December 16: Last week's announcement of the merger of the two Asian business TV channels, ABN and CNBC, sent shivers down the spines of TV industry professionals in Hong Kong. Some 150 staff are to be laid off from CNBC for the joint venture called CNBC -- A service of NBC and Dow Jones. The corporate, editorial and production headquarters are to be located at ABN in Singapore. Nervousness was rampant amongst CNBC-ers in Hong Kong and they wondered who would be issued a pink slip. Some had already started posting resumes, looking for new jobs. But as the week passed, it became clear that most employees in marketing and distribution would be retained.

CNBC's production unit in Hong Kong would be shut down with the site being used for transmission of the new channel. ABN CEO Paul France as everyone knows by now will be the president of the joint venture with Chris Graves, the managing editor of ABN, becoming the director of programming. Both ABN and CNBC have been focusing on India. The merger is likely to have an impact on the operations of both of the channels in India. ABN's Indian venture, ABNi, has its Indian partner TV18 producing news and current affairs programming for it. France went on record in a video conferenced press conference between Hong kong and Singapore that the Indian service hadn't been looked at as yet and that the service would possibly continue under ABN. France was scheduled to travel to India this week to sort things out with TV18 chief Raghav Behl.

"France will have his work cut out for him," says FT Media and Telecoms Asia bureau chief Janine Stein. "It's going to cost them to get out of certain deals. There's a difference in attitude towards editorial and distribution and how it's done. Distribution for the new service could prove a stumbling block. I don't envy France trying to sort it out." IGE, the Indian production partner for CNBC, has been setting up studios in Mumbai and has even hired a few journalists for the job, apart from anchor Anish Trivedi.

TV18 has its staff churning out news and programming for ABNi. What will happen to the editorial staff and on-air anchor Trivedi? ABNi is a free to air analogue service while CNBC is digitally transmitted and requires a digital receiver in headends for reception. Several hundred digital receivers have been distributed to Indian cable operators. Will the new channel be digitally transmitted and off with satellite -- Asiasat 2 (CNBC) or PAS-4 (ABNi)?

And how will the cable operators be dealt with? There's the Hinduja issue. IndusInd Media was a partner in ABNi but reportedly walked out when ABNi refused to toe the line as far as editorial coverage of the Hinduja involvement in the Bofors gun scam was concerned. IndusInd Media then wooed CNBC for a joint venture and knocked ABNi off the prime band on its cable networks In India, replacing it instead with CNBC. CNBC has since then been trumpeting its close association with the Hindujas. How France will deal with the Hindujas has to be closely watched.

In Hong Kong, ads serve a purpose

Surfing across the TV channels in Hong Kong and the ad that strikes you is the one for Giordano Twill wrinkle free trousers. It begins with a young Chinese couple on a bed in a studio apartment. The lady is bawling and wailing like a cat while seated at the edge of a bed on which her mate is reclining. The movements throughout the ad are jerky like those seen in clay animation productions. The male looks on bemused, scratching his head, wondering how to quieten her down. He hands her his trousers. She wipes her tears with them, crumples them, squeezes them and crushes them, continuing to wail into them. The male then gets off the bed, crawls to his companion, and takes the trousers from her and wears them. And Voila! The trousers have not a crease on them. An extremely effective ad which communicates the message directly, though in a humourous manner. Hong Kong's TV channels also carry a lot of more social ads than are carried on Indian television. And they are not only of the patriotic variety. The social ads in Hong kong range from those warning citizens not to litter, not employ illegal immigrants, what precautions to take for AIDS, to register for voting, how to recognise sexual abuse of a child, how parents can make life better for their children by not quarrelling incessantly. The ads have creative finesse and are extremely effective. Doordarshan and other advertisers in India could take a cue from Hong Kong television and do a bit of the same by focusing on relevant Indian issues.

Asian ad industry slowdown

The advertising business across Asia has been witnessing a slowdown of sorts in recent times. That trend is going to continue in the coming year, according to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong-based fortnightly Asian Advertising & Marketing. In fact, the prediction is that there's going to be doom and gloom for certain markets. Japan, Philippines and Taiwan are expected to show ad expenditure growths of 2%, 2% and 3% respectively in 1998, according to the A&M fax opinion poll. Hong Kong, Malayasia and Singapore are likely to chalk up zero growth with markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam likely to end up with negative figures on their 1998 ad expenditure growth report cards. The magazine expects the whole Asian region to stagnate in 1998. The one bright spot is likely to be China which is expected to grow 10%.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.