Malaya: ABS-CBN to raise up to P5B for digital shift

It is gonna be a face to face in digital TV broadcasting, as ABS-CBN raises its DTV rollout to a whopping P5-B. Since 2007, the country's premier television station is investing on its transition to digital terrestrial television, but this time, ABS-CBN is going to, and finally, marketing out its capital to DTV transition through the Japanese ISDTV (International Standard for Digital Television), or simply known as ISDB-T (Integrated Services Digital Broadcast).

For now, ABS-CBN almost invested half a million pesos for the movie library for DTV. This movie library will be used for one of its premium DTV channel on free TV soon, which is a movie channel. A clue, either.

Now, we do have four TV networks in digital TV format, namely Gem HD, NBN, ABS-CBN and TV5. Other networks are bid to go digital by late this year or early 2012 as Philippines will still continue to switch-off its analog television service a date between 2015 and 2020. Read the post after the break.

ABS-CBN Corp. plans to raise P5 billion for the rollout of digital terrestrial television (DTT) nationwide, company officials said. 

Rolando Valdueza, ABS-CBN chief finance officer, said the company has spent P500 million for a movie library for digital TV. 

"It depends on the take-up. If necessary, we will do some fund-raising if we’re going to do a nationwide rollout," Valdueza said. 

The broadcast firm is still waiting for the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to complete the guidelines for digital TV. 

Valdueza said the company is hopeful the commercial rollout of the new technology could take place this year. 

The implementing rules and regulations on DTT were supposed to be released in June but Malacañang directed the NTC to evaluate the standard offered by a European consortium. 

ABS-CBN prefers the ISDTV technology of Japan, which is being tested in Pampanga. 

ABS-CBN launched in April a digital TV service called DTV digibox, which aims to capture 90 percent of low-income households without cable in the country. 

The digibox will be serve as the viewers’ gateway to five new premium TV channels on free-to-air TV. It will be initially available in Luzon this year then in the Visayas and Mindanao next year.

Digibox rates range from P1,000 to P3,000. 

Customer can also watch other channels like ABS-CBN Channel 2, Studio 23, NBN and GEM. 

Since 2007, ABS-CBN has been laying the groundwork for the new technology, the broadcaster said. The network’s DTV system in place and ready to be rolled out in the second half of the year. - dated August 23, 2011

Source: Malaya