasons of shows have tended to be on wildlife and a series on English gardens.

All this activity has raised BBC World’s profile. According to PAX 99, the latest survey (as at January 2000) conducted in seven cities in Asia-Pacific by Asia Market Intelligence Ltd, BBC World is the fastest growing news channel in South East Asia, with a daily reach which has increased 23 per cent among business decision makers and 31 per cent among affluent adults since 1998. The weekly reach for the same demographic groups has increased by 15 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, while BBC World’s total viewership has grown by 44 per cent among business decision makers and 46 per cent among affluent adults over the same period. BBC World now claims it reaches a total of over 155 million homes in 200 countries and territories world-wide.

China is the largest missing market for the BBC. Although BBC World is available in Hong Kong, other than hotel distribution there is no formal re-distribution of BBC World into China. Cross expects that to change. ‘We have no authority to market in China, since they objected to a programme we ran in the UK on Chairman Mao’s private life. We are working very hard to get those permissions and we have had some signs of softening towards us.’

Table 8.1 Niches in Asia

There are, seemingly, a million other niches. A quick glance at any major digital satellite will show how esoteric some minority interests can be. However, whether a Russian channel broadcast to émigrés living in Brooklyn, New York, or a Vietnamese channel beamed to expatriates in California, these niches can only grow and become increasingly important in a digital age. How they are best delivered is something we examine in the next chapter.