Transcript
RICHARD BROADBRIDGE: There's people out there with no real, apart from radio, access to much of the free content that exists in our part of the world, especially content that is coming out of Pasifika through TVNZ, out of Australia Network, so at least there is now an opportunity for those people to access those programmes. We did a couple of surveys, we have been to Kiribati, we have signed an agreement, gear has been ordered and our engineers are scheduled to be there by the end of July-early August to start the installation.
KORO VAKA'UTA: There's the technical side of it, that sort of thing, but are there other facets to your involvement in terms of content and production, that sort of thing?
RB: We're a broadcaster in Papua New Guinea. We have a local channel that we broadcast with, we have a newsroom, we have multiple pay-TV channels in Papua New Guinea, so naturally we will be able to pass on some of the skills and knowledge to the local staff. We will have a manager on the ground to train people. Obviously we are very keen to assist them by way of setting up local content and we have assigned channel one as a local channel so it will not only be content produced by the station but I suspect it will be encouraging local content providers to participate in the exercise. It is not only good in terms of health, education, politics, parliament all those sorts of stuff but it gives those people there in Kiribati access to local faces, local issues. I think it is a very positive thing for the country.
KV: The experience in the last four or five years that you have had in Papua New Guinea, how will that be reflected in what you do in Kiribati? It going to be like the template used there?
RB: You know I have never been one to use a template in one country and try and reflect it into another because as we all know in the Pacific islands, you simply cannot expect one economy to behave like another. PNG is another large economy and beast on its on. We had the advantage of operating in Fiji before this. It is a much smaller economy. We have to think small when we are getting into Kiribati. We've got a number of issues to deal with in regards to billing and how people pay us. Obviously it is a much smaller operation to deal with so the Fiji experience will be very helpful.
KV: You mentioned some challenges, what are the difficulties in spreading broadcasting across such a vast country as Kiribati with atolls scattered throughout the ocean?
RB: In Tarawa itself the major challenge would be the heights of the coconut trees. That's one of the thing that are...in terms of broadcasting we have to get different types of antenna installation into the homes because not all homes are made of brick so we have a number of options to deal with. On the ground there is also in regards to sending traffic from the main play-out to the main transmission area or into the homes, how do we do that? How do we, in terms of planning for our future, ensuring that the technology will be able to adapt to other products that will be attaching to the same system in the future. Now in terms of the rest of the country, I think we have to think satellite for that. It's going to be impossible to try and roll out the digital terrestrial to all those atolls so what we are trying to do is to see first of all where the major population is and ensure that it is a working and profitable business before we start looking at other parts of the country.
