SATELLITE BROADCASTING

Mr Lau Ping Sum asked the Minister for Information and the Arts, in view of Rupert Murdoch's purchase of STAR TV and plans for the distribution of satellite programming across the Asian continent, whether Singapore has any plans of its own to embark on satellite broadcasting.

The Minister for Information and the Arts (BG George Yong-Boon Yeo): Rupert Murdoch's entry into Asian satellite television broadcasting means keener competition. Intense competition for viewership invariably leads to a lowering of programming standards. This has been the experience all over the world.

Our policy of disallowing satellite dishes for private households will not be viable once dishes become too small to be easily detected. We can delay, but we cannot prevent, the proliferation of TV channels in Singapore. Neither do we want to. By the time rural villages in China and India have ready access to 10, 20 channels, we really have no choice but to follow suit.

Our response to increased competition in TV broadcasting is in three parts.

First, by forcing SBC to become more competitive. SBC will be corporatised at the end of next year into a number of companies. We will privatise the companies gradually over a number of years.

Second, by making cable TV widely available in Singapore. We are now working on a plan to provide every household in Singapore a cable capacity, with data compression, of over 100 channels. Not all channels will be for television. Many will be used for multi-media services like education and marketing. Work will begin next year and all households in Singapore should be wired up by the end of the decade. This will reduce the desire for satellite dishes and enable us to cut out channels which are pornographic or incendiary. In an emergency, the Government will still be able to reach out to everybody, whatever channel he may be watching. But more importantly, a comprehensive cable network will make us one of the most advanced cities in the world in information technology infrastructure.

Third, we will go into regional broadcasting and the international multi-media business ourselves. The competition is tough. We will have to find niches to get into. Last year, the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) expressed interest in setting up a satellite broadcast service for Singaporeans and friends of Singapore living in the region. The Singapore Government has agreed to fund this service. From 1st January next year, SIF's Singapore International Television will be launched on Indonesia's Palapa satellite. It will broadcast one hour of news, documentaries and entertainment programmes every evening from 10.00 pm to 11.00 pm Singapore time. From 1st January, SBC's English News will be broadcast from 10.00 pm to 10.30 pm and can therefore be carried "live" on satellite. For the other half hour, documentaries and entertainment programmes will alternate in English, Mandarin and Malay. It will be possible to receive the service over a wide geographical area from Shanghai to Darwin. SIF will encourage hotels and condominiums which serve Singaporeans to pull down the signal from Palapa and include it in the TV menu. This will be our first foray into satellite broadcasting. We will look for other opportunities as we gain experience and confidence.