It seems that the national Vietnam Television (VTV) and some other cable TV service providers have “fallen into their own trap.” They have become the aiming points of the heavy criticism about the low quality of cable TV service, after they lodged a petition to management agencies, requesting to prevent telecom groups to jump into the cable TV market.
The monopoly leads to low service quality
There are many cable TV service providers in Vietnam, but the market has been controlled by a few service providers, namely VTV (VCTV, SCTV), the Hanoi Cable TV and HCM City Cable TV.
Meanwhile, other enterprises can only provide services in certain localities, mostly in their provinces. In general, they do not produce contents for TV programs, but buy the contents from the above said “big guys” to broadcast to the local clients.
It is estimated that VTV now holds 70 percent of the pay-TV market share (VTCV 30 percent and SCTV 40 percent). VTV is the television station which has the largest coverage on the Vietnamese territory, while in some localities clients can only use VTV services.
Users keep complaining about the quality of the services provided by the “big guy.” Quang Hung, a client, complained that the service is terrible.
“VCTV refuses to provide installation service on Sunday. The transmission is bad. Technicians would only turn up one day after you ask for help,” Hung said, adding that this is the common thing seen at state owned enterprises.
T. T. Tai in Viet Tri City in Phu Tho province said that when he called to VCTV to complain about the low quality, he was told that the “service could not be better.” This means that Tai has two choices, either he should not be too demanding, or stop using services.
Cable TV service fee on the rise, telecom fee on the decrease
The competition in the telecom market has become so stiff that service providers have to slash the service fee continually and run noisy sales promotion campaigns to lure more service users.
Meanwhile, cable TV service providers have been repeatedly increasing the service fees, ignoring the opposition from the public.
VTV has raised the subscription fee for VCTV service to 110,000 dong a month from the previous level of 88,000 dong, commencing from September 1, 2012. As such, the service fee has increased three times since 2009, and by nearly 70 percent over the last 1.5 years, from 65,000 dong to 110,000 dong, a very high increase for a type of service considered essential to people’s lives.
Nguyen Thi Hoang Phuong, Head of the Communication Division of VCTV, explained that the service fee increase has been projected in a program to increase the number of channels, buy copyrights of foreign TV programs and upgrade the service quality.
Since the royalties the Vietnamese television has to pay to foreign partners and the expenses for the content production all have increased, VTV has to charge higher fees on clients, according to Phuong.
Explaining the continued service fee increase, director of a media company said there is no other reason than the monopoly. The director recalled the story about the telecom market. Telecom service fees have fallen down continuously after the monopoly was removed and more enterprises joined the market. He believes that the current cable TV market has similar factors like the telecom market 10 years ago, when VNPT was the only service provider.
Source: Vietnamnet
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