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Traditionally, start-up costs for launching new broadcast services have
been extremely high, with annual satellite costs easily reaching $3M
and each encoder costing $150k per channel. That’s without the costs
of the day-to-day management of the platform, programme production
and content rights. But all that is changing. For example, until fairly
recently a transponder would only take 6 channels, it can now take
16. Changes in technology, economies of scale and falling
transmission costs have had a profound impact on lowering the cost
of launching and maintaining a commercially successful television
service anywhere in the world.
“With skills, scalability and investment in new broadcast technologies
in developing majority countries like Nigeria yet to reach their full
potential, we are seeing a trend amongst emerging broadcasters such
as FSTV to seek the talents of UK service providers. It has never
been easier or more cost effective to launch a full DTH platform,”
explains Alan Constant of Constant Consulting, independent advisers
to FSTV. “The cost of transmission hardware and space segment
capacity has fallen as much as 75% in the last 8 years. This means
that multi-channel, satellite-delivered TV services are within the scope
of countries and organisations that were previously excluded.”
As a result, there are
DTH projects in the
planning stages in a
wide range of African,
Asian and Latin
American countries,
including Tanzania,
Kenya, Pakistan, India,
Bangladesh, Vietnam
and Brazil. In addition,
projects are progressing
in areas that, for other
s o c i o - e c o n o m i c
reasons, were not
previously in a position
to afford wide-scale
satellite TV services. These include South Africa and the former
Eastern bloc, in particular the Balkans and the Baltic states.
However, despite the fact that the cost of establishing a service is
substantially lower than a decade ago, its still by no means trivial,
warns Alan Constant. Not only are there costs associated with the
establishment of the service, but also there is the ongoing expenditure
on programme production and rights acquisition which will not be
offset by subscriber and/or advertising revenue until the service is well
established and uptake grows.
“Broadcasters could face major challenges in the first two years of
launching a smaller DTH platform. External finance, joint ventures or
franchising could be necessary to allow the channel to be set up properly
whilst the revenue stream is established. In addition, the type of service
provider they chose is hugely important and can have a significant bearing
on start-up costs,” he says.
FSTV appointed Constant Consulting to oversee the project. The
company carried out extensive research into ways of keeping costs
to a minimum and to make the process as painless as possible.
The team behind FSTV aren’t broadcast technology experts and
this was another major consideration. By choosing a broadcast
service provider who could provide and manage a true end-to-end
solution by bundling connectivity, space segment, playout, studios,
production and office accommodation services together, FSTV
would not have to pay capital costs to set up the platform. The
need for complex and costly multiple contracts would be
eliminated, so freeing up their time and allowing the FSTV team
to concentrate on getting their programming and subscriber
offering together.
After extensive marketing evaluation, Constant Consulting
recommended Kingston as the service provider best equipped to meet
these needs. The company has everything in place to get a DTH
platform up and running quickly, and can offer additional services
such as multi-language, subtitling, Participation TV and interactivity,
Early this year, FSTV (Frontage Satellite Television) announced it was to launch the first satellite DTH
platform for Nigeria and manage the entire end-to-end process from the UK. FSTV is bringing 25 new
channels, some exclusive, to a potential audience of 150 million people using satellite delivery, playout, TV
studio and co-location services from
Kingston inmedia
, the satellite broadcast service provider based
just outside London. How can a new, small player manage this when DTH has traditionally been the
preserve of cash-rich companies?
Wake up to DTH
Kingston inmedia’s Nick Thompson and FSTV’s Reuben
Famuyibo sign the contract for the new DTH platform
The gallery at one of Kingston
inmedia’s TV studios
