New Star Over Asia

By THOMAS McCARROLL

A single satellite orbiting high above the equator has suddenly become one of the world's most coveted media properties. The satellite, partly owned by a fledgling Hong Kong company, has a simple function: it transmits a service called STAR TV, for Satellite Television Asia Region, which beams such Western television fare as the BBC and American programming such as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and MTV to impoverished slum dwellers in Cairo and the nouveaux riches in Zhangzhou. Though its current audience is a mere 13 million, the reason for its value is the size of its potential market: 3 billion people, two-thirds of the world's population.

As the holder of the key to such a vast market, STAR TV has been the object of an extended bidding war among giant international media companies. Last week a winner emerged: Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which acquired nearly two-thirds of the fast-growing, money-losing satellite television service for $525 million. In making the buy, Murdoch beat out Britain's Pearson PLC as well as Americans Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting, which were also rumored to be interested in STAR.

| If Murdoch has his way, households from Israel to India will soon be invaded by such dysfunctional American families as the Simpsons and the Bundys, both of which now appear on his Fox TV Network in the U.S. Though STAR TV's near- term profitability remains in doubt, there is no question that its programming has already revolutionized the viewing habits and mores of a continent. STAR's early appeal was limited to affluent Asians who traveled frequently and understood English. But satellite dishes can now be found on the roofs of remote farmhouses as well as urban apartment high-rises.

By the end of 1993, STAR will reach an estimated 17 million homes, hotels and restaurants. That will give Murdoch plenty of room to exploit his company's extensive library of films and TV shows from Home Alone to M*A*S*H. Companies such as Turner Broadcasting, Time Warner and Capital Cities/ABC are all exploring ways to enter the Asian TV market without going through STAR.

American films and TV shows have won widespread acceptance in the Far East. TV soap operas such as Santa Barbara have developed a huge following among the affluent in New Delhi, India, even though many of the episodes are 10 years old. It is now common to find teenage girls in China wearing lipstick such as U.S. movie stars and youths on Hong Kong streets dressed such as rock-'n'-roll musicians on MTV.

In helping American culture proliferate, Rupert Murdoch has locked himself into the rising fortunes of the Asian middle class, which is now, by anyone's measure, the most upwardly mobile group in the world.

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Hong Kong