BEING THE constant targets of complaints is, of course, often one of the trade-offs of being the Big Boy in any industry. In the country's cable TV industry, though, being the biggest player has not necessarily translated into big bucks.

While Beyond Cable reports better performance of its companies last year, it has only started recovering from a net loss of P841 million in 2001 and the exodus of its subscribers due to the pullout in October that same year of Star TV, a leading cable-content provider in Asia, for SkyCable's apparent failure to pay its outstanding obligations amounting to US$3.1 million. The five popular Star channels — Star Movies, Star World, ESPN, Star Sports and the National Geographic — were reinstated in April last year after the two companies came to terms regarding the settlement of past debts.

Metro Manila operator Destiny Cable met the same fate late last year when Star TV, citing "commercial" reasons, decided to discontinue the airing of the same premium channels, a move that many in the industry saw as favoring Destiny's main competitor, SkyCable. To avoid similar incidents in the future that are tantamount to granting exclusivity arrangements to any cable TV operator, the NTC has since issued guidelines requiring foreign content providers to secure a franchise before they engage in TV program distribution.

Notwithstanding the episodes with Star TV, cable TV operators, big and small, are indeed feeling the crunch from foreign program providers with respect to programming costs. After all, content does account for their operations' biggest expense since it is charged to them in dollars per subscriber. Typically, HBO charges operators $1.70. The Star bundle costs $1.60 while CNN fetches almost $1.

With no safeguard mechanism to factor in foreign currency adjustment, cable TV operators have always been at the mercy of the U.S. dollar rate fluctuation. This is rather bleak considering that since 1997, the dollar exchange rate has doubled against the peso.

But if the big players are financially hard up, the small operators are even more so. Those with barely 500 subscribers are the ones extremely in the red since programming eats up more than 30 percent of their monthly revenue. In some instances, operators do resort to underdeclaring the number of subscribers they have just to make ends meet. But Dabao insists that they are themselves partly to blame for their situation. He says cable operators sell programs way below cost, giving away 70 channels for as low as P250 a month, though in some cases, the PCTA reports that local government councils have interfered in the pricing of subscription fees.

At present, the average monthly fee in most parts of the country is P300. In urban centers like Baguio, Davao, Cebu and Bacolod, subscribers pay P500 monthly. In Metro Manila, SkyCable charges P700 a month while Home Cable's is slightly lower at P550. Destiny Cable subscription costs P450 a month.

Dabao says operators should stop selling themselves short, having undervalued their services for years. He cites as example the bold move of SkyCable in 2001 to rationalize its rates by reducing the programs it offers and increasing its monthly subscription rate. In the process, it has also been able to introduce premium channels as an add-on that subscribers have to pay on a per channel need-basis.

To its credit, SkyCable is also the only cable TV operator so far to have seriously embarked on the development of local content to go with the foreign programs it offers to subscribers. SkyCable homegrown channels like Cinema One, featuring the best of Filipino movies and entertainment; Pinoy Blockbuster, an exclusive movie channel; Knowledge Channel, a curriculum-based educational channel; Lakbay TV; and ANC (ABS-CBN News Channel) have been well received by cable viewers.