Cable TV war

Destiny Cable is up in arms nowadays. Sources from the grapevine said that the Lim family, which owns Destiny, just learned that Star TV, which is the exclusive distributor in the Philippines of popular cable television channels Star Sports, Star Movies, Star World, to name a few, may pull out of Destiny and other cable operators because of an agreement it entered into with Sky Cable and Home Cable.

The same sources disclosed that in exchange for paying recently its huge indebtedness to Star TV, Sky Cable and Home Cable which have a combined market share in the country of more than 70 percent asked in return that Star TV exclusively air its channels over Sky and Home only. It will be recalled that Sky Cable and Home Cable have merged into Beyond Cable although the two are being marketed separately as distinct brands.

If that’s the price for paying the fees on time, then Destiny is paying it now. But what is definite is that Destiny will not take this matter lightly.

Newest Baby

Former Finance Secretary Bobby de Ocampo is all smiles these days. His newest baby, the Asian Institute of Management global distance center will be inaugurated this Oct. 15 and two former Philippine presidents (Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos) are gracing the occassion.

What’s so significant about this center? The AIM has been chosen by the World Bank as its partner in this side of the globe for its global development learning network (GDLN) which has for its nerve centers what it calls the distance learning centers. While normally, the World Bank merely provides the content and its partner finances it, in the case of the Philippines, the bank took an exception and gave $450,000 in the form of computer hardware.

The DLCs are the nerve centers of the GDLN. They are facilities that deliver and receive learning programs across the globe. The network facilitates interactive learning, country-to-country exchanges that allow for knowledge sharing. For instances, CEOs and staff from Central Banks, Ministries of Finance, financial regulatory bodies, and private financial institutions can meet in real time from different parts of the globe to exchange ideas. In Southeast Asia alone, the World Bank has signed up with partners in China, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, East Timor, and the Philippines for establishing these DLCs.

In fact, so impressed was World Bank with AIM’s DLC that it not only provided private sector support directly (other than the fact that AIM is the only private academic institution participation in the network), it will also transfer more than 2000 volumes of bank reading materials to AIM’s library, which AIM staff in turn will translate into easier-to-understand training modules.