TV Asahi wants to ally with IT firm this year

By Mariko Katsumura and Noriyuki Hirata

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese private broadcaster TV Asahi Corp aims to ally with an information technology and telecoms firm by the end of the year and is open to a capital tie-up, its president said.

Such an alliance would be in line with TV Asahi's move to seek new revenue sources outside its traditional television business as falling advertising revenue and a decline in TV viewing put a lid on its business growth.

Last month, TV Asahi injected $226 million into its parent company, the Asahi Shimbun, buying nearly 12 percent of the newspaper to shore it up in the face of rising competition. At that time, it also said the Asahi group would consider a bold alliance with a third party that would help with new businesses.

"The alliance could be just setting up a new company or exchanging staff, but a capital tie-up is also an option," TV Asahi President Masao Kimiwada told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

"We want to ink a deal as soon as possible. The end of the year might be too late," he said. He declined to provide details including names of companies that TV Asahi has been talking with.

Kimiwada also declined to comment on whether prospective partners included Softbank Corp Japan's third-largest mobile phone operator, which has raised its profile in the cellphone business with an aggressive marketing strategy.

With sponsor companies spending more on Internet or search engine-linked marketing, Japanese broadcasters are trying to reduce their reliance in advertising revenues, seeking new profit drivers in non-broadcasting areas such as movies, DVD sales and TV program sales to overseas broadcasters.

Shintaro Kubo, the president of another major Japanese broadcaster, Nippon Television Network told Reuters in an interview last month that the company was experiencing an advertising sales slump and seeking alternative revenue sources.