Television crews turn their sights on Bangkok

RICHARD S. EHRLICH
BANGKOK, Thailand

A handful of foreign television journalists and Thai investors have created Thailand's first, privately owned satellite transmission facility to enable correspondents to shoot, edit, produce and broadcast TV news footage from a single office.

AsiaWorks Television Ltd opened its doors in January, and has already been feeding, producing, editing and doing camera work for Reuters TV, ABN, CNBC, CBC Canada, CTV Canada, Swiss TV, Bahrain TV, MBC Korea TV, WTN, AP TV and others, according to AsiaWorks director of operations, David McKaige.

"We provide editing, camera crewing, satellite playout, live two-way shoots, and soon, a three-camera studio," Mr McKaige said. Before AsiaWorks arrived on the scene, Bangkok was considered a "nightmare" for foreign television reporters because of the capital's shabby infrastructure and myriad places which journalists had to go, to put together and send TV news.

"We have PAL and NTSC, Betacam SP editing, and are setting up a non-linear editing suite, probably with Avid, a computer-based editing system," Mr McKaige added. "We are the only privately owned satellite playout point in Thailand. We have our own microwave link to the Communications Authority of Thailand's International Television Service Centre.

"The Thai government's policy in the past few years has been to try and make Bangkok the television hub for Southeast Asia. This is the first tangible step towards this. We have put Thailand on the map as a telecom hub."

AsiaWorks is a 220-square-metre, television facility and production site - including three separate editing suites - atop a 15-storey building. Its prize jewel is an Alcatel TM400 Analogue Microwave Transmitter. The orange-coloured box beams television footage directly from AsiaWorks to Thailand's Sri Racha Earth Station for transmission to INTELSAT's satellites.

This means a foreign television reporter can fly into Bangkok solo, contact AsiaWorks, and in one stop, hire a crew with camera, sound and lighting equipment, plus translators, drivers and other personnel. After the footage is shot, the journalist can return to AsiaWorks' rooftop facilities and use their equipment to edit the news story and then transmit it through the Alcatel transmitter to a head office back home.

Journalists who want to go "live," can stand on AsiaWorks' panoramic balcony and broadcast, while switching to taped shots to intersperse actuality and narration if required.

Mr McKaige predicts that AsiaWorks will turn Bangkok into an internationally acclaimed place for TV journalists to be based, and attract interest from news organisations wary of setting up their Southeast Asian headquarters in Hong Kong or Singapore.

"Bangkok also has actual stories here, because Burma is next door, Cambodia is next door, and Thai politics has become interesting for its effect on business news," he said. Also in Bangkok's favour is the possibility of censorship against journalists based in Hong Kong after it reverts to communist China's rule in July, and Singapore's traditional straitjacket on press freedom.

"We've already done 15 to 20 successful satellite transmissions," Mr McKaige said. "We're expecting 200 transmissions this year."

Their next step is to attract other television bureaus to the Maneeya Centre building, on Phloen Chit Road, where AsiaWorks is located. "We want to make this building the equivalent to Hong Kong's Telecom House, by bringing in more professional broadcasters," said Mr McKaige. "It is a good location, close to good hotels, and shopping and embassies. And the link works from here.

"It's a long-term commitment and a large investment. But when things start to liberalise more, we will have our foot in the door. We hope to one day have an uplink on our roof, to broadcast directly to the satellite from here."

"Our strongest points are, this is a one-stop place for television reporting and our accumulated experience," he said, referring to the TV journalists who have joined as shareholders.

Five years ago, when Mr McKaige worked with Visnews in Bangkok, he started his own negotiations with the government's Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) to get a private microwave link. After winning approval, he joined Reuters TV and brought his link for Reuters to utilise. When he recently left Reuters to start AsiaWorks, Mr McKaige negotiated with Reuters and CAT for an agreement which now permits AsiaWorks to own the microwave link.

Reuters, meanwhile, leases brief time slots on AsiaWorks' link, which is cheaper for Reuters than the cost of maintaining total ownership of the link.

Heather Kelly, a Canadian freelance TV journalist and AsiaWorks shareholder, was recently busy in an AsiaWorks editing room putting together her latest report. "I'm working on a series out of Burma for ABN, and material that will be used by the BBC as well," she said.

The editing room's screens flashed segments of Kelly, standing in a cemetery in the Burmese capital, Rangoon, reporting about Burma's decision to move scores of graves so the site could be developed. Kelly paused between edits to explain how AsiaWorks makes her job easier because she can also send a video cassette in from the field, with a note attached asking the staff at AsiaWorks to transmit it to her client in another country. Previously, her presence was required virtually every step of the way.

"Before, I went to Channel 7 to feed, which meant us physically taking one of these big machines," Kelly said, indicating a heavy videocassette player, "because at Channel 7 they didn't have NTSC playouts. Plus I had to go through Bangkok traffic. Speed is crucial on a news story. Now its better for the client too, because they can get it quickly and in whatever format they want."

Another AsiaWorks shareholder, professional TV cameraman Derek Williams, said: "Back in the 1970s, during the Vietnam War, Bangkok was always known as the nightmare feed."

Throughout the 1980s television reporters had to take their video footage to Thailand's Channel 7 or Channel 9 TV stations to transmit overseas. Problems arose because of the TV stations' outdated, poorly maintained equipment, their lack of English language skills, and other hassles.

"I was staff with CBS TV for 20 years and went freelance in 1991," said Mr Williams. "I'm continuing to do freelance. I have two camera rigs at home. As a shareholder, I can bring my clients here, and trust the editor, who understands Western concepts of news."

As for pricing Mr Williams said: "With hard news, cost is not a major factor. The major factor is that it works."

* Richard S. Ehrlich is a former UPI correspondent who has reported from Asia for the past 19 years.