In a letter to the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), CASBAA urged that the regulator return to its previous approach of having separate regulations for content on pay-TV, from those applied to FTA broadcast TV. Current regulations, while sometimes conflicting and confusing, clearly embody a number of different rules for pay-TV and FTA TV, and “treating the two as equivalent would be a major change.” Along the same lines, CASBAA also urged that country-specific content classification and labeling rules not be applied to international pay-TV channels, which cannot economically serve Indonesian (and other) consumers with regional feeds if local classification rules are too tight. “Excessive regulatory requirements will have the effect of increasing the price of pay-TV for Indonesian consumers,” said the Association.
CASBAA also protested that recent KPI exhortations to replace foreign ads in international advertising streams run counter to international practice (and indeed has not been implemented in any other country in the manner KPI seems to envision). Citing Thai practice up until 2008 as an example, CASBAA warned the regulators that “if a broadcaster receives less advertising income on its channels as a result of removal of Indonesia from its distribution base and rate card, it can only make up the shortfall by increasing the cost of its channels.” Again, over-regulation will only increase the costs to Indonesian consumers.
Download the English-language letter here.
Download the Bahasa Indonesia translation here.