Posts Tagged ‘Hindraf’

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68 percent of indians subscribe to Astro

December 17th, 2007
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I read with interest the interview with Astro's CEO on last Saturday's BizWeek section in the Star. The interview highlighted few numbers which I think is worth thinking about. Now, the accuracy of the numbers is based purely on what the CEO says, so we assume it to be true. Let's see what she said below:

CEO: There are 5.8 million TV households in Malaysia and we have about 2.2 million customers. That's about 39% household penetration. That's overall, but now we start slicing and dicing. If we look at spoken language, we have 37% penetration for the Malay language customers. For the Chinese-speaking customers, we have 48% of total Chinese households in Malaysia. For the Indian-speaking customers, we have about 68% of the total Indian customers in Malaysia. 

For a minority race, we are nearly double of the majority race in terms of astro subscricption. The breakdown did not specify in terms of cost, but I suspect that most indian household would have taken the cheaper packages between RM37 and RM89 or so. This is because the Tamil channels are free (excluding the impending Maharajah package). This may be the same for the Malays. So, I can assume that the Chinese are the most contributing customers since their packages cost a lot. Next question is why are many Indian households subscribing to Astro? One can easily say that the Indians are doing well, not marginalised, are richer than the bumiputeras etc. But I suspect that there's nothing worth watching in the free channels (RTM, TV3, etc.), causing Indians to fork out extra cash to watch Tamil programs. There seem to be less Tamil movies or shows (yeah, there one on saturday midnights I think). There are Hindi movies which take up the Indian slots. The gradual reduction of Tamil programs sound like marginalisation and discrimination to me. Hindraf might call it ethnic cleansing 🙂

Are all those mega serials and Kodambakam movies good for the community? I personally feel no, but the current trend shows that the community needs (or wants?) entertainment. Old folks want to watch serials, the rest watch movies or songs or the variety of shows over the 6 channels.

If we assume 4 people in an Indian household, 1.8 million will translate to 450,000 households. 68% of that is 306,000. Meaning there are roughly 306,000 Indian houses that has Astro!

CEO: The next way of slicing and dicing is to look at the rural and urban segments because people in the two segments look for different content. We have 51% of total urban households in Malaysia about 17% of rural households.

This seems clear cut. Those in the urban areas are more educated and exposed to global issues. Thus, with higher disposable income, they are able to subscribe to Astro packages. Those in the rural areas may feel satisfied with the local Malay programs and not interested in global issues or international channels.

 

CEO:Simplistically, our growth for the past year has been from the Malay customers. In our last quarter, we added 94,000 customers, of which 10,000 are Indian customers and the balance are primarily Malay households. And that has been the trend for the last couple of quarters. 

If you ask me who will be our next 1 million customers, they will be predominantly Malay households and more and more semi-urban. We've already got 51% penetration in the urban areas and we have to know that we will be going more into the semi-urban to rural market. 

What that means to us is one thing – our sales and distribution network will have to be realigned. If it's predominantly urban today, we've got to shift that to where our next customers will be, by geography and by the marketplace that we're looking at.

Indians are still subscribing to Astro, but soon the market will become stagnant as the subscription rate increases to 80% or more. Then, we can see more segmentation – mini packages to cater for various subgroups and ages.

CEO: For instance, we are very strong in Chinese content. Among our 645,000 Chinese-speaking customers, we have a viewership rating of 80-odd%, which means more than 80% of the time, a Chinese-speaking customer is watching Astro. So, only less than 20% is spent watching free-to-air. It's even higher for the Indian-speaking market – 90% of the time, they're watching channels such as Vaanavil, Sun TV and Vellithirai. They are watching Astro.  Our issue now is the Malay customers. They come on to Astro because they like the fact that it is a multi-channel platform and all that, but the free-to-air TV is fairly strong. Our viewership number for the Malay customers is about 55%. Since they form 1.1million of our total households to date, which is half, our challenge is to increase our relevance and viewership among our Malay customers.

This seems to reinforce my suspicion that the average Indian has nothing to watch in free channels and is regularly glued to Astro whenever he/she has a chance. Same goes for the Chinese. Astro have them covered, now is to target the Malay market. Thus we can see more concentrated efforts to capture the semi-urban and rural households, and at the same time try to increase the viewership from 55%.

In addition, we'll look at the Astro brand. What is the Astro brand? What is its value proposition? At which point does the Astro brand extend to other areas? Recently, we launched AstroView (an entertainment magazine, previously called Astro Guide, that serves as a viewing guide for Astro subscribers) because we see it as an extension of the Astro TV experience.

The CEO forgot to mention that the magazine is not free after being relaunched as AstroView. Its free for a period of time, and then the customers will be charged.

Full interview is at http://biz.thestar.com.my/bizweek/story.asp?file=/2007/12/15/bizweek/19771336&sec=bizweek

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murder charge againts 31 detainees dropped

December 17th, 2007
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The drama is about to end soon. After nearly 3 weeks of high-octane action of creating mountains out of molehills, the story now spirals towards an anti-climax, with a predictable ending. Everyone will go back happy (except those 5 blokes) and pretend nothing ever happened. Status quo is maintained. Malaysians value peace, money, and things that does not need much thinking over street protests.

I remember that there’s a quote saying “melayu mudah lupa”. how about the indians? So far, about 80% of the people i talked to in the last two weeks clearly know who they are going to vote (or not) in the next election (hmmm…the may say one thing and do another!). the longer BN waits to call for election the better. time heals, as the saying goes.

Hindraf 31: Attempted murder charge dropped
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/76127
Soon Li Tsin | Dec 17, 07 12:41pm

Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail today dropped the attempted murder charge against 26 Hindraf supporters who were alleged to have gathered illegally at the Batu Caves temple in the early hours of Nov 25.

However two counts of causing mischief and illegal assembly against the 26 remain.

Also dropped are all charges against four students.

In all 31 Hindraf supporters were charged with attempted murder of a policeman and they have been in remand since Dec 4 after being denied bail.

Representations were made by several Indian-based political parties, including MIC and MIC and some Indian-based non-government organisations for the attempted muder charge to be dropped against the 31.

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Rural population are country’s poorest says UNDP

December 11th, 2007
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Rural population are country's poorest

source

KUALA LUMPUR: The indigenous groups in Sabah and Sarawak, who are Bumiputeras, and the rural populace in Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah are the country's poorest. 

These are findings by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. 

UNDP resident representative Dr Richard Leete said that therefore the Hindu Rights Action Force's (Hindraf) accusation that the Indians are the poorest of the Malaysian society are not true. 

"The most intense poverty in Malaysia is not among the Indians, but the indigenous communities in Sabah and Sarawak, and the rural population in Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah. 

"Most of them (hardcore poor) are in the agricultural sector," he told a press conference in conjunction with the International Poverty Conference here on Tuesday.

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Uthayakumar arrested this morning

December 11th, 2007
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Uthayakumar arrested this morning
http://www5.malaysiakini.com/news/75895
Fauwaz Abdul Aziz | Dec 11, 07 10:18am

Lawyer P Uthayakumar was arrested this morning in Bangsar and taken to the Jalan Duta Sessions Courts in Kuala Lumpur.

His fiancee S Indradevi who was with him during the arrest told Malaysiakini that Uthayakumar was not informed of the reason of his arrest.

She said two police cars stopped Uthayakumar’s car at about 9.20am opposite the Bangsar Shopping Complex and four plainclothes policemen rushed at him before grabbing him.

“They just told us that he was being taken to Jalan Duta. I was really scared. I am still trembling in fear from what happened this morning,” she said by telephone.

Lawyer M Manoharan said the arrest could be related to Uthayakumar’s role in the rally organised by Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) on Nov 25.

“I believed he will be charged for illegal assembly. There could be more arrests coming later in the day,” he said when contacted.

At the same time, Manoharan is also not ruling out a charge under the Sedition Act for Uthayakumar, over a speech he had made in July at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. This was Hindraf’s first public gathering.

Uthayakumar is Hindraf’s legal adviser. The rally – to highlight the marginalisation of the Indian Malaysian community – attracted about 30,000 people.

Last week, 31 of the protesters were charged with the attempted murder of a policeman. They were also charged with causing mischief. Sixteen of them were charged with illegal gathering as well.

Another round of arrests has been threatened by the police.

Uthayakumar and two other Hindraf leaders – P Waythamoorthy and V Ganabatirau – are currently out on bail on a sedition charge. Yesterday, the Shah Alam High Court ruled that the discharge order for the trio made two weeks ago was made in error.

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khir toyo meets padang jawa folks

December 9th, 2007
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"Let’s put the Hindraf episode behind us and move forward to find a better life for all."

– and don't forget to vote for me or my friends in next election!

" Later last night, during a 60 minute live interview over RTM1, Dr Khir clarified that the Kampung Rimba Jaya Hindu temple was demolished after the Deepavali festival. “There is a misunderstanding. A lot of people thought the temple was demolished before Deepavali. But, it was demolished on Nov 15,” he said adding that the temple was built on private land."

Read what Thanish says on the events that took place on 30th October 2007. 15 November comes after 30 October, doesn't it? An article in my blog quotes Selangor State Govt's official website that says the date of demolition is 30th October 2007. There's another statement here too. Samy Vellu also nearly cancelled Deepavali open house. Did he get the dates wrong as well?

Move forward, Dr Khir tells Kampung Rimba folk

source

Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo greeting the residents of Kampung Rimba Jaya in Shah Alam yesterday.

SHAH ALAM: Let’s put the Hindraf episode behind us and move forward to find a better life for all.

This was the message Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo had for the people, especially those in Kampung Rimba Jaya here, yesterday. Meeting the people here for the first time since the controversial demolition of a temple in the squatter settlement last month, the Selangor menteri besar said the people should not be taken in by the claims of the movement. He said the people of Rimba Jaya were now staying in council homes provided by the state in Shah Alam and they could continue to do so until their low-cost homes were built. The council homes are flats owned by the state in Section 26 and the tenants could stay there rent-free, he added.

“Do not worry. I will not let anyone sleep under the bridge. It’ll be a shame for me if that happens. The government will never neglect the Indians.”

On the demolished temple, Dr Khir said the developer had given RM40,000 to the temple committee to build a new one at the site given by the developer.

He said the people should not fret about having to move into low-cost homes, saying it was a first step towards better things. For those who were not eligible for bank loans, he said there were other avenues such as the Housing and Local Government Ministry, state Islamic Religious Council and other state agencies.

Speaking on the impact of the recent illegal rallies in the city, Dr Khir said two Taiwanese investors had put on hold their plans to come to Selangor.

Later last night, during a 60 minute live interview over RTM1, Dr Khir clarified that the Kampung Rimba Jaya Hindu temple was demolished after the Deepavali festival. “There is a misunderstanding. A lot of people thought the temple was demolished before Deepavali. But, it was demolished on Nov 15,” he said adding that the temple was built on private land. He said the temple committee had agreed with the relocation and added that: “The temple issue had been settled.” “The problem is Hindraf followers instigated others to take the law into their own hands and did not allow the priest to go into the temple.”

He said the squatters in the area would also be moving to their new homes by end of this year or beginning of next year. They will move to low-cost units with proper kindergartens, Hindu temple, surau, community hall and other facilities, he added. “So there is no issue of the temple or not helping the community. The state government helps all races,” he said. He also said the politics of hate should be rejected by all.

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