THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 14, 1994 TAG: 9406140035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
DATELINE: 940614 LENGTH: Medium
If Robertson's cable system becomes a reality - and it's far from a done deal - it would give the Vietnamese 26 more channels than they see today.
{REST} The country is TV deprived.
According to a man named Boan Ban at the Vietnamese mission in New York City, both channels are run by the state. They sign on late in the day and sign off early in the evening.
TV around the clock is unheard of in Vietnam.
A U.S. businessman who was over there to drum up a little trade now that President Clinton says it's OK to wheel and deal with our former enemies, told me about the frustration of watching professional basketball from America on a set in his hotel room.
The signal was plucked from a satellite hovering over Russia.
Just as the game neared its rousing climax, the hotel shut off the game because the picture is cut off at the same time every night.
``It was days before I could find out who won,'' said Hank Poli, who visits Vietnam often as a member of the Indochina Project in Washington, D.C.
Robertson intends to beam cable programming to Vietnamese cities by microwave.
Robertson's plan to bring CBN, and perhaps some programming from The Family Channel, to Vietnam was announced in a recent speech before the Broadcast Cable Financial Management Association in San Diego. In Virginia Beach, CBN spokesman Gene Kapp said that although initial talks with the government in Hanoi have gone well, there is no date set to launch a CBN cable system.
``The minister of communications and I shook hands on the deal, but everything is so politically complex over there that it will take approval from other committees,'' Robertson told Broadcasting & Cable Magazine.
``Pat always has been interested in breaking new ground in television,'' said Kapp, who expects CBN to produce uplifting programs for the Vietnamese - ``programs that will enhance the family experience,'' he said - but it isn't likely ``The 700 Club'' will be beamed to Vietnam.
Animated Bible stories are on the way, however.
``The Vietnamese are hungry for new quality programming,'' Kapp said.
I've talked to others who say the same thing. Henry Gallagher of the Vietnamese Enterprise Group Inc. of Washington, D.C., and John Mullady of American-Vietnamese Trading Inc. of Manhattan, also told me the Vietnamese have been waiting years to see TV as the rest of the world sees it.
``The Vietnamese families living in rural areas have been too busy working to put rice on the table to relax and enjoy television. They are not exactly a people consumed by watching television,'' Gallagher said.
However, he added that the Vietnamese this summer will be consumed by telecasts of World Cup soccer originating in the United States. They are soccer nuts.
TV in Vietnam is mostly available in the tourist hotels of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and in the cafes and restaurants in the rural areas where 80 per cent of the Vietnamese work.
People earning an average of $285 a year have a hard time finding the money to buy a TV set.
The population in Vietnam is expected to reach 85 million by the decade's end and surpass 100 million by 2020. It is a country of millions who have never seen a rerun of ``Gilligan's Island.''
They are TV-deprived, indeed.
by CNB