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Glenn Schloss

As he prepares to launch a daring US$1 billion joint venture to transmit digital television direct to homes in the region, Thai entrepreneur Sondhi Limthongkul is playing the Asian card.

   Yesterday he warned against the danger of satellite and cable television destroying the 'root' of Asian culture and the 'Western virtue of give them what they want'.

   He also highlighted the competition which the Asia Broadcasting and Communications Network (ABCN) would come up against when it started in 1998, namely Rupert Murdoch's StarTV.

  'I'm not competing with them. Who the hell is Rupert Murdoch?' Mr Sondhi said. 'Next time he better knock before he comes in,' an apparent reference to Mr Murdoch's satellite operations in Asia.

  Mr Sondhi told the Pan Asia Satellite and Cable Television Conference that the M Group, which owns the Asia Times newspaper and business magazine Asia Inc , thought about creating an Asian-owned regional satellite operator in 1993.

  This followed the sale of StarTV by 'our fellow Asian' Richard Li Tzar-kai to the 'very Western Rupert Murdoch'.

  Explaining his business philosophy of 'why not', Mr Sondhi said: 'If Western companies could establish regional business magazines in Asia, why not an Asian-owned one?'   ABCN, a subsidiary of Mr Sondhi's M Group, yesterday announced it had signed contracts worth about $480 million with US-based Space Systems/Loral to build two satellites, France's Arianespace for rocket launches and Telesat Canada for programme management. About $1 billion is expected to be invested in the business by 2002.

  There are expected to be three million to five million subscribers after 2000.

  In a unique deal, the companies would place the first satellite into a geo-stationary orbit granted to the Government of Laos.

  The Laos Government gains access to transponder space, part-ownership of a company, Lao-Star, to operate the satellite and construction of a ground control station in Vientiane.

  There would be three beams covering western, central and eastern Asia.

  Partnerships would be formed in each country with domestic operators through a direct-to-home operating company formed also with experienced operators Echostar of the US and Itochu of Japan.



Sondhi flies local colours for launch of regional digital TV