Media news (episode 20)

Welcome to this week's media news.

RTM 
On the afternoon of June 6, I checked TV1's schedule at the new look The Star Online. TV1 airs two unusual sports programmes besides the usual local football programmes they air and also shared resources with Astro Arena, badminton, and the recent Sukma Games held in Kuala Lumpur. The International Power 7S Rugby 2013 airs on June 6 at 4:05 pm (not sure whether this is one-off) and then the 2013 Summer Universiade (mistyped as "Universide") which will air at 2:30-3:30 am the next day. Universiade is the universities' version of the Olympics. This year's Universiade takes place in Kazan, Russia. This year Malaysia takes part in the Universiade and RTM becomes the official broadcaster for the games; previously there were few coverage on the games and they were covered only in the news. RTM brands its sports programmes offering under the slogan "Sukan Terbaik Hanya di RTM" (the best sports only on RTM).

Media Prima
On June 6, I found out that both TV3 and TV9 share the same branding for Ramadan 1434 H. It is called Seindah Ramadan and I think this was produced jointly by TV3 and TV9's brand management department. The only thing which is different is the background colour. TV3's background colour is blue while TV9's is green.









Astro
While channel surfing in the early morning of July 4, I found out that Discovery Science on Astro ch 554 has changed its original logo to the latest one which is used in the United States since June 2011 (checked from Wikipedia).

Hypp TV
Emas on Hypp TV ch 112 had a new look on July 8. Emas' logo was changed from the original one that was used since its launch on 1.6.2011 to a new one which is just the letter E. The ident, new promo design (no promos were aired a few months before this), break bumpers and a short ident after end of programmes (the latter two have no sound while the former two have new music soundtrack) started at 7:29 am and the new on-screen logo appearance started at 8:59:17 after a commerical break.

ABN
According to The Star Online, the ABNXcess digital cable TV service has launched on June 6 at the Era Baru carnival held at Stadium Putra Bukit Jalil. ABN is headed by Tan Sri K.K. Eswaran, the executive chairman of ABN Media Group. Eswaran is new to the broadcasting and internet service industry. He has experience in property and plantations especially palm oil.

ABN which provides TV and high-speed internet up to 50 Mbps using hybrid fibre coaxial through ABNXcess competes with existing pay-TV companies such as Astro and TM's Hypp TV. It is currently broadcasting from Puchong Gateway which can air 200 channels in its facility. For the launch it will start with 100 channels; in two months time, 20 new channels will be added. The move to ABN Mediapolis at Taman Teknologi Malaysia in 2015 will allow ABNXcess to air 500 channels. In the staff matter, ABN hires 400 people to work in ABN, including media veteran Sreedhar Subramaniam, who is CEO of ABN. By year-end another 200 will be hired.

ABNXcess is available at selected areas around the Klang Valley and Johor Bahru. While Maxis/Astro shares the smae fibre optic cable as TM, ABN will use Tenaga Nasional's electricity poles to run its fibre cables to homes. ABN also has an agreement with Fibrecom and also with TM in the future for its backhaul.

ABN has conducted trials with over 1000 subscribers over a year. Eswaran hopes that ABNXcess will be available to 600 000 homes after a year.