Now TV

Now TV
Traditional Chinese now 寬頻電視
Simplified Chinese now 宽频电视

Now TV (stylised as now TV; Chinese: Now 寬頻電視; pinyin: Now Kuānpín Diànshì; Jyutping: Now fun1 pan4 din6 si6; Cantonese Yale: Now fūn pàhn dihn sih) is a pay-TV service provider in Hong Kong operated by PCCW Media Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of PCCW. It provides 197 TV channels including 176 channels branded under now TV (32 channels in HD), 21 channels from TVB Network Vision (1 channel in HD), and over 30 video on demand categories. Launched on 26 September 2003, its TV signal is transmitted with IPTV technology through HKT's fixed broadband network.

Now TV is the largest pay-TV operator in Hong Kong in terms of number of subscribers, number of channels, number of HD channels and quantity of VOD contents. The word "Now" is abbreviated from "Network Of the World".

History and establishment

Launched in March 1998, PCCW's 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 had some 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 competition. With fewer subscribers and hence the decline in the revenue generated from iTV, the interactive television operation was terminated in the final quarter of 2002. Now Broadband pay-TV service was launched in September 2003 with 23 channels under the same umbrella company PCCW; iTV is thus commonly viewed as the predecessor of Now TV.

In December 2005, Now TV introduced a technology with connection speed up to 18 megabits per second (Mbit/s). At least 75% of the service area will be offered a service running up to 8Mbit/s. In addition, Video-On-Demand services were launched in January 2006.

Now TV subscribers have access to 136 channels.

Chronology

Charging schemes

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. With the decoder, households are able to watch approximately 20 free channels.

For the subscription channels, Now uses the pricing model of pay-per-channel basis. There are bundle offers in existence, for given bouquet of channels, but these are less comprehensive than those offered by rivals.

Now TV offers a business package (in which there are fewer channels for subscription than household customers) for businesses at a higher price than household subscribers.

Since 1 September 2007, Now TV no longer offers STAR Sports or ESPN as stand-alone packages, preferring instead to bundle them into a single multi-sport package. This has caused some distress amongst many viewers who view this move as a breach of their commitment contract's that stipulates that upon expiry of channel contracts, contracts are automatically renewed.

Channel highlights

In the beginning, Now TV only operated 23 channels, most of which were in English. In response to competition, it has expanded its repertoire of new channels, adding programming such as the Disney Channel and ESPN. By June 2005, the number of channels grew to more than 70, with an increased number of Cantonese channels.

In 2006, Now TV outbid i-Cable for the rights to broadcast English Premier League football in Hong Kong, starting with the 2007-08 season.

Now TV currently has the most channels of any pay TV provider in Hong Kong. At present, it offers 21 free channels and 103 pay channels, including 15 audio channels. The total number of channels exceeds 130.

Now TV catogorizes the 25 free channels (denoted by asterisks*), and the 105 pay channels into 9 groups, original channel by Now TV are in bold:

  1. Movie/Drama Series - e.g. Now Hong Kong, Now Entertainment, Now HaiRun, Now Jelli, HBO HiTS, HBO Family, HBO Signature, HBO, Cinemax Asia, Fox Movies Premium, Fox Family Movies, TCM, Movie Movie, Thrill, China Movie, Mei Ah Movie Channel, Baogu Movies, STAR Chinese Movies, Star Legend Movies
  2. Travel/Documentary - 15 infotainment channels including 7 Discovery Channels, 4 National Geographic Channels, The History Channel, FYI, H2, Travel Channel, BBC Earth and BBC Lifestyle, which provide a spectrum of animal, geographic, scientific, and historical documentaries
  3. News/Info - including CNN International, CNN, HLN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, CNBC, BBC World News, Channel NewsAsia, euronews, France 24, RT, Blue Ocean Network, MetroTV, Bloomberg TV*, Sky News, Al Jazeera English*, Now News, Now Business News Channel, China Business News, Phoenix InfoNews Channel, China News Channel, HKS, ETTV News Asia
  4. Kids - Children channels include 3 Disney channels, 3 Cartoon Network channels, BabyTV, BabyFirstTV, Kids Channel International, Nickelodeon, Camp Teletoon, Nick Jr., CBeebies, DreamWorks Channel, Discovery Kids, and Watch n Learn channel
  5. Music/Entertainment/Shopping - There are in total 2 Shopping and Gaming Channel, 7 Australian and English Lifestyle, Crime, Fantasy, and Entertainment Channel, 21 Chinese Signature Entertainment, Lifestyle and Music, and 12 Chinese and English Flight Music Channels, including Animax Asia, AXN, Sony Channel, Universal Channel, Diva Universal, Syfy Universal, Fox, Fox Crime, FX, Asian Food Channel, STAR World, BBC Entertainment, Lifetime, Ci, Da Ai Television, KBS World, the indonesia channel, MTV Southeast Asia, MTV Live HD, Channel [V] International
  6. Sports - A total of 14 sports channels including Now Sport, Setanta Sports, MUTV, IPL, All Sports Network, now Golf, Fox Sports, Fox Sports 2, Fox Sports 3, Fox Sports News, Star cricket, NBA TV, Eurosport, Eurosport News
  7. Foreign Language - including NHK World TV*, DW-TV, TV5MONDE Asie, BVN, Raitalia, Polsat International, MRT Sat, RTR-Planeta, NTV MIR, 1+1 International, RTE Ireland, GMA Pinoy TV, SMNI, VTV4, Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Star Plus, STAR Gold, Channel V India, ABP News Bahasa channel, Indosiar*
  8. TVB Network Vision Special Pack
  9. Adult - There are 3 adult channels in addition to AV-on-Demand, including Playboy TV

On 10 May 2006, Now TV re-arranged the channel numbers into a category format, where the first digit of the three-digit channel numbers indicates the programme category.

Languages of channels provided

The majority of its programming is in English, Cantonese or Putonghua, though some programming in Hindi (Life OK), and French (TV5MONDE), is available.

Business performance and development

Now 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-language Star Chinese Movies and Xing Kong channels. Within four months of launch, Now TV had attracted more than 200,000 customers by end-2003.

Although Now TV mainly targets high-income viewers, its subscriber numbers have grown sharply. As well as home viewership, the service has been extended to hotel rooms, offices, sports bars and hotels.

According to a report in Ming Pao Finance on 5 October 2005, the number of subscribers to Now TV exceeded 450,000. Per annual reports issued by PCCW, at the end of December 2005 the number of paying subscribers to Now TV stood at 549,000 (approximately 61% were paid subscribers, with 31% being free subscribers). These figures compare with totals of 361,000 at end-December 2004 and 269,000 at end-June 2004. Despite the growth in subscribers, Now TV was operating at a loss in 2005. By August 2006, Now TV had in excess of 654,000 subscribers.

Although NOW TV can claim consistent growth in subscriber numbers, quality of service remains 'average' at best. Many viewers report 'jerky' TV reception, slow refresh times when changing channels, and picture freezing extending over several minutes at multiple instances during single programming.

Strategy

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 terrestrial channels - Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) and Asia Television (ATV) - Now TV has sought to build up and secure its local pay-TV position by signing long-term contracts with a variety of channels from around the world.

Exclusivity

Pricing

i-Cable has been forced to adopt an alternative pricing model for its subscribers. It allows subscribers to pick and choose their own channels, similar to the pay-by-channel of Now. Moreover, from Asia Media in October 2005, Now 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. In December 2006, it announced it was instead planning on raising subscription rates after having secured exclusive rights in the ESPN, Premier League, and Euro 2008.[4]

Awards

Annie cheng and the crew of Sichuan Earthquake- One Year on at the 69th Annual Peabody Awards

At the 2004 Convention of CASBAA (Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia), Now TV was awarded "The Chairman's Award". CASBAA, representing 120 corporations serving more than 3 billion viewers, acknowledged Now 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.

Plans

The company had planned to roll out high-definition television (HDTV), which offers up to four times the picture resolution of standard-definition television, in late-2007. But on 19 July 2007, it unveiled plans to begin HDTV broadcasts ahead of schedule. Included on the first slate of HDTV programming are 90 Premier League football matches. Subscribers will be required upgrade to a new set-top box with a one-off charge of HK$530, pay an additional HK$38/month for set-top box rental, and an additional HK$68/month over and above the existing charge for the "Mega Sports Pack". The new service will require a Netvigator broadband connection of at least 11Mbit/s. They also plan 4 a Korean Television channel.

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 TV for television viewers, in which the latter tailor-makes content for young people.

Channel

Upcoming Channel

See also

References

  1. ↑ Jeffrey Tam, NOW scores English football in $1.56b bid, The Standard, November 15, 2006
  2. 1 2 Wong Ka-chun, PCCW eyes league rights with tie-up, The Standard, January 13, 2006
  3. ↑ Jeffrey Tam, Now TV wins Euro 2008 exclusive rights in $400m deal, The Standard, December 09, 2006
  4. ↑ Benjamin Scent, PCCW cashes in on sports deals with plans to raise Now TV rates, The Standard, December 19, 2006
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Source: Pinyin translated with CozyChinese.COM

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