Cambodia’s One TV, Pakistan’s CMG partner Exset

Cambodia’s television programming provider, One TV, and Pakistan’s Cable Media Group (CMG), have installed Netherlands-based broadcast technology provider, Exset’s Digital Monetisation System (DMS) technology to power a range of value-add digital cable services and to monetise digital television platforms.

One TV, a joint project of the Russia’s GS Group and Cambodia’s Royal Group, has installed Exset’s DMS 2.0. Using DMS-ready set-top boxes from HDT (Hyundai), One TV will initially offer an onscreen home page that acts as a TV portal to information services including sports, news and One TV promotional offerings.

CMG which carries around 100 channels, is currently in the test phase, both in terms of technology and precisely which services will initially be launched using DMS. It is using E-TEK set-top boxes for the rollout.

“DMS will give our customers a new service and will enable us to generate new revenues without increasing the cost the viewer,” said Karakhan Karakhanov CTO of One TV. “DMS allows us to obtain new revenue streams through advertising and other value-add services. ARPU will be higher that it would otherwise have been,” said CMG’s Numan N Ahmed.

One TV looks at expanding to Kandal

Cambodia’s One TV, the first foreign broadcasting project of Russia’s GS Group, will launch in the tenth Cambodian province Kandal as of February 7, 2014.

One TV was launched in 2012 as a joint venture with the largest private company of Cambodia, and became the first nationwide digital terrestrial TV operator in the country. Service is already available in the capital, Phnom Penh, and eight Cambodian provinces.

One TV has achieved steady subscriber growth of 20%-25% per month since launch and Dataxis estimates the pay-DTT operator had around 55,000 subscribers end-September, 2013, up from 9,000 at the end of 2012.

Cambodia’s One TV announces new packages

Cambodia’s first nationwide digital terrestrial operator, One TV, has announced two new packages for its subscribers and were officially released on December 1. These packages priced at only USD 1, will help One TV’s subscribers access content at a cheap cost. One TV was launched in 2012 by GS Group holding in cooperation with large local corportation Royal Group of Companies.

The two packages, Aka and Serey were released by One TV and will also feature two new channels as well. Anna Melnikova, GS Group, Leading strategy marketing executive commented “One TV does not only broadcast famous world and local channels, but creates TV content in the Khmer language. Thus, the new packaging will feature the long-awaited Karaoke Modern channel. Singing karaoke is one of the favourite pastimes of Cambodians.”

The two channels that will feature in the new packages – One TV Sabay and One TV Karaoke Modern – are both channels are of the operator own production. The idea behind introducing the packages is to make pay TV more affordable to the population of Cambodia especially in the rural areas. Launched a year ago, the player already has a reach of 70% in Cambodia and subscribers are growing 20-25% on a monthly basis.

Cambodia´s pay- DTT One TV reaches 20000 subscribers

One TV, Cambodia´s first pay-DTT project on DVB-T platform reaches out to 20000 subscribers in a three- month period since its launch. One TV´s strategy of providing digital TV services at an affordable subscription fee, with flexible payment conditions through financing and leasing programs has helped them to boost their sales rapidly. The DTT platform´s digital signal services covers 9 major provinces in Cambodia with coverage of 70% of the population as of December 2012.

One TV offers 2 basic packages and one add-on package with minimum subscription fee starting from USD 4. Over all the packages comprises of 46% of International channels; 24% local channels in the native Khmer language and 30% of Asian language channels comprising of Thai, Korean and Chinese contents.

One TV´s STBs are supplied by Hyundai Digital Technology (HDT), a Korean based manufacturer and their CAS is provisioned by GS Group’s partner and a Holland based broadcast technology supplier, Exset. The project comprises of broadcasting networks at 9 sites with 54 digital DVB-T transmitters that are supplied by Rhode & Schwartz. One TV employs Harmonic’s headends and their billing solutions are provisioned by Comteza.

One TV is the first pay-DTT operator in Cambodia which was launched in partnership with Russia´s GS Group and the country´s Royal Group of company.  GS Group being a technical integrator of this project is also the main investor in the digital TV platform holding a 51% share. This Cambodian project is a part of the company´s next five-year technological and investment strategy.

In July 2012, One TV started the test broadcasting of 20 TV channels in digital with DVB-T standard in Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh region. One TV commenced selling its digital services in the capital city of Cambodia in September 2012. Cambodia´s 80% of TV audience use cable connections while One TV was the first to launch digital TV services in the country. Over the past few months One TV has been giving a tough competition to the Cambodian cable TV community.

GS Group is planning to launch different broadcasting projects in Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Asian countries. The group is involved in launching digital TV platforms worldwide in partnership with local investors. GS Group is a technological partner for the Russian DTH operator, Tricolor and Ukrain´s DTH operator Lybid TV.