New provider in pay tv market - selectv - Sat 26 Mar 2005 05:30:PM
New provider in pay tv market - selectv<br />Source: http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,...003-462,00.html <br /><br />Pay-TV service to list<br />By Jane Schulze<br />March 26, 2005<br /><br />AUSTRALIAN investors will get another chance to gain direct exposure to the fickle world of pay-TV when former Foxtel chief executive Jim Blomfield lists his new pay-TV service, Selectv, later this year.<br /><br />Styled as a multi-language pay-TV service, the business has changed its name from i-view and registered Selectv as a business name and as an internet domain name.<br /><br />The Australian understands Mr Blomfield, who was ousted from Foxtel in 2001, will release a prospectus in early June to raise up to $30 million, having already sourced some seed funding.<br /><br />The Selectv service, which will offer between 35 and 40 non-English speaking channels, will launch in May, just before the prospectus is revealed.<br /><br />It will be one of the few new avenues for direct investment in the pay-TV sector since the collapse of Australis Media, owner of the now-defunct Galaxy service, in 1997.<br /><br />The only other direct exposure to the pay TV sector is regional operator Austar.<br /><br />Foxtel is jointly owned by Telstra, Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd and News Corporation, owner of The Australian. Optus's pay-TV service is owned by<br />Singapore Telecommunications.<br /><br />The Selectv service will also offer some English-speaking channels on separate pricing tiers, but the channels and the exact prices have yet to be revealed.<br /><br />However, Selectv is expected to set monthly charges at the lower end of the pricing spectrum.<br /><br />"If there were three or four Greek channels in a package you would not be paying more than $49 a month for it," one of the advisers close to the business said.<br /><br />Unlike the larger Foxtel, Optus and Austar pay-TV operations, Selectv does not require a large investment in infrastructure as the signals will be uplinked to satellites from Hong Kong.<br /><br />One of Selectv's major partners is exTV, the pay-TV arm of Hong Kong free-to-air broadcaster TVB. ExTV will send the signals to PanAmSat's PAS 8 satellite.<br /><br />Selectv's main expenses will be its investment in standard set-top boxes and some marketing costs.<br /><br />It expects to break even in four years after gaining about 40,000 subscribers.<br /><br />It will also offer a unique do-it-yourself installation service for subscribers in isolated areas, but has also contracted installation companies for metropolitan subscribers.<br /><br />Selectv will pitch itself directly at the market left by the demise of Mike Boulos's Television & Radio Broadcast Services.<br /><br />Mr Boulos has since started another pay-TV group called United Broadcasting International, which has some of the same channels as his previous service.