MYTV Broadcasting Sdn Bhd remains committed to meeting the analogue switch-off (ASO) first-quarter 2019 deadline set by the government and is on track to deliver the 95.3% population coverage as agreed with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), says chief executive officer Michael Chan.
MYTV has covered 92.8% of the population with its digital terrestrial television (DTT) infrastructure at present.
Chan was responding to StarBiz’s article yesterday entitled “MYTV needs to meet DTT rollout deadline”, where the MCMC said it would take action against MYTV should it fail to complete the DTT rollout before the first-quarter 2019 deadline.
Chan added that with MYTV’s recent launch of DTH (direct-to-home) satellite services to complement its DTT network, this service is now also available to 100% of the population.
“MYTV has already spent more than RM511mil to date and will need to spend a further RM300mil to complete this key national project despite not securing any financing from financial institutions who saw the project as ‘not bankable’ once the government revised the leasing charges to broadcasters via the mandatory standard on access pricing (MSAP),” said Chan.
He added that Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) had yet to revise its rates to MYTV to follow the MSAP pricing, which came into effect in January this year. This and other technical issues around the service delivery led to the dispute with TM.
https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2018/11/29/mytv-is-committed-to-meet-deadline/