ETV on Dialog TV
Ishara JAYAWARDANE
ETV is now on Dialog TV from October 5 and can be watched no matter
where you are in Sri Lanka. All Dialog TV subscribers will now have
access to ETV free of charge.
ETV’s strategic move will make the channel reach out to the audience
from all over the island that enjoys watching high quality English
Programs. Vanguard Management Services CEO/Managing Director Lakshman
Bandaranayake and Dialog TV CEO Nushad Perera signed the official
contract pertaining to telecast ETV as a separate free channel on the
Dialog TV platform.
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“As you know we have been a free to air channel; a terrestrial
channel. An operating model is we broadcast our signals using our
transmitters and then we use terrestrial antennas. The traditional
broadcasting models.
So everything is free to the audience, our viewers, and we sell that
audience to the advertisers. To take their commercial message to this
audience. Starting today there is a change in our operating model. In
addition to our own facilities we will be broadcasting on dialog
television satellite band. That is a significant change,” said
Bandaranayake.
Why have they decided to change their operating model? The
traditional free to air terrestrial broadcasting method has its own
inherent weaknesses.
It is costly and we have various signals; these signals are beamed
from towers and their transmission depends on a flat land without
interruptions in between.
Viewers who want to see English programs are based are largely
located in the Western Province, Gampaha and Colombo districts.
So setting up a tower that can transmit signals to other part s of
the country is not practical from the financial point of view. It is not
viable. It doesn’t make sense. Therefore ETV had this problem.
“Dialog give us the opportunity to take our channels to people in
other parts of the country who want to watch English Programs. So they
must be given the opportunity to watch ETV in a manner which is
economical to ETV,” Bandaranayake stated.
However terrestrial communication will continue to serve certain
interests. What ETV observes in other parts of the world, as the
economic growth, as people become more affluent, more cosmopolitan is
the emergence of alternative programming and that is not practical in
market like in Sri Lanka.
“We feel that Sri Lankan Satellite and digital Telephony will grow up
to half a million households. We feel the market we serve; up market,
the educated people, that market will be better served in a digital and
satellite platform than terrestrial.
What we want to do is to become the leader in English language
locally produced program in this country. Dialog give us the opportunity
to focus on English language content. It will take care of
transmission,” added Bandaranayaka.
“We have long standing relationship with Vanguard. Dialog TV is
constantly innovating. Through Dialog TV we will change the way people
think, feel and know television. We see to make Television an investment
of time and not a wastage of time. We do not produce content; we are
broadcasters.
We have partnerships with ETV to bring content. As always we know
each others business sphere. We see many good signs of how the Sri Lanka
economy is developing,” Nushad Perera elaborated. |
