JAKARTA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Isa, a student at the University of Indonesia, has to stay up until the early morning if he wants updates on the national team competing in Doha's 15th Asian Games.

    "RCTI (a local TV station) airs a 30-minute special program on the Asian Games very late at night. I have no other choice but to watch this because the other channels only update the results in their sports news," the Jakarta Post daily on Wednesday quoted the student as saying.

    Isa is one of many viewers who are unhappy with the local TV coverage of the important quadrennial sporting event.

    "Our regular daily program is the Asian Games journal, airing between 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. which focuses on Indonesian athletes," RCTI sports producer Gita Soewondo said.

    RCTI will air the badminton's mixed doubles finals -- in which Indonesia is hoping to win a gold medal -- live on Friday starting at 11 p.m. Jakarta time, and other badminton singles finals on Saturday starting at 10 p.m.

    Partner channel Global TV is scheduled to air the badminton doubles finals on Tuesday and other badminton singles finals on Saturday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

    "Indonesian people love badminton and soccer," Gita said. "So we decided to air them live even if Indonesia fails to reach the finals."

    "We also sent six crews to Doha to cover the Asiad (for the journal)," he said.

    Other TV stations like Metro TV, ANTV and TV7 run Asian Games stories in their sports news.

    To improve the Games coverage, sports observer Fritz Simanjuntak said the National Sports Council (KONI) should be involved.

    "KONI should be more active and coordinate with TV channels to increase coverage of our sportspeople and air more Asian Games programs," he said.

    Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) member Ade Armando said viewers were losing out to "market mechanisms" in the case of Asian Games coverage on TV stations.

    "During special occasions such as the Asian Games, the Olympics and the soccer World Cup, we should have had a regulation that these events should be covered properly for the sake of the public," Armando said.

    State-owned TVRI, a public channel with has the widest broadcast range nationwide, should be the station to air such important events, he said.

    But since TVRI has no money to afford broadcast rights, cooperation among TV stations to cover the Games would be the best option, he said.