Now Broadband TV
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- ''Due to technical restrictions, this article is incorrectly titled. The correct title is: 'now Broadband TV'''
now Broadband TV (now 寬頻電視) is a 24-hour pay-TV in Hong Kong SAR. Launched in September 2003, it is operated by the fixed-line telecoms leader Pacific Century Cyberworks Limited (PCCW) (電訊盈科), a subsidiary of PCCW VOD Limited.
The word "now" is abbreviated from "Network Of the World". now Broadband TV is at present the second largest pay-TV operators in Hong Kong, after i-CABLE Communications Limited (有線寬頻通訊有限公司).
Image:'now' Broadband TV Logo.jpg
Contents |
History and Establishment
Launched in March 1998, PCCW's Interactive TV (iTV 互動電視) pay- TV services included a wide range of information and entertainment, such as news, video-on-demand (VOD) , music videos, home-shopping, home-banking and educational content. iTV was serving 67,000 subscribers at the end of 2000.
Due to the liberalization of the pay-TV market by the HKSAR government in early July 2000, the then existing duopolists iTV and i-Cable were confronted with ferocious competitions. With fewer subscribers and hence the decline in the revenue generated from iTV, the interactive television operation was terminated in the last quarter of 2002. now Broadband pay-TV service was officially launched in September 2003 with 23 channels under the same umbrella company PCCW; iTV is thus commonly viewed as the predecessor of now Broadband TV.
In relation to the ownership, now Broadband TV is owned by PCCW, which is one of Asia's leading integrated communications companies. It provides a wide range of communications services including local telephony and broadband services.
Chronology
March 1998 PCCW commercially launched iTV
July 2000 Liberalisation of the pay-TV market
Last quarter of 2002 Termination of iTV
August 2003 now Broadband TV was unvieled
September 2003 now Broadband TV was officially launched
Services provided
now Broadband TV uses the pricing model of pay-per-channel basis instead of charging a monthly fee which offers customers choices and flexibility in channel selection. It is a new form of family entertainment providing 24-hour TV channels ranging from music and movies to sports and cartoons.
To protect the privacy of the customers, a personal identification number (PIN) is given to each subscriber and they can change it at anytime.
In addition, since it offers adult channels, a service called "Parental Control" is also launched to give control to parents over the choice of channels of their children.
- Business Package
now Broadband TV offers business package for businessmen to enjoy up-to-date world news, financial news analysis, world perspective and a variety of channels in their offices. More channels such as 24-hour ATV news, Bloomberg TV, Sky News and sports programmes can be enjoyed by paying an additional monthly fee.
Image:Now Broadband TV booth.jpg
Charge schemes
The charge schemes adopted by now Broadband TV are different from other pay-TV operators as it charges its customers on a pay-per-channel basis. Under the pay-channel scheme, it allows flexibility among the subscribers to choose the channels they are interested in and enjoy their own combinations of channels. They only have to pay for the channels they choose with no extra monthly fees. Alternatively, customers may choose channel packages at discounted prices (e.g. $138 for all Chinese Channels, $12 per month for the channel of BBC World 12-month package while the original price is $20).
Since each household has to install a special decoder to view the channels, there is an extra deposit and installation for the decoder. However, these charges are waived for NETVIGATOR broadband subscribers.
Channels
At the beginning of the business, now Broadband TV only operated 23 channels. However, the number of channels has already exceeded 70 in June 2005. At present, now Broadband TV offers 15 free channels and 57 pay channels. One of the pay channels offers another 15 audio channels.
Channels are categorized into four groups, namely sports, entertainment, movies and news and infotainment. For the adult channels, programmes are only delivered on demand.
now Broadband TV provides some free channels to non-subscribers. On the other hand, it offers some exclusive channels for its subscribers such as Star Sports, Mei Ah Asian Drama Channel etc.
now BroadBand TV has moved from a new born stage to a commercial stage. And now, it is developing into a mass-market service.
Channels Highlight
now Broadband TV has been developing gradually. At the beginning, it only operated several channels which lacked diversity. However, as witnessing more competition in the same industry, it has added several brand new channels, such as the Korean Drama channel and also the ESPN sports channel, to provide more diversity in their service.
now Broadband TV catogorises the free 15 channels and the 57 pay channels into 9 groups:
- Movie
- Music
- News
- Infotainment
- Entertainment
- Sports
- Kids
- Adult
- Indian
Channels Digest
The 15 free channels are marked by " * ".
Movie
There are in total 10 movie channels. Classic world known movie channels include MGM(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Hallmark Channel and Turner Classic Movies. HBO Signature, HBO, Cinemax and STAR MOVIES mainly show Hollywood movies. Chinese and Hong Kong local movies are shown in China Movie Channel, Mei Ah Movie Channel and Star Chinese Movies, of which Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese productions are found occassionally in Mei Ah Movie Channel.
Music
The 5 music channels provide a variety of the latest popular music. Music videos and MTV are found in Soundtrack Channel, MTV Southeast Asia and CHANNEL V International; CHANNEL V China mainly shows the latest chinese music; while DMX MUSIC offers large range of digital music.
News
A total of 11 news channels comprise of 4 24-hour news channels (CNN Headline News, BBC World, Bloomberg Television* and 24-Hour ATV News Channel), world-wide news channels (FOX NEWS, CNBC, SKY NEWS and EuroNews) and Asian based news channels (Channel NewsAsia,Phoenix InfoNews Channel* and ETTV Asia News*).
Infotainment
14 elaborated infotainment channels provide a spectrum of animal, geographic and scientific documentaries (Animal Planet, Discovery Science, Discovery Real Time and National Geographic Channel), travel programmes (Discovery Travel and Living and Voyages*), life-style programme (Discovery Home & Health) and integrated news and information programmes (ABC Asia Pacific* and Deutsche Welle*). Diversity programme channels in Mandarin and Cantonese include CCTV - 4*, CCTV - 9* and Southern Television*. There are also the Traffic Channel* and Weather Channel*.
Entertainment
12 entertainment channels cover food and travel (Asian Food Channel and ETTV Asia Channel), entertainment (STAR WORLD and BBC Prime), reality TV (Reality TV), celebrity (E!), fashion (Fashion TV), infotatinments (EAST-TV), dramas and game shows (Mei Ah Asian Drama Channel and Xing Kong), Buddist programme (Beautiful Life TV*) and variety Chinese programme (Phoenix Chinese Channel*).
Sports
6 sports channels serve programmes on golf (The Golf Channel and Golf Tour Channel), cricket (ESPN STAR Sports Cricket Channel), worldside sports events (ESPN and STAR SPORTS) and 24-hour broadcast of HKJCHong Kong Jockey Clubfootball (Lucky 88*).
Kids
Delightful children channels include 3 Disney channels (Disney Channel,Playhouse Disney Channel and Hong Kong Disneyland Channel*) and 4 cartoon channels (Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Animax and Boomerang).
Adult
The 4 adult AV-on-Demand channels are Ice Fire, Blue Dream, Channel Adult and Playboy TV.
Indian
Hindi entertainment programmes are shown in STAR PLUS, Indian news in STAR NEWS and Hindi music videos in CHANNEL V Indian.
For further details of different channels provided by now Broadband TV, you can visit the homepage of now Broadband TV
Languages of channels provided
Its programmes are mainly broadcast in
- Cantonese
- English
- Mandarin
and a few of them are in
- Hindi
- Korean
- Japanese
- German
- French
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish
There are Chinese sub-titles for most of the non-Chinese programmes.
Business Performance and Development
now Broadband TV service was launched with 23 channels in September 2003 but was soon expanded to exceed 30 with the addition of sports-related channels and BBC World and the Animax channel, as well as the Cantonese Star Chinese Movies and Xing Kong channels. With less than four months of launch, now Broadband TV had attracted more than 200,000 customers at the year end of 2003.
Although now Broadband TV mainly targets at the high-income group, its number of subscribers has been under substantial growth. According to the Interim Reports issued by PCCW, at the end of June 2005, the number of paying subscribers to now Broadband TV reached 441,000 (in which approximately 61% is paid subscribers and 31% is free subscribers); compared with the figures at the end of December 2004 and June 2004, which are 361,000 and 269,000 respectively. It has been experiencing constant growth in business and hence profits. Not only is it available at home, but also in hotel rooms, offices, sports bars, etc.
Recently, the number of subscribers has exceeded 450,000 as reported by Ming Pao Finance on 5 October 2005.
Image:Now Broadband TV registration.jpg
Competition
In early July 2000, the HKSAR government awarded five new pay-TV licences. The new entrants were all relatively seasoned broadcasting companies including Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting, Hong Kong DTV Company, a British broadcaster Elmsdsale, Hong Kong Network TV and Pacific Digital Media HK. The considerable opening of the market sparked intense competition for programming and viewer share, which can be seen by the extensive use of advertising.
To avoid direct competition with the two local digital terrrestrial televisions - Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) and Asia Television Limited (ATV), now Broadband TV builds up and secures its local pay-TV position by signing long-term contracts with a variety of existing channels around the world.
In fact, i-Cable has recently adopted an alternative pricing model for its subscribers. It allows subscribers to choose and pay for their own channels, which is equivalent to the pay-by-channel pricing scheme adopted by now Broandband TV. Moreover, from Asia Media in October 2005, now broadband TV claimed that they will not follow i-Cable to minimize monthly charges since they have added new channels and improved the delivery standard, in order to maintain competitiveness.
Awards
At the 2004 Convention of CASBAA (Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia), now Broadband TV was awarded "The Chairman's Award". CASBAA, representing 120 corporations serving more than 3 billion viewers, acknowledged now Broadband TV for its "innovative and proactive marketing of a secure and advanced pay-TV platform and for growing its interactive capability, resulting in a stellar subscriber take-up" on 31 October 2004.
Future Plans
In December 2005, now Broadband TV will improve its services by introducing a technology with connection speed up to 12 megabits per second (Mbit/s). Concerning the transmission speed, at least 75% of the area will be offered up to 8 Mbit/s for the speed. Besides, the resolution will also be four times higher than ordinary televisions with the technology of high-definition television (HDTV). In addition, Video-On-Demand services will also be launched in December 2005.
Related Services
- now.com.hk
now.com.hk internet content services was launched by PCCW in June 2000 for trial purposes. The website, "now.com.hk" is Hong Kong's premier broadband service, offering a spectrum of locally relevant content, including news, movies, music, online games, and more. Members can enjoy a large variety of media when accessing the service.
In general, PCCW aims at providing experience of broadband home entertainment, with now.com.hk for personal computer users and now Broadband TV for television viewers, in which the latter tailor-makes content for young people.
Contact
If you have any enquiries, you can use the following ways to contact now Broadband TV:
Email address:
- cs@nowbroadbandtv.com
- business@netvigator.com (for business establishment enquiries)
24-hour customer service hotline:
- (852)1833888
