Maverick Indonesia

Lativi’s New Name

Some of you might have heard the rumors that Lativi will soon change its name into TVOne. Talks on the issue have already started in a number of mailing lists and community blogs even as news about TVOne looking for presenters is circulating.

“It’s true,” said Karni Ilyas, former News, Sport, and Corporate Communications director of ANTV, last Friday. When we met over dinner at a Chinese restaurant at the JW Marriott Hotel, Pak Karni handed us his new business card, which read “TVOne News & Sport Director. “Lativi has even started to air more sport programs prior to the launching.”

TVOne will be launched on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2008, though Pak Karni said the date has nothing to do with the celebration of Valentine’s Day itself. The station will be fully dedicated to news & sport programs.

Karni Ilyas is a very warm personality. On top of that, he likes fish dishes. The very first dish he ordered that evening was ikan malas. Over dinner, Pak Karni shared a bunch of stories, of his youth, when he and several of his colleagues were still renting a room in the Blok S area, and also about the television industry and journalists in general.

The funniest thing happened when Pak Karni was still eating and the waitress replaced his fish plate with a new one, leaving Pak Karni only with his chopsticks and a rice bowl. For the briefest moment, Pak Karni looked stunned before he finally cried out, ”So, what should I eat the rice with?” We all laughed out loud. Luckily, there was still some ikan malas left on the table.

“This is weird,” Pak Karni said later on. “How come she grabbed my fish plate and left me with only my rice? Why do they have to remove our dirty plates and replace them with clean ones? I mean, we’ll get it dirty all over again, right? We’re still eating! I think while we’re eating, the waitresses are spying on us, you know, watching out for dirty plates…”

Karni Ilyas started his career in journalism when he joined Suara Karya; he then became a senior editor at Tempo magazine. When the Orde Baru government banned the magazine, Pak Karni moved to Forum magazine as editor-in-chief before he joined SCTV, then ANTV, before he finally landed at TVOne.

We wish you all the best with TVOne, Pak! Hopefully Lativi’s “facelift” will run smoothly and TVOne is able to keep Indonesian sport lovers glued to the screen.