Astro says goodbye to Indonesia

I woke up this morning, turn on my TV and Astro (paid TV from Malaysia) only to found out a blue screen with words. It was said that Astro cannot broadcast anymore until further notice and they will refund the customer’s upfront payment.

Wth? How could that happen? My parent was thinking of buying home theater lighting so we can have better experience while watching the movies from HBO, Star Movies, etc. And now, it was gone?

I quickly went to their website and found this.

Kini tiba saatnya bagi kami untuk pamit tidak siaran sampai pemberitahuan lebih lanjut. Mohon maaf, bukan kehendak kami untuk berpisah dengan Anda, keluarga Indonesia.

So it is true! Astro is saying goodbye and won’t be able to broadcast until further notice. *crying* There goes the Singapore drama on 3.30pm, Taiwan drama on 7.30pm, Heroes 3 on November, etc. Luckily I can find Taiwan drama and Heroes online, but it is so damn hard to look for Singapore drama online. Sigh.

Astro was ‘black out’ once on April 2008 due to some inspection from the government. But it was back in a week time or so. I doubt this time Astro will be back again cause it seems that there is a huge problem behind this time black out. Astro violated the anti-monopoly law in broadcasting last season’s English Premier League (EPL) in Indonesia.

In September 2007, three cable providers — PT MNC Sky Vision (Indovision), PT Indosat Mega Media (IM2) and PT Indonusa Telemedia (Telkomvision) — reported Astro to the KPPU regarding the alleged monopoly on EPL rights, accusing the company of having received broadcast rights from ESPN Star Sport (ESS) without a tender, thereby creating unfair competition and breaking competition rules.

The KPPU subsequently investigated the case, finding on Aug. 29 ESS and Astro guilty of violating Article 16 of Law No. 5/1999 on unfair competition. The KPPU however, cleared Direct Vision and Astro of all monopoly charges.

In a surprising ruling, KPPU also added a stipulation to its ruling requiring Astro to continue supplying content to Direct Vision — a company controlled by Lippo Group through subsidiaries PT First Media and PT Ayunda Prima Mitra.

In 2005, Lippo and Astro had signed an agreement requiring the latter to provide content to Direct Vision including an undertaking that Lippo would give Astro a 51 percent share of Direct Vision.

But up to now, the shareholding has never been transferred although Astro continued to supply content to Direct Vision, reportedly costing the Malaysian company about US$240 million and eventually forcing the Malaysian firm to file an arbitration claim in Singapore earlier this week.

The KPPU ruling requiring Astro to continue working with Direct Vision would cost it more money, while giving Lippo free benefits, Alexander said.

Quoted from asiamedia.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 8:01 am and is filed under Indonesia News, Interesting Findings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.