Star Group on Friday petitioned the government for early clearance of its DTH venture, saying the service could be provided for as little as Rs 180 per month from November this year.
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.
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.
Encouraged by the success of direct-to-home services in India, Pakistan Television Corporation Ltd, that country's national broadcaster, has invited national and international firms to help it set up its own DTH service with 100 channels. Once operational, this will be the first DTH service in Pakistan.
Prasar Bharti CEO K S Sarma on Friday said the state broadcaster's direct-to-home telecast will be launched on schedule from April 1.
Also plan to charge a premium on advertising.
State-owned Doordarshan is in the process of fine-tuning a Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) direct-to-home television satellite project and has got the Prasar Bharati board's approval for this.
Sources said the letter of intent (LoI) for the group's foray into DTH was given on Monday to Blue Sky Magic, a company of the Reliance-ADA group.\n\n
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday launched DD Direct Plus, India's first free direct-to-home broadcast service, hailing it as a "landmark event" in the history of broadcasting and communication of the country.
Deal to help RCom reduce debt, Sun gain subscribers in new markets
Preliminary industry numbers show that against a demand for 200,000 cable boxes in the three cities so far, operators have only been able to service a little over half the demand.
In the battle between the conditional access system and the direct-to-home services, the latter seems to be edging ahead.
The Direct-to-Home service providers are cashing in on the confusion over the implementation the Conditional Access System in some areas of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
This move will make Dish TV, an Essel Group company, the first DTH operator to have installed their DTH services in consumer homes, cars, buses, aircraft, cruise liners and on trains. "Dish everywhere is our motto. We aim to provide our DTH services across all platforms, whether moving, flying or stationary," a senior Dish TV executive said. This move is likely to help the company market its services to the potential consumers more effectively.
Dish TV, the DTH arm of Zee group which will list on the stock markets in October-November this year, expects to break-even by fiscal 2008-09.
A DVR is a device that allows consumers to pause, record, play back, rewind and fast forward their favourite television shows. DTH companies are expected to slash DVRs box prices by nearly half to Rs 7,000-Rs 8,000 per unit. DVRs for cable channels would soon be available for between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000, industry sources said.
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.
As competition hots up in the direct-to-home (DTH) space, operators, including Dish TV and Sun Direct, are now turning to foreign language channels to build their content bouquet in a bid to take themselves ahead of other players.
The competition in the DTH space is set to increase further with players now looking at residential societies and apartments to add subscribers in volumes by offering Multi Dwelling Units (MDUs) that will benefit both parties.
The Tata-Sar direct-to-home joint venture Space TV on Thursday announced the name of its DTH service as T-Sky while name of the JV is also proposed to be changed to Tata Sky Ltd.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday endorsed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting proposal to reduce the license fee on Direct to Home (DTH) service providers. Trai said it had received a communication from the ministry conveying its decision to continue with the concept of gross revenue for the purpose of License fee on DTH service providers and to reduce the license fee. Trai's opinion also was sought on reduction of licence fee from 10% to 6%.
To rationalise the entertainment tax levied on the direct-to-home (DTH) companies and the cable operators by the state governments and also to encourage the cable industry to switch to the use of advanced optical fibre cable instead of the copper wire cables, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has set up two sub-committees.
The Bharti group has applied to the government for a licence to operate direct-to-home television services.
The direct-to-home television service of Zee TV will be operational in India in the second half of next month, Subhash Chandra, chairman, Zee Network has said.
Does the use of MPEG-4 automatically imply a better quality of audio and video than MPEG-2? Or is this just a marketing gimmick aimed at getting mileage out of a newer technology that isn't necessarily better?
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.
"All the 34 DTH transponders on INSAT satellites are fully booked," Antrix Corporation Executive Director K R Sridhara Murthi said.
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.
This means that if Star TV's bouquet of 14 channels is priced at Rs 88 in non-CAS areas (70 million cable TV homes), it can charge only Rs 44 or less from existing DTH operators like Tata Sky, Dish TV and new entrants like Big TV, Bharti and Sun Direct. But all broadcasters are charging more from DTH companies than from non-CAS cable homes.
Direct to Home (DTH) operators could be asked to provide inter-operable set-top boxes to their customers with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) seeing prima facie merit in a complaint filed by a consumer organisation that it is in violation of competition laws.
Kamal Haasan talks about releasing his film Vishwaroopam on DTH before the theatrical release.
In an apparent initiative to curtail the monopoly of cable operators, Prasar Bharati will launch its Direct to Home facility from August enabling viewers to get 40 free channels, including 23 private ones, under one platform, Information and Broadcas
In order to take on the competition posed by the direct-to-home (DTH) operators, large cable distribution companies will soon bring in their own digital-quality cable television offerings in select cities at competitive fees and offer quality service support.
Four companies have submitted applications for starting direct-to-home services in the country, Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday.
Under the new provisions, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has made it mandatory for the broadcasters to offer their channels on a-la-carte basis (individual channels) and bouquets.
Firming up its plans to rollout direct-to-home (DTH) television services, telecom firm Reliance Communications (RCom) has booked capacity on Malaysian satellite system, MEASAT-3. The deal size could not be confirmed, while it is understood that the deal is signed for around 15-20 years. RCom has booked four transponders, with an option to add four transponders after a year on MEASAT-3.
Cable operators body has demanded an equal footing with the DTH players.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances