TV News in Mandarin Coming Soon to Indonesia
November 21, 2000 - 0:0
KUALA LUMPUR A new private television station with 60-minute Mandarin news broadcasts twice a day on weekdays and two half-hour wrap-ups on weekends will be launched in Jakarta, the first since the country lifted a ban on the use of Chinese characters.
According to Singapore's TV station -- the channel Newsasia, in its edition, Metro-TV, which is Indonesia's first all-news television channel, will begin broadcasting on Saturday to take advantage of the easing of restrictions on Chinese language and culture.
The station's news Director, Andi Noya, said that Metro-TV was confident that the station would be viable commercially, as shown by the success of new Chinese newspapers that have been allowed to be published since 1998.
There are seven Chinese newspapers in the country, including the Harian Indonesia which is owned by the military intelligence.
The use of the Chinese language was banned in 1965 after ex-president Suharto took over power, following an abortive communist coup which implicated China of complicity.
Harian Indonesia was the only Chinese publication allowed in the three decades of his rule.
After he resigned in May 1998, the government eased the Chinese language and culture restrictions.
Metro-TV, owned by media entrepreneur Surya Paloh and which will broadcast round-the-clock, has a link up with Taiwan's TVBS and Indonesia's Chinese newspaper Shang Bao.
Its Mandarin news crew -- comprising a producer, four reporters, three presenters and four translators -- is made up of Indonesian Chinese who speak "fluent Mandarin," Andi said.
The station's target audience will be the ethnic Chinese in Jakarta's Chinatown, and those in Medan, north Sumatra and Makassar, south Sulawesi.
Many of them, said Andi, still communicate in Mandarin or the Chinese dialects.
The TV station also counts on the current government's efforts to "tolerate strong cultural ethnicity" and the cultural revival among the younger generation of ethnic Chinese in the country.
About three percent of Indonesia's 212 million population belong to the ethnic Chinese community.
(IRNA)
According to Singapore's TV station -- the channel Newsasia, in its edition, Metro-TV, which is Indonesia's first all-news television channel, will begin broadcasting on Saturday to take advantage of the easing of restrictions on Chinese language and culture.
The station's news Director, Andi Noya, said that Metro-TV was confident that the station would be viable commercially, as shown by the success of new Chinese newspapers that have been allowed to be published since 1998.
There are seven Chinese newspapers in the country, including the Harian Indonesia which is owned by the military intelligence.
The use of the Chinese language was banned in 1965 after ex-president Suharto took over power, following an abortive communist coup which implicated China of complicity.
Harian Indonesia was the only Chinese publication allowed in the three decades of his rule.
After he resigned in May 1998, the government eased the Chinese language and culture restrictions.
Metro-TV, owned by media entrepreneur Surya Paloh and which will broadcast round-the-clock, has a link up with Taiwan's TVBS and Indonesia's Chinese newspaper Shang Bao.
Its Mandarin news crew -- comprising a producer, four reporters, three presenters and four translators -- is made up of Indonesian Chinese who speak "fluent Mandarin," Andi said.
The station's target audience will be the ethnic Chinese in Jakarta's Chinatown, and those in Medan, north Sumatra and Makassar, south Sulawesi.
Many of them, said Andi, still communicate in Mandarin or the Chinese dialects.
The TV station also counts on the current government's efforts to "tolerate strong cultural ethnicity" and the cultural revival among the younger generation of ethnic Chinese in the country.
About three percent of Indonesia's 212 million population belong to the ethnic Chinese community.
(IRNA)