I’VE NEVER HAD A CHIEF executive make me Kraft Dinner before.
But, as John Reid and I discussed where we might have lunch in Port of Spain, Trinidad, we each admitted to the guilty pleasure of scarfing down a box of KD about once a week. So, instead of spending extra cash and time on lunch, we casually dined on mac and cheese, a coke, and some frozen shrimp.
(I thought to myself that it’s Reid’s total lack of the uptight gene which is allowing him to adapt well to his still-new surroundings and 15-hour days.)
Almost a year ago, Reid (right) left St. John’s-based Persona Communications and his home in Newfoundland for something different. Way different. Instead of running hundreds of little Canadian cable systems all across Canada, he is rebuilding the 110,000-customer Cable Company of Trinidad & Tobago, a Caribbean island nation less than 10 miles off the coast of Venezuela. It wasn’t an easy decision to leave, admitted Reid. Four of his five kids remained in Canada to go to school and his youngest, along with his wife June, are still in Freeport, Bahamas, where the family originally had to stay while Columbus’ deal to purchase the Trinidad company was being finalized.
Columbus Communications purchased the operation in June of 2005 for approximately TT$700 million (around C$160 million). As you’ll read, the Trinidad purchase is part of a wide, well-funded strategy of building the telecommunications infrastructure around the Caribbean. Columbus controls Cable Bahamas, Merit Communications in Jamaica and New World Network, an 11,000-km undersea fibre ring which has landing points in 16 Caribbean nations.
"We’re reinventing the company from the inside-out," Reid says of the former CCTT, which is, for now, Columbus Communications Trinidad Ltd. (a cooler brand name is coming). Newfoundlander Phil Cleary, a former Canadian cable system owner, built the system there and held a minority interest but the company was majority-owned by some U.S. investors.
Reid is running flat-out these days, making sure the headend will be ready in time, that there are enough set top boxes, that staff is hired and trained. That he knows the regulatory regime. He’s even looking for a new building because the current one is too small.
The new Motorola digital headend is being rapidly installed in less than three months, in time for an April 1st launch which will see the beginning of a gradual all-digital migration for the company’s customers, each of whom will eventually get a DCT 700 set top box for free. The new headend is part of an aggressive, multi-million-dollar rebuild which will see the CCTL system built to 860 MHz.
On April 1, 10,000 homes will have access to digital cable, which will be expanded throughout the system, node by node. In July, CCTT will launch high speed Internet. The company will have the full triple-play by the end of 2006. The 6412 PVR box will come in the fourth quarter, he says. Video on demand is coming in 2007.
In all, the company’s system currently passes 225,000 homes, so overall penetration is on the low side. Basic pricing will be in the $22 to $25 a month range (in Canadian dollars). Theme packs will be created for $3 to $4 a month and movie packages for $10 or so.
"The average annual per capita income is only about $10,000 but… the economy is strong and it’s growing fast. There’s a lot of money here. Disposable income is growing, the government just cut taxes and post-secondary education is free."
Plus, he added, "Consumers here are no different than any other part of the world. Even in the poorest areas of Canada where we had cable television service, those who had less could be your best customers because we were their primary source of entertainment."
Trinidad is an oil and gas economy with about 1.3 million people. Tobago, on the other hand, is a resort island with only about 75,000 residents. "You come to Trinidad to make money and go to Tobago to make love," a cab driver tells me.
Trinidad & Tobago is currently in the throes of deregulating the cable and telecom industries. CCTL has a local phone license and will soon have a long distance license – and the incumbent telco TSTT, has a video license. "We anticipate either late 2006 or in 2007 them offering video service," says Reid.
The curious aspect to the deregulation is that the government owns 49% of TSTT, but Reid says it looks to be an arm’s length relationship and that the government would like to see broadband roll out no matter who does it.
"They take the telephone company to task on customer issues regularly," he points out. "They’re very aggressive on ICT (information, communications and technology). They definitely see the linear relationship between a healthy and robust telecommunications infrastructure and economic and social advancement."
Other, smaller operators also may end up with licenses, but CCTL’s main competition now is DirecTV Latin America. However, Trinidad is an English-speaking country and the DBS company’s channel lineup doesn’t match up to CCTL, which carries the likes of HBO, Showtime, Discovery, TLC and so on.
Reid carries those channels even without clearance, something he would like to change, but the programmers themselves don’t see a 110,000 system near the equator worth bothering about and the Trinidad government has yet to set any programming rules, as The Bahamian government has.
In The Bahamas, if a carrier (and Cable Bahamas is the monopoly there) can’t come to a carriage agreement with a programmer, the channel then falls under the so-called compulsory licensing regime which means the cable company is then allowed to carry ESPN or A&E or HGTV – as long as it pays a fee into a copyright fund.
Reid would like to have real content carriage deals – or a regime like the one in The Bahamas – and the Columbus hired former CTV Specialty distribution senior director Carol McLean, to help CCTL, Cable Bahamas and Merit to deal with the content quandary. "Our intention is to operate on a level playing field and legitimate market," says Reid, who served on a Trinidad government cabinet committee on the issue.
Reid said the move from St. John’s to Port of Spain (left) is, of course, a culture shock but in the cable business, many things transfer just fine from one part of the world to another. People want great products and good service. "If you live in Toronto, St John’s or Port of Spain, that’s not going to change."
As for the culture side? There are factions of the population there that have to be understood – the primary two are the African descendants and those of East Indian descent. (Kidnappings are not exactly rampant, but still enough of a worry that Reid traded in the old general manager’s Mercedes for a less conspicuous Ford Escape, with right-hand drive since this is the old British Commonwealth, after all.)
The key, Reid says, is to be flexible and open-minded. "Don’t assume you have all the answers or that you can convince everyone that what you’ve done in the past can be done here… the only thing you’re familiar with is the product you’re delivering… You have to learn as much as you can from the people that know the market," he continues. "At the same time, you know you are going to change some things because you are certain they will work."
What CCTL really needs to make its business plan hum is a link to the parent company’s Caribbean undersea loop – a project that will happen in the mid-term because to purchase data transport to and from the island is exorbitantly expensive.
"You need to control your own pipe," he says,
Photos by Greg O’Brien
