SOME conditions that came with Digicel Fiji’s licence to operate Sky Pacific would make business a challenge for the company.
However, Digicel Fiji CEO Darren McLean believes it’s not a challenge that cannot be overcome.
“We have to work within the conditions that we are asked to work within. They will make operating the Sky business bit challenging because as most people will appreciate, advertising has been on Sky Pacific forever and we have all seen the ads play around Super Rugby and it has continued over the years,” said Mr McLean.
“To take that away is a challenge for business case for Sky Pacific. It just means that we have to invest more in new concepts and service improvements in order to overcome the gap that exists in the revenue as a result of that condition.”
Digicel was granted a 12-year licence to fully operate its pay television Sky Pacific last week but with the condition that Sky Pacific could not show any local content on its pay channels unless they were messages of national importance that needed to be disseminated.
Communications Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum had said Digicel could not show any advertisement unless an agreement with the three existing free-to-air channels (FBC TV, Fiji One, Mai TV) was made.
Digicel also cannot advertise on Sky Pacific and advertisements cannot be aired unless all the three free-to-air providers agree to it.
Mr McLean said Digicel wanted to ensure that the transition from Fiji TV to Digicel would be smooth for customers.
“I think within the first couple of months, we are planning to introduce important programming changes that customers should be really happy with,” said Mr McLean.
He said Sky Pacific had customers in 15 Pacific countries but there was still a need to increase its penetration in pay TV in Fijian households.
“It is not highly profitable currently so growing subscribers in Fiji and also outside Fiji is important,” he said.
Mr McLean said they planned to introduce more products for customers which would most probably be rolled out in the coming months.
“For example, we plan to offer Sky customers some exclusive rates and offers on existing Digicel services and one of those services maybe on our post-pay mobile service network.”
Mr McLean said although most of their revenue would come from the Sky Pacific dish that subscribers would purchase, they had plans to make available some programs on the handset for customers to enjoy.
Digicel Fiji has already earmarked just over $1million to be spent on changes that would be brought about in the programming.
In terms of movement of the existing Sky Pacific staff members, Mr McLean reiterated that there would be no job losses.
He said there were about 40-50 staff members working for Sky Pacific and they would join the Digicel staff.
