Bloomberg TV looks forward to blooming revenue stream

MANILA, Philippines - Bloomberg TV Philippines expects revenues to start blooming next year with half of the advertisements needed to recover investments for the country’s first 24-hour business channel already secured.

In an interview following Bloomberg TV’s trade launch Wednesday night, MediaQuest Holdings Inc. president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Lorenzana said at least 10 advertisers from the fast-moving consumer goods and services sectors have already counted themselves in for the channel.

“We need another 10. We need 20 for us to recover investments. But it looks like the channel is easy to sell to advertisers because the brand itself is good,” Lorenzana said.

He said a little over P200 million has already been invested for the development of Bloomberg TV Philippines to date.

“Within a year’s time we can recover that because it’s a very good brand. Bloomberg is a very good brand because for one, the CEOs and officers watch it so that’s a big thing already. But we never intended this just for the CEOs, this is for everybody. Everybody who wants to get ahead in life through business,” he said.

Bloomberg TV Philippines is a joint undertaking of Cignal TV Inc., the pay TV arm of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), MediaQuest and global business and financial news network Bloomberg TV.

“It’s an international brand and it’s well known in the Philippines as well. It will make our job easier in introducing a new business channel,” PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

Pangilinan said members of the global Bloomberg TV team have been busy setting up the studio in the country and training local anchors.

“Business news is an increasingly important component of Philippine life. It also connects the Philippines and the Filipinos to what’s happening outside the Philippines because clearly economic trends outside will affect our economy,” he said.

“We expect them to bring to our shores the latest international and local business news. Most of the processes and training we obtained come from Bloomberg itself which is an excellent business news organization,” Pangilinan added.

Lorenzana said the channel would likely start airing by the second half of September and will be made available exclusively to Cignal Digital TV subscribers.

“The reason why we’re targeting September is we’re really trying to perfect it because we don’t want to air on an experimental basis. What we want is for it to be good right from the very start,” he said.