Rohana Rozhan

 

Since launching in 1996 with just over 20 channels, Malaysia’s Astro has become one of Asia’s leading pay-TV platforms. With an exclusive 20-year license for satellite DTH transmission, Astro’s subscriber base today stands at 46 percent of Malaysian TV homes. Its slate of more than 100 channels includes services from the region and around the world, as well as its own bouquet of networks, under the Astro Entertainment banner, featuring locally developed content. Of the top ten most-watched channels in Malaysia, six are on the Astro platform. CEO Rohana Rozhan tells TV Asia Pacific about how Astro is living up to its motto of “Making Your Life Richer.”

 

TV ASIA PACIFIC:What are the strengths of the Astro platform?

ROZHAN:Central to Astro’s ability to grow at an accelerated pace has been our constant reinvestment in technology, infrastructure, content and talent. To date, Astro has invested over RM5 billion ($1.4 billion) in end-to-end digital infrastructure, comprising powerful satellites with the highest signal availability, the largest all-digital broadcast-and-production facilities, high-quality content-control facilities, set-top boxes as well as facilities for content creation, aggregation and distribution.

 

With these assets and core competencies in place, Astro is in an excellent position to bring to market its ongoing value proposition, which lies in multilingual content creation, aggregation and distribution capabilities and our ability to offer innovative content and interactive services to the widest possible audience in Malaysia.

 

TV ASIA PACIFIC: How do you appeal to Malaysia’s diverse Malay, Indian and Chinese communities?

ROZHAN:Unique to Malaysia is the diversity in cultures, ethnicities and language preferences. It is also common to find two or three generations [living in the same] home in Malaysia. The complexities in programming and packaging are immense. Not only does Astro have to acquire, aggregate and distribute the best of international content, the company also has to create and distribute local content in vernacular languages.

 

Today, its 116 channels, of which 28 are Astro-branded, are packaged into broad genres ranging from sports, movies, dramas, news and current affairs, children’s programs, documentaries, interactivity and general entertainment, to cater to the wide interests of all Malaysians. Seventeen digital radio channels are also provided to Astro’s customers on a complimentary basis to [complete] their total home-entertainment experience.

 

Astro has invested substantially in content—approximately RM1 billion ($285 million) last financial year. As a percentage of revenues, Astro’s content costs rose to 35 percent from 33 percent as we invested in more local content and premium sports programming.

 

TV ASIA PACIFIC:What role does local content play on the platform?

ROZHAN:The company continues to invest in local and localized content to be relevant to the ever-evolving marketplace. We have localized international programs with subtitles and audio language options in Malay, English or Chinese, as well as produced Malaysia-themed programs. Last year we invested over RM300 million ($85 million) in local content, making Astro the single highest investor in local content in Malaysia. The company has more than doubled its first-run transmission hours for local content from 1,700 hours in 2007 to 3,900 hours in 2008 and now to 5,600 hours in 2009.

 

[The success of our local-content strategy is] reflected in the increase in viewership of key signature and local programs such as Akademi Fantasia, Raja Lawak, Sehati Berdansa and Jangan Lupa Lirik,all of which achieved an average of over a million viewers weekly. Chinese and Indian viewership continues to be consistent at 86 percent and 89 percent, respectively.

 

TV ASIA PACIFIC:How have you been expanding your sports offerings?

ROZHAN:Live sports programming is a key highlight and Astro brought to Malaysians the EURO 2008 football tournament, Thomas and Uber Cup, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the all-important Barclays Premier League in 2008. All 31 matches of the UEFA EURO tournament were carried live, with ten of these exclusively broadcast on Astro SuperSport channel. In addition, Astro broadcast an unprecedented 3,000 hours of the 2008 Beijing Olympics via 11 interactive channels, including for the first time ever, a channel in Cantonese co-produced with TVB (in Hong Kong) for the benefit of Cantonese-speaking viewers.

 

TV ASIA PACIFIC:How do you see your rate of subscriber growth?

ROZHAN: We experienced strong revenue and subscriber increases during the year, sustaining the growth momentum of previous years. Penetration of semi-urban and more rural markets continues to be a key strategy. In addition, Astro offers a value-for-money proposition in times of economic uncertainties, when customers shy away from more expensive forms of leisure, such as dining out, in favor of home entertainment. As a result of all these factors, Astro added a record 374,000 homes to its growing customer base, bringing the total to 2.7 million, allowing the Astro service to reach over 12 million people.

 

The Malay segment is one of the fastest-growing segments in Astro. With more than 1.58 million Malay customers, the segment makes up almost 51 percent of total Malay TV households as at the first quarter of fiscal 2010. We have almost doubled our penetration of Malay TV households from 29.3 percent in fiscal year 2006.

 

While Astro has managed to penetrate a large percentage of Malay households in the urban areas, there’s still good growth potential in the semi-urban and rural areas. While we reinforce the distribution network and customer service, we continues to strengthen our content offering to address the Malay segment.

 

In June 2009 we launched the Mustika package, specially targeted for Malays. The Mustika package comprises three channels: Warna, Malaysia’s first 24-hour local comedy channel; Citra, with local and Asian blockbuster movies, Malay premieres and epics; and B4U, the latest box-office Bollywood movies and music videos. Since launch, the Mustika package has received an encouraging response of over 250,000… subscribers [and the number is growing].

 

TV ASIA PACIFIC:What are your overall goals for Astro in the next 12 to 18 months?

ROZHAN:The successful launch of the M3a satellite in June has provided us with additional capacity. With more channels, Astro will be able to cater to all relevant demographic segments by age, language and genres while offering superior interactive features, further widening the competitive advantage over free-to-air TV stations.

 

Today, Astro is already providing personal video recorders (PVRs) and near video on demand. Astro’s next technology leap will enable us to deliver high-definition content and full PVR capabilities. Growing demand for entertainment and information delivered via new media such as broadband IPTV presents opportunities for our content business. We will intensify our efforts to repackage and customize content for distribution on both traditional and new delivery platforms.

 

Going forward, Astro aims to achieve a sustainable, profitable growthvia adding customers with potential for increased consumption; managing existing customers through a growth path; keeping high-value customers on the service; and constant content refreshment and introduction of new content and services.

 

In order to achieve this, we will focus on streamlining and raising efficiency in customer growth, product development, customer care and experience enhancement, customer retention and meaningful loyalty programs, as well as establish a technology road map capable of best-in-class operations. The core competency of Astro as a creator, aggregator and distributor of content will always remain its assets, differentiator and competitive advantage.

 

Today, Astro is already at 46-percent penetration of [the total number of] Malaysian TV households, and a 50-percent penetration is an achievable target in the near future, barring any unforeseen circumstances. This is a critical milestone, which will give Astro the operational efficiency, cost advantage, critical mass to acquire costly content, and the feasibility to launch new services such as high-definition TV and video on demand.