TV firm to launch new digital product

Media giant ABS-CBN Corp. is planning to launch a new digital television product for mobile devices.

This will help the company bring digital TV, or DTV,  to a broader market since it will allow the network to serve customers living in areas where it is unable to roll out its traditional ABS-CBN TVplus boxes.

“We will have another product that will allow you to watch DTV on your phones,” ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said in a recent interview. He declined to elaborate.

ABS-CBN, a first-mover in digital TV, earlier announced that it sold seven million ABS-CBN TVplus as of February this year. The product was first introduced in 2015.

Cerrado noted that not all areas in the country could justify an investment in DTV infrastructure such as digital TV towers.

“We feel we need to understand there is enough [customer] density before we put up a tower,” Cerrado explained.

Nevertheless, ABS-CBN is reviewing the need to build more towers across the country due to the expanding viewers on ABS-CBN TVplus.

The company has 17 digital television towers in key areas across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

“We are actually reviewing if there is a need for us to put up more towers,” Cerrado said.

ABS-CBN, alongside other television broadcasters, is also ramping up this segment ahead of the government’s target to shut down analog TV by 2023.

New business opportunities are also emerging through the government’s common tower initiative—which envisions the construction of about 50,000 new cell towers to improve the quality of telecommunications services across the Philippines. —MIGUEL R. CAMUS