Fiji TV faces battle in Solomon Islands

Nina Ratulele
Last month a Solomon Islands businessman placed a colourful little liftout insert advertisement in the Solomon Star newspaper. Then his phones started ringing. Call after call. Nearly 1000 calls in the first day, it is estimated.

Every call could be bad news for powerful Fiji Television’s efforts to add Solomon Islands to countries where its subsidiary Sky Pacific dominates pay-TV.

The businessman, Nihal Seneviratne, and his Satworld are providing something Fiji Television has faced little of so far. That’s serious competition as it continues country-by-country launches of its Sky Pacific satellite-delivered international programming.

Seneviratne’s advertisement came soon after Sky Pacific was launched in the Solomon Islands through a local agent, Our Telekom, formerly Solomon Telekom.

Seneviratne was already running the satellite-delivered direct-to-home Satworld service. It began out of interest he and some friends had in getting TV programmes.

When Sky Pacific came on the local scene, he saw what Fiji Television offered and charged.

He did his sums. Satworld, he believed, could offer Solomon Islanders more than Sky Pacific, charge less, and have more flexible conditions.

He thought the people of the Solomon Islands had the right to a choice and a cheaper alternative. The insert in the Solomon Star, the country’s main newspaper, followed.

For just S$400 (about US$57) a month, Seneviratne is offering customers throughout the Solomon Islands 31 digital channels direct to their homes from the satellite. He is also offering them the choice of setting up their own satellite receiving equipment or working through Satworld. 

Satworld’s programming package is made up of seven English movie channels, five entertainment, three sports, four children’s, five documentary, four news, one fashion and two music channels. The channels include many big names of such programming.

Seneviratne’s promise includes no long-term or lock-in contracts. “You have the freedom to come and go as you please,” he stresses.

But Seneviratne does not want to criticise what Fiji TV charges, offers and requires. He prefers to emphasise that Satworld is a Solomon Islands alternative.

Sky Pacific’s success in countries further east—such as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga—has partly been built on its ability to offer plenty of international channels and all the top rugby. That’s an obvious plus in countries where rugby rules.

Satworld programming on the other hand offers more channels for less cost plus international soccer. In the Solomon Islands, where soccer is played and followed with a passion, lots of soccer is a definite plus.

Satworld also offers the hard work and the service-with-a-smile approach that marks the growth and success of the Sol-Lanka group of companies.

Seneviratne operates Sol-Lanka with his wife Loata. Loata is from the island of Malaita. She provides the Sol in the company's name. Seneviratne came to the Solomon Islands 12 years ago as a financial controller for a supermarket company. He is from Sri Lanka. That’s the Lanka in the company's name.

Satworld is now taking an increasingly high profile in Sol-Lanka operations. The company’s original business was buying and selling. Seneviratne can tell many stories of the hard times faced in the early years of trading.

It helps, Seneviratne emphasises, to have a business-minded and strongly supportive wife. Today their Sol-Lanka store is a well-known shopping spot near the Town Ground on the edge of Honiara’s downtown area.

But their best known business now is the popular Taj Mahal restaurant at the Sunvalley junction on the main road close to Honiara International Airport.

The Satworld subsidiary grew out of Seneviratne’s personal interest in getting good television programming to watch himself.

Friends encouraged him to develop this so others could watch too. He began building his television connections in Asia.

Solomon Islands does not have a free-to-air TV station. The closest thing is operated by Our Telekom, the country’s telecommunications monopoly.

Our Telekom gets funding from the Australians and British to rebroadcast their Australia Network and BBC satellite TV services in the Honiara area.

It also carries major international sport such as the recent World Cup rugby and the South Pacific Games. One hour of local programming—some news but mainly adverts and music—is produced five days a week by another company and broadcast for it by Our Telekom.

Now Solomon Islanders are leapfrogging past free-to-air TV straight into direct-to-home satellite-delivered pay TV. Thanks to Seneviratne and his Satworld, they also have a real choice.

Serious competition is not something Fiji Television has faced much of, either in Fiji with free-to-air or the region with pay-TV. But competition, Seneviratne stresses, is good. With the satellite-delivered pay-TV choices they now have, many Solomon Islanders seem to agree. That’s if all those phone calls Seneviratne is getting are anything to go by.