MTV Plans to Tailor Global Expansion

Music Television, the music channel owned by Viacom Inc., said Tuesday that it is custom-tailoring its international expansion, adding new channels and more local programming using digital compression technology that the company invested in last year.

The expansion is a harbinger of how international television markets are evolving, with U.S. cable brands increasingly tailoring their channels to reach local audiences and advertisers.

MTV already claims to be the largest television network in the world, reaching 264 million subscribers in 70 countries.

In Europe, for instance, in addition to a Pan-European feed launched in 1987, MTV will offer three additional signals to cater specifically to Northern, Central and Southern Europe.

“Musical tastes are different from region to region,” said Tom Freston, chairman and chief executive of MTV Networks, adding that the trifurcation will also help MTV attract new advertisers who lack distribution throughout Europe.

The international market is where TV programmers are looking for growth, as more homes are wired for cable or to receive digital satellite transmissions. As markets abroad have matured, competition has stiffened. For instance, several major recording companies have joined forces to launch two music channels in Germany and others in the Far East to compete against MTV’s panoramic feeds.

Freston estimates that there will be 200 million to 300 million multiple-channel homes in Latin America and Asia within the next 10 years--up from 50 million today--as cable or satellite dishes become more pervasive.

MTV declined to give a figure for its investment. Freston said the investments in digital compression over the last year allow up to six signals to be squeezed onto a transponder, instead of just one.

MTV and partner PolyGram introduced MTV channels to Asia in April 1995 with two services, MTV Asia and MTV Mandarin. The partners will now add a third service, MTV India. In Latin America, MTV will split its existing service into two, one for the northern region including Mexico and Central America, and one for the southern regions of Chile and Argentina. The company already has MTV Brazil.

To feed the new channels, MTV will invest in more localized programming.

Although MTV is the first of Viacom’s family of channels to use digital compression, others, including Nickelodeon and VH1, are expected to follow.

Other U.S. cable channels are also aggressively expanding internationally. CNN, which has about 180 million subscribers worldwide, says it is working on tailoring more of its programming to local markets, although it now has only four feeds--for Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia.