Astro, for the past 20 years, has been the exclusive BIG BOSS in Malaysia when it comes to pay-TV services, especially since the death of Mega TV. Now, they might face serious competition from a new cable TV operator and all we can say is, it’s about damn time!
According to The Star, the new cable TV operator will be known as Ansa Broadcast and is a subsidiary of tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan’s Berjaya group. Now for some of you older readers, you might find this situation a bit familiar.
And that’s because it is. Back in 2005, Berjaya did attempt to launch Malaysia’s third pay-TV service first calling it MiTV and then rebranded to be called U-Television in 2007. Unfortunately for them, the service never really took off. Now it seems, they’re planning to take a go at it again and Ansa Broadcast is basically what was once known as U-Television.
Details on the Ansa Broadcast’s service are scarce though. According to a report by the research house, Hong Leong Investment Bank (HLIB), Ansa is currently deciding which satellite solution to adopt.
It is either to lease bandwidth from operators or launch its own satellite. As such implementation may take some time before service is officially launched.
The entry of a new pay-TV player will be great for Malaysian consumers who have had essentially only one major player, Astro, to subscribe to. And while TM’s Hypp TV has managed to make its way into the space, it is still undoubtedly dominated by the satellite pay-TV provider.
Of course, immediate success would be slightly unrealistic for Ansa. With a good balance of content and package price, there is a possibility of it disrupting Astro’s dominance in the market.
It’ll still boil down to their content offering as Astro has a good mix of licensed and in-house produced content. And with competition from streaming services like Netflix, iFlix, Viu and many more, Ansa will have to find unique proposition in order to succeed.
