Big TV, the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Amabni Group's soon-to-be-launched direct-to-home venture, has bagged the official DTH partnership for the Indian Premier League, the Board of Control for Cricket in India's Twenty20 cricket tournament, for a bid of $31.16 million (about Rs 137 crore) for the next four years.
Reliance BIG TV, the DTH arm of Reliance Communications, is planning to introduce 60 more channels including its own entertainment channels in the next three months, a top company official said.
Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG)-controlled BIG TV has accepted an offer to re-negotiate its aborted deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for on-ground partnership rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL), provided the offer price is lowered.
Watching movies on direct-to-home has become cheaper, with two major DTH operators, Airtel DTH and Big TV, slashing pay-per-view (PPV) prices of premiere (new) movies. While Airtel DTH has reduced prices of paid movie services by 33 per cent, Big TV has cut prices by around 50 per cent.
The battle for subscribers in the direct-to-home space is set to get hotter, with new player Big TV expected to fire a price war. Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group's Big TV will be commercially launched sometime in May and is looking at tying up over 5 to 5.5 million subscribers even before its launch.
Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG) is all set to begin a price war in the direct-to-home market by offering its connection about 43 per cent lower than any of the existing players. Big TV will offer its DTH service for Rs 1,490, while the lowest-priced connection is currently being offered by Dish TV at Rs 2,190, followed by Tata Sky at Rs 2,400.
Anil Ambani Group's DTH arm Reliance BIG TV is believed to be in discussion with content providers like Max Broadcasting, Warner Home Entertainment Group and CNN to acquire non-film content for its pay per view platform.
To expand its services in the five-player private direct-to-home market, Reliance Big TV Ltd, the promoter of Big TV DTH services of the Reliance ADA Group, plans to sell up to 49 per cent to foreign private equity companies and global DTH players.
Big TV is also in talks with other private equity majors, though these are at preliminary stages, to raise funds. The exact quantum of funding to be raised from Carlyle would depend on the 'promises' by players, he said. The company is also in discussions with major players like The Blackstone Group, Providence and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for raising funds.
Reliance Big TV DTH, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Communications Limited, is looking at charging carriage fee from broadcasters, said company's chief executive officer Arun Kapoor.
Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group-controlled BIG TV has withdrawn from partnering the Indian Premier League, alleging discrimination by the league's broadcast rights-holder Sony Entertainment Television.BIG TV has communicated its decision to IPL CEO Sundar Raman, alleging that SET has decided to offer the contract to competitor Airtel DTH, though it quoted a lower price for on-air partnership, sources said. When contacted, a BIG TV spokesperson declined to comment.
Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG)-owned BIG TV is rolling out a new Rs 30-crore advertising campaign to popularise its soon-to-be-launched interactive services. The company is also reducing rates for certain subscription packages by Rs 500.
Big TV will be the fourth entrant in the 7-million private DTH subscribers market following Dish TV's launch in 2003, Tata Sky (2006) and Sun Direct (2007). Doordarshan's DD Direct Plus is the fifth player (also launched in 2003) but is a free-to-air service.
Now, watch customised election news on your TV. Big TV, a Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group venture, is launching election-based interactive services that will be provided by its content partner CNN-IBN.
A company executive said that the Anil Ambani group is still keen on foraying into television broadcasting business. The top-line of broadcasters was shrinking in the December-ended quarter on the back of economic slowdown and the consequent slowdown in advertising revenues, said the latest Ficci & KPMG report.
Reliance Big TV, a subsidiary of Reliance Communications, will offer 202 channels initially and increase the bouque to 330-350 over a period of time, company CEO Arun Kapoor said in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Though he went back to writing "beautiful scenes" for other Bollywood directors, his deep interest in the lives of ordinary citizens never slackened, evident from the way he made himself available to human rights groups whenever they called him.
Services would be introduced on eight Delhi-bound Shatabdi trains and then in Rajdhanis and Durontos.
Reliance Communications is planning to hive off its direct-to-home and Internet protocol TV businesses into a separate company titled Reliance Digital Works.
Airtel Digital TV, the DTH arm of Bharti Airtel, is launching its High Definition service, with set top boxes (STBs) priced at Rs 2,840, further fuelling the price war in the sector.
At a time the industry is slashing headcount, citing the downturn, direct-to-home (DTH) television service providers are adding employees.
The five private DTH operators (Dish TV, Tata Sky and Sun Direct being the other three) are expected to add over six million new subscribers by the end of December, to take the overall subscriber base to over 17 million, a 57 per cent growth over December 2008.
The digital video recorder, which allows viewers to record programmes in one channel while watching another and play according to convenience, is being billed as the next big thing in the evolving Indian DTH market. "This, of course, will be a premium product and we plan to announce the launch of DVR technology platform for our DTH service very soon. It will be a Diwali gift to our customers," TataSky Chief Marketing Officer Vikram Mehra told PTI.
The battle for subscribers in the direct-to-home (DTH) market is hotting up with Reliance Communications (RCom) close to finalising a bulk deal with the country's leading TV manufacturers -- LG Electronics, Samsung India and Sanyo -- which will be offered to customers at a hefty discount bundled with a DTH package.
Dish TV and Tata Sky, the country's two direct-to-home (DTH) companies, are expected to post losses in excess of Rs 1,400 crore for 2007-08 in their quest to expand the market by offering set-top boxes at subsidised rates. The companies have over five million subscriber homes across the country collectively.
The price-war has begun in the direct-to-home market with the country's largest DTH company Dish TV with over three million subscribers getting ready to offer its connection virtually free. Any consumer who wants to buy a Dish TV connection will not have to pay for the set-top box, the hardware essential to access DTH services, which normally costs Rs 2,500.
Trai has announced that it may fix prices of pay channels on the direct-to-home (DTH) platform in line with the Rs 5 per channel cap on conditional access system (CAS) services in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. This move will lower the fees but hit the income of broadcasters from DTH companies. However, new DTH entrants will benefit from the move as their cost of content will decrease. For the 2 existing DTH companies, Dish TV & Tata Sky, the current rates are likely to continue.
RComm will test launch its direct to home services Big TV this week, which would include some niche channels that are currently not available in India.
'People ask me why I'm not doing much work, where have I vanished... But it's my life. And I am enjoying it.' Bipasha Basu gets ready to haunt you all over again.
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