TheBuzz Erika Engle

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Local teleport's new endeavor could reap big profits

HAWAII Pacific Teleport LP in Kapolei is going Hollywood and Madison Ave., in partnership with Philippines-based Mabuhay Satellite Corp.

The two will launch Prize Television later this year in the Asia Pacific region.

HPT AT A GLANCE » Annual revenue: About $5 million » Earth station: Kapolei » Facility cost: more than $4 million » Employees: 10 » Started: Sept. 2000 HPT leases capacity on four satellites covering the Asia Pacific Region, connecting to the U.S. Internet backbone via submarine cable from Hawaii to points in California and Oregon. HPT uses this network to provide Internet, voice and data circuits to customers across the region, including Midway Island, American Samoa and U.S. embassies in Southeast Asia. » Other connections: The HPT teleport also connects Internet service providers in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal (including one VSAT site at a base camp on Mount Everest) and Vietnam to the U.S. Internet backbone. » Oil rigs: HPT has direct fiber circuits between Hawaii and oil company offices in Houston, which it connects by satellite to oil rigs on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. Source: Hawaii-Pacific Teleport LP On the Net: » www.prizetelevision.com » www.hawaiiteleport.com » www.mabuhaysat.com » www.smart.com.ph

It is a new concept that will air minute-long soap operas created by advertisers. Each show will give viewers a chance to win a prize by correctly answering a question via text message. Prize awards will be handled online.

Prize Television's first channel will be travel-focused and will seek airlines, cruise lines, railways, accommodations, amusement parks and tour operators as clients.

"A whole industry is now growing up in California, where people are creating new types of television content to be delivered onto cell phones," said Vince Waterson, vice president of business development for Hawaii Pacific Teleport.

Those one-minute clips are linked in with advertising, "and that's where I got the idea, really, for this. We're just taking it to another dimension," he said.

It's all about product integration. Advertisers will provide the prizes and the shows, or will pay the partnership for scripting and production.

Shows will cost $10 a minute to air, with a minimum purchase of 100 minutes. Each show can air ten times, offering a new prize, in different languages.

Program development will cost $10,000 per minute and one of three companies in the United Kingdom, Thailand and the Philippines will create clients' content, Waterson said.

HPT is a big client of Mabuhay Satellite, but in this case, "Mabuhay will be contributing the satellite bandwidth for this new venture and HPT is contributing the resources of the teleport," he said.

HPT will beam shows from its Kapolei ground station to Mabuhay's Agila 2 satellite for free-to-air transmission that can reach 20 countries. Free to air means viewers only need satellite reception equipment and needn't subscribe to a particular service. However, Mabuhay will market Prize Television to cable companies, of which the Philippines, for example, has hundreds.

The millions of text-message votes cast for "American Idol" contestants each week got the partners' attention.

Waterson said cell-phone penetration in the Philippines just passed 50 percent of the population and gee, wouldja look at that -- Mabuhay has a sister company in that business. Smart Communications Inc. is, "the largest cellular company in the Philippines, with 22 million subscribers." Mabuhay and HPT will share in text-message revenue.

HPT and Mabuhay are not guaranteeing viewer numbers, but say prizes will be an audience magnet.

Air-conditioned cafes, bars and malls are constantly full of people watching television "for hours," he said. With loved ones living abroad, the chance to win airline tickets for a visit could be cause to keep watching.