(28 April 2009 10:05 pm)

MUMBAI: Research firm Media Partners Asia (MPA) is set to organise the inaugural Indonesia Broadcasting Summit on 4 May.

Supported by the ministry of communication information technology and Komisi Penyiaran, Indonesia, the summit will see key media owners and investors from home and abroad.

“Indonesia has emerged as one of the fastest growing media markets in Asia Pacific and most of the value is presently captured by the TV sector,” said MPA executive director Vivek Couto. “The TV sector generates about $1 billion in annual net sales and is growing rapidly, benefiting broadly from Indonesia’s economic dynamism in recent years. The TV sector’s economic contribution could grow exponentially in the future as free-to-air networks capitalize on local advertising; pay-TV distribution and penetration grow; and the rollout of fixed and wireless broadband digital networks accelerates.”

The agenda of the summit will be to set the future roadmap for the Indonesian broadcast media industry with a focus on the key regulatory, commercial, investment and competitive trends.

The key challenges facing the Indonesian media sector are: achieving full digitisation by 2015; combating piracy in pay-TV; building broadband digital networks that link media with telecoms; and distributing TV content through new digital platforms such as mobile, online, IPTV and digital terrestrial.

The speaker’s list includes minister of communication information technology Mohammad Nuh Dea; Komisi Penyiaran Indonesia chairman Sasa Djuarsa Sendjaja; Global Mediacom/Media Nusantara Citra CEO Hary Tanoesoedibjo; Star Group CEO Paul Aiello; MNC Sky Vision CEO Rudy Tanoesoedibjo; Sony Pictures Television International MD Todd Miller; Disney-ABC International Television Asia Pacific MD Robert Gilby; FremantleMedia CEO, Europe & Asia Pacific Simon Spalding; HBO Asia CEO Jonathan Spink; NDS SVP and GM Asia Pacific Sue Taylor; Irdeto regional director and GM- SE Asia Jerry Park; and Barclays Capital, director TMT Sander Hamersma.

As per a latest research from MPA, TV advertising in Indonesia will grow at 8–9 per cent in net terms during 2009 / 10 and at an average annual rate of more than 10 per cent from 2008–13, in spite of near-term economic challenges. That makes Indonesia one of the fastest growing TV markets in Asia Pacific along with China and India.

At the same time, the report suggests that pay-TV subscribers in Indonesia will also grow rapidly over the next five years, at an average annual rate of more than 30 per cent as penetration climbs towards 10 per cent by 2013 compared with less than 3 per cent today.

The market for online and digital distribution will also grow as broadband proliferates with MPA projections indicating that broadband users will grow from less than 1 million today to reach close to six million by 2013, boosted by wireless and fixed networks.

Key supporters and sponsors of the inaugural broadcasting summit in Indonesia include the Ministry of Communication Information Technology and Komisi Penyiaran Indonesia as well as key local and international sponsors from media (Global Mediacom), content (MNC, CNN, FreMantleMedia and Al Jazeera), distribution (Indovision), and technology (NDS, Irdeto, Seagate) industries.