The Indonesian government plans to introduce regulations to encourage mergers among national television stations to streamline the sector for healthier business and the development of regional stations, a report said Thursday.

The government said ideally there should be no more than five TV stations broadcasting nationally, compared to the current 11, reported The Jakarta Post daily.

"National television stations should merge to create healthy competition and survive. With fewer stations, we could provide fairer frequency allocations," Communication and Information Minister Sofyan Djalil was quoted as saying.

Sofyan, saying the country had among the highest number of stations in the world, described it as a glut that fueled ever increasing competition.

If station owners agreed to merge their operations, it would lead to better financial performance, and also provide opportunities for stations broadcasting in the regions, Sofyan argued.

The stations with national broadcasting capability are RCTI, TPI, GlobalTV, ANTV, TransTV, Lativi, TV7, Indosiar, Metro TV, SCTV and state-owned TVRI.

Most of the stations are experiencing a drop in revenue and profits due to tight competition amid sluggish growth in expenditure by companies in the Southeast Asia's largest economy.

Source: Xinhua