Regulating Access to Transnational Satellite Television

Abstract

The advent of transnational satellite television in the early 1990s caught Asian governments unawares. It captured the imagination of audiences in many countries under the footprint of satellite broadcast, who had long been accustomed to unimaginative public broadcasting and/or government-controlled commercial broadcasting. The new transnational medium fostered a dramatic growth in the sales of satellite dish antennae and the establishment of cable networks, illegal and quasi-legal. Complacent about their dominant market shares, domestic broadcasters were often slow to face up to any threat to their audience shares. Overtaken by events, governments in the region naturally reacted with a range of regulations and policies to what was perceived as cultural imperialism which would undermine their national sociocultural agenda. This article develops a typology of policies concerning consumer access to the new medium adopted by governments in Northeast Asia and their metamorphoses over the first five years. Since the regulatory policies are not sufficient explanations of the impact on the domestic media industry, this article also discusses other significant factors in the penetration of STAR TV, the pioneering transnational television broadcaster.