Asia broadband future to bypass telcos: Murdoch

Tony Munroe

HONG KONG: Traditional telecom firms will be bypassed when it comes to wiring

Asia into the broadband future, Star TV chairman and chief executive James

Murdoch predicted on Tuesday.

"We believe that cable and satellite platforms will be totally dominant

in Asian homes, as far as connectivity is concerned," Murdoch, 27, told a

Hong Kong conference on Asian telecoms.

"ADSL won't cut it," he said, referring to Asymmetric Digital

Subscriber Line, a high-speed connection technology promoted by telecom firms.

Murdoch, second son of News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch, was tipped earlier

this year to run satellite broadcaster Star TV, which boasts 30 channels in

seven languages across Asia - and operating losses of US $478 million in the

four years ended June 30, 1999, according to a US regulatory filing.

Connie Hsu, a telecoms industry analyst with Pyramid Research, disagreed with

Murdoch's dismissal of telcos.

"I think the way the market is expanding and deregulating, there's

certainly going to be enough room for a wide range of players with different

platforms," she said.

Hong Kong-based Star TV is to be wrapped together with other News Corp

satellite holdings into Sky Global Networks, which the senior Murdoch said last

week would be taken public in an IPO late this year or early next year.

Speculation has been rife that the offering will be delayed given the

turbulence roiling technology stocks - a scenario Rupert Murdoch denied during

remarks to reporters on Friday.

James Murdoch, 27, is considered the new media brains of the family. Despite

his youth and Harvard-dropout status, he projects both poise and an earnestness

that make him seem older.

"Trojan horse"



In his speech, he touted television set-top boxes as the "Trojan
horse" to bring broadband content into homes in India and greater China,

Star TV's two core markets.

Acknowledging that it is difficult to determine the number of homes in the

world's two most populous countries that could afford set-top boxes, Murdoch

said that over the longer term such devices, which he figures would cost about

US $200 apiece, will be subsidized or rented.

Murdoch also said that "televisual" content will drive consumer

broadband usage in Asia, and did not expect the personal computer to be a

significant driver of media usage in the region.

"That's why you have to go in with boxes, which are cheaper," he

said.

As he has done in the past, Murdoch stressed the importance of local language

content and exclusive rights to "relevant" programming such as films

and sports.

He noted that when News Corp bought Star from young Hong Kong tycoon Richard

Li - who now heads Internet and telecom firm Pacific Century CyberWorks for US

$825 million in 1993, the network had just five free-to-air English-language

channels. Building Star to its current scale, Murdoch said, had been

"arduous" and "painful."

Touting Star's early-mover advantage, he said: "This type of capability

cannot be bought off the shelf by the hour."

While the remark could have been aimed at PCCW and its fledgling Network of

the World (NOW) combined Internet and TV service, Murdoch refrained from taking

potshots at NOW, as he did in August during a speech in Edinburgh, Scotland.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.