CTH struggles to beat kick-off
CTH Plc, the broadcast rights holder for the English Premier League (EPL), admits some subscribers will not get satellite dishes or cable set-top boxes in time for the big kick-off on Aug 17.
The new cable-TV operator is trying to clear a long waiting list of customers who wish to subscribe to its service. "We are sorry about the slow installation and will do our best to solve this problem as fast as we can," said chief executive Krissanan Ngampatipong.
CTH plans to install satellite dishes and cable set-top boxes to 600,000 new subscribers before the start of the football season. It will double its installation teams to 4,000 to tackle the backlog, while it now has 400 dealers nationwide. From this week, its daily installation capacity will increase by 50% to 3,000 satellite dishes, while daily capacity for the cable system is between 2,000 and 3,000 boxes. "We hope the situation will be better soon," Mr Krissanan said.
Customers have complained about having to wait up to two months before being contacted by CTH's installation staff. Kanitha, a working woman with a law firm, said she waited for one month for a phone call from CTH staff about making an installation appointment. "I'm just lucky that the installation team will come to my house this Wednesday. That means I'll be able to watch the first EPL game of the season," she said. But she was told by CTH staff that she would receive a satellite dish, not a cable system, as the company's fibre-optic network is not available at her location.
The company promised to change the system for her once its cable network is available in her neighbourhood. "I prefer the cable system to a satellite dish. I'm not sure whether CTH really will change the system for me. Let's see whether it honours the promise," Ms Kanitha said. CTH has 40,000 to 50,000 customers waiting for installation and hopes the backlog will drop below 10,000 by late this month. "Demand is much more than we expected from existing subscriptions from local cable operators and new subscribers via the satellite system alike," said Mr Krissanan. "The low-priced packages widen opportunities for viewers wanting to reach good content, particularly EPL games."
CTH is moving in the right direction. After its EPL package was launched in June, its three-year subscription at 599 baht a month was the most popular, taken up by about 70% of customers, followed by packages for one year, two years and one month.
CTH will run the satellite system along with the cable line system, Mr Krissanan said. The company maintains its target of having at least 3 million subscribers in its first year of operation, comprising 1 million in the satellite system and 2 million in the cable system. A satellite TV industry source said CTH faces two major problems.
First, revenue sharing between CTH and its satellite mechanic teams at 400-500 baht a set is lower than that of TrueVisions at 1,000 baht. This has resulted in a lower quality of dealers who like to use small subcontractors with not much expertise to do installations. Second, inexperienced technicians often find it hard to fine-tune satellite dishes to receive signals from Vinasat, the Vietnamese satellite that CTH uses, and this also leads to delays.
Source: Bangkok Post
- no thanks, I'm extremely happy with what I've got, plus I have the other advantages of viewing via Android.