StarHub to expand Web TV reach

SINGAPORE--Local carrier and cable TV operator StarHub is planning to expand its Web TV reach by making its content available online to the public for free.

Announcing the move at an event hosted here Wednesday by media company Mindshare Singapore, StarHub COO Tan Tong Hai said the new Internet TV portal will also help drive more local digital content as well as provide a "low-cost platform" for advertisers to embed their brands within the content.

Currently, only StarHub's pay TV subscribers have online access to branded content such as the National Geographic Channel. The company's TV service reaches 541,000 households in Singapore.

Tan said the new platform will be launched when the country's national next-generation broadband network "is in place" but declined to provide a more specific timeframe.

Singapore's fiber infrastructure is on track to be rolled out to 60 percent of homes by year-end, with a targeted 95 percent of households to be wired up by 2012.

StarHub is partnering media network, Mindshare, to avail local content on its enhanced Web TV portal. Mindshare will bring together advertisers and local producers to create content that will at the same time weave in branding messages.

Local content that prove to be popular via the Web platform may eventually be ported over to StarHub's paid TV channels, Tan said, citing Supermodelme.tv as an example of a Web project that was successful in being carried by a paid channel.

The collaboration has the support of the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), which itself runs an ongoing scheme called 360 TV to encourage local producers to think beyond traditional media and develop content for the online platform.

Tan said budding Singapore producers can look to the MDA for funding to support their content creation.

ZDNet Asia understands from Jimmy Lin, executive director of Mindshare, that the partnership with StarHub is not exclusive although the carrier will have the "first right of refusal" to new content. Tan also noted that StarHub will be looking to acquire content from other sources.

Pointing to trends such as Google TV, Lin said the Web and TV are converging and the Internet has a big role to play going forward.

The Singapore audience, he added, is also ready to consume TV via the Internet, judging by an April 2010 ComScore report that placed the country No. 2 in the region, after Japan, in terms of online video consumption. The recent US$35 million investment by Temasek Holdings in Tudou, a Chinese video streaming site, also is a reflection of the growing importance of the Web platform, he noted.

Pay TV, StarHub's Tan acknowledged, continues to be a lucrative means of revenue for the operator but he said the company could not afford to ignore customers who may prefer more interactivity.

"While we are comfortable with [the traditional linear TV] medium which is proven and tested, our customers are watching new platforms," he noted. "We cannot be happy and rest on our laurels and forget about what is happening out there in the Internet and mobile space, and IPTV (Internet Protocol television) platform."

According to Tan, StarHub will be making additional investments to support the Internet TV portal. These include analytics software and services to interpret raw data collected on user behavior.

He did not disclose the amount the Singapore operator expects to spend but noted that the investments will allow the company as well as its business customers to have a better grasp of viewer demographics, including the amount of time spent viewing a piece of content and what medium is used to view the content.

Last November, pay TV rival SingTel said it expects the national fiber network to boost its own IPTV service and close the gap with market leader StarHub.