National Geographic Channel opens doors to local advertisers

National Geographic Channel has opened its doors to local promotion and advertising spots as part of its commitment to provide groundbreaking “edutainment” shows and to make the channel more relevant to audiences in the Philippines.

Officials from NGC Asia said the new development will further connect the network to viewers in the Philippines, giving them a local feel and a tailor-made promotional approach.

“We believe that localization is key. This approach of customizing the channel for audiences in an important market such as the Philippines where we have long enjoyed a loyal audience and great following clearly sets NGC apart,” said Avinash Himatsinghani, NGC Asia senior vice president for advertising sales and new media partnerships.

He said that with the NGC Philippines feed, they are now in a position to offer local advertisers the ability connect with their target audiences in an international media environment that is synonymous with trust, credibility and rich heritage.

The localization approach started with the “NGC Top 30” special where NGC tapped local celebrities Gary Valenciano, Donita Rose, Kim Atienza and Christian Bautista to host and introduce the NGC documentary of their choice.  

Officials also emphasized that NGC is dedicated to providing high quality entertainment documentary features. Programming will be further enhanced so that sponsors will have a more effective promotional approach without affecting the content and quality of the documentaries, they said.

Through this effort, NGC expects the audience to relate more with the channel thus creating more market.

“Distribution is doing well in the Philippine market. In fact, NGC is in 90 percent of all cable households in the Philippines. Presently, we have 7.2 million viewers,” added Rene Esguerra, COO for Asian Cable Communications Inc. (ACCION), NGC’s channel distributor in the Philippines.

He stressed that NGC’s market in the Philippines is big and therefore very advantageous to local advertisers.

Locally secured ads will be sent over to NGC’s Hong Kong uplink facility for insertion into the Philippine-dedicated satellite feed of the channel. NGC is in about 1.3 million cable homes serviced by over 250 major cable systems throughout the Philippines, to include Sky Cable and Home Cable systems in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao. It joins seven other local feeds in the region — including India, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Australia/New Zealand, Hong Kong & Southeast Asia.

National Geographic Channels International (NGCI) is owned by National Geographic Television & Film (NGT&F), Fox Entertainment Group and the National Broadcasting Co. (NBC).