Bloomberg Television Philippines is set to make its debut within 2015 through a partnership with satellite television provider Cignal TV Inc., part of the media arm of Manuel V. Pangilinan-led Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.
The announcement comes weeks after the formal launch of CNN Philippines, but officials from Bloomberg Television and Cignal downplayed potential competition in a joint press conference on Wednesday, saying they catered to distinct markets.
Bloomberg Television Philippines will air on an English-language format and will be distributed exclusively through CignalDigital TV, the country’s largest direct-to-home satellite provider.
Cignal TV, which has 97 channels, including 27 high-definition channels, has around 844,000 subscribers.
“This partnership with Bloomberg Television heralds a new era in Philippine television, in which business information is set to be in the front and center of a rising Philippine economy,” Pangilinan said in a separate statement.
“This also comes at the time when we are expecting to become the country’s biggest Pay-TV service provider with more than one million subscribers by the end of this year,” he added.
The new channel will be run by Bloomberg and free-to-air television channel TV5, a unit of PLDT’s media arm Media Quest Holdings Inc.
Bloomberg Television Philippines is expected to provide several hours of unique local daily content supplemented by Bloomberg’s programing to create a new 24/7 premium business news channel.
It will be included in Cignal Digital TV’s post-paid international channel bundle and created exclusively for its DTH platform.
“The Philippines is fast becoming a premier broadcast destination because of its strong subscriber growth,” Gary Groenheim, Commercial Director of Bloomberg Television, Asia-Pacific, said.
“MediaQuest’s substantial media footprint and stellar reputation make them an ideal partner for us as we expand our brand in Asia. Being in the third largest English-speaking country in the world will help us reach a vast new audience by combining elements of our daily global broadcast material with unique, tailor-made local content,” he added. Miguel R. Camus