Business buzz on the box
In a tough business climate such as the present, when keeping heads below the ramparts is the order of the day, few would have expected a spate of new entrants into the demanding world of business television.Yet within weeks of each other, we have seen two new ventures: Moneyweb taking over the weekday business slot on e.tv`s 7pm news, and former analyst and Africam founder Peter Armitage launching a subscription channel called Business Television Network (BTN) aimed at the financial analyst community and broadcast during the day.These are bold moves, but they just may work. Watching keenly from the sidelines will be the current business television news providers, the SABC and Summit – the BDFM-owned channel that broadcasts on the DStv platform.Moneyweb`s Alec Hogg, who has already established his business news and information service online and on radio, says the move into television is a natural progression for the group as it attempts to deliver content across a range of media. Moneyweb also has print interests – in the form of Moneyweb Digest, which packages highlights of its weekly throughput, and a recently announced partnership with The Citizen whereby Moneyweb runs the newspaper`s business pages and takes a slice of its financial advertising revenue.“Our view is that business has been badly serviced up to now, and we felt we had to get into it,” says Hogg. “More and more, business is the big news topic of our times.” ‘The intelligent layman`The e.tv slot runs for six minutes a day and comprises a lead story (usually an interview with a business leader) and a number of secondary stories. One expects further financial programmes will be introduced in future.All this will be broadcast from Moneyweb`s new studios in Rosebank, and Hogg hopes to take advantage of some of the pull of the radio show by keeping guests over from his earlier Classic Business show on Classic FM for the e.tv segment.The news slot is targeted at “the intelligent layman” and aims to convey more than the standard fare of market indicators and news headlines. “Our view is that if you can`t produce news that everyone understands, don`t do it,” says Hogg.Hogg says Moneyweb has been looking at television opportunities for some time, but suitable opportunities have not presented themselves until now. He says Moneyweb has looked at e.tv before, but only recently started liking what it saw.“If you look at e.tv a couple of years ago, there were a lot of issues relating to its owner, Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI). These have largely been put to bed with HCI`s sale of its Vodacom stake to Venfin. e.tv is now, we feel, a sustainable business, with the resources and the management focus to continue,” he says.Moneyweb has also looked at a DStv channel, but costs are prohibitive. “For such a channel to work, you need to broadcast during the day. But the business model would not have been sustainable since we could not charge the rates required,” says Hogg.Interestingly, this same factor deterred Peter Armitage from going the DStv route. Armitage`s interest in the financial media dates back to his days as a top-rated media analyst at Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch. After leaving the stock broking scene, he launched Africam, which became famous for webcasting pictures from the African wilds to viewers around the world.Given the high costs of the DStv network, Armitage and his partner Graham Wallington eventually opted for a “closed user group”, charging subscriptions and delivering content over the Sentech satellite network. BTN will broadcast between 7am and about 6pm.In addition, BTN will be available on streaming video for viewers outside the country, making it the only daytime Internet feed covering an emerging market.BTN goes live this month, with backing from Barnard Jacobs Mellet. Armitage says infrastructure costs are minimal, since BTN will use equipment already purchased in the Africam days, while using the studios of the National Electronic Media Institute of SA (Nemisa) in Parktown, which are currently under-utilised.Nemisa is a non-profit organisation operating under the auspices of the Department of Communications, with a brief to develop skills in broadcasting and other electronic media. “We will be using its studios and trainees, who will be getting an excellent opportunity to build up their broadcasting and producing skills,” says Armitage. “Nemisa is very happy with what we are providing and, of course, we are delighted to get facilities at such a low cost.” ‘Not competition`The introduction of young black talent in either production or presenting will tie in with plans to bring a black empowerment partner into BTN.Armitage insists BTN will not directly compete with the traditional television channels in South Africa, or with Summit. Its target market is the professional investor community, with content specifically tailored to be useful to analysts at stock broking firms and institutions. It is an area that has not been well serviced by the financial media in the past, he argues. For this reason, BTN has its own team of investment analysts who research the companies and issues to be covered daily. The team is structured and runs like the research department at a large stock broking company.In addition to market news, there will be live coverage of company results, interviews with CEOs, analyst interviews and economic reviews, as well as profiles of companies and fund managers.In many ways, BTN is modelled on CNBC, a point Armitage does not miss. “South African fund managers are trading up to R3 billion a day on the JSE, while watching CNBC, which covers US and European shares.”Armitage says BTN has already had an excellent response from its target market, with a number of fund managers and stockbrokers signing up for BTN subscriptions in advance. “The top ten asset managers are all on board, which is very encouraging,” he says. Not so lonely anymoreAn interested bystander in all of this is Vernon Matzopoulos, channel head at Summit, who, surprisingly perhaps, welcomes both Moneyweb`s and BTN`s entries into the market.“My view is that anything that popularises business news has got to be good for us all,” he says. Still, he finds this a strange time to be entering the business and finance media space. “It`s really a bull market business.”Matzopoulos points out that there should be no direct competition between BTN and Summit, given that Summit broadcasts in the evenings between 7pm and 11pm. “And BTN seems to be highly specialised, taking in the analyst community, in a closed subscription group,” he says. Summit`s audience is somewhat broader, covering business decision makers in a number of areas. “The common thread is the markets and investing. Our role is covering anything that helps you do better in your personal financial or business life.”By contrast, he feels e.tv constitutes too much of a mass market medium to reach the desired audience.“Alec Hogg and his team have done an excellent job on radio, and I`ll be very interested to see how they make the transition. Business television can be a real beast; you need expertise and the ability to communicate with your audience, which is very different from communicating on radio or in print.” From the horse`s mouthNo doubt the SABC will also be watching developments; while all of BTN, Moneyweb and Summit will be casting their eyes beyond the current environment to when broadband or satellite transmission is more established, allowing for broadcasting over the Internet.The real test will be the reaction of the viewers. A straw poll of analysts, brokers and portfolio managers expressed enthusiasm for the idea of a quality daytime business channel.“It can be a real hassle to hunt down company spokespeople after the release of results,” says a portfolio manager with a large Johannesburg-based institution. “It will save a lot of trouble on my side being able to watch interviews with top CEOs, straight after the release of results.”Raymond Goss of Investec Securities says the success of BTN will depend on the quality of the interviewers and the people being interviewed. “If it can achieve that, then there will definitely be of value to traders and analysts.”Peter Urbani, a portfolio manager at Cape-based institution Fairheads, says there is definitely scope for a participant such as BTN, particularly since it services the daytime market, and if it gives more of a buy-side (institutional) view of things. “A criticism of Summit is that it perhaps has too much of a stockbroker bias, with the bulk of the studio guests being Johannesburg-based brokers,” he says. Good face for radioGoss says an alternative to Summit is probably needed. “As a trader, most of the stuff being flighted on Summit I will have already seen and looked at during the day, and they only occasionally provide good insight. Quite frankly, their stuff could be condensed into a half hour slot.”The jury is still out on the e.tv news insert. “Alec Hogg comes across very well on radio, but I`m not too convinced of his presence on TV. We shall have to see,” says one observer.Many analysts questioned whether there was a good business case for more business television than is currently being broadcast. “South Africa is too small a market,” was a common refrain.The tough business climate does not help, particularly as the financial sector is on the receiving end. Certainly BTN has the most at stake, but could equally be the biggest winner of all. Summit, if it can persuade its shareholders (Johnnic and Pearsons) to respond aggressively to the challenges, may also emerge victorious.“What all these guys need is a bull market,” says Investec`s Goss. That may take a while.
07 April 2003
In a tough business climate such as the present, when keeping heads below the ramparts is the order of the day, few would have expected a spate of new entrants into the demanding world of business television.
These are bold moves, but they just may work. Watching keenly from the sidelines will be the current business television news providers, the SABC and Summit – the BDFM-owned channel that broadcasts on the DStv platform.
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