Airtel boosts WorldSpace subscriber base

Chennai, Nov. 26 Thanks to DTH provider Bharti Airtel, satellite radio broadcaster WorldSpace’s subscriber base has tripled in the last few months to around 4.5 lakh.

AirTel Digital TV — the direct-to-home service arm of Bharti Airtel — offers WorldSpace channels to its subscribers. “When other DTH service providers chose to offer AIR (All India Radio) FM channels, we went in for WorldSpace. This is our key differentiator,” says Mr Sugato Banerji, Chief Marketing Officer of AirTel DTH.

Currently, AirTel offers 10 WorldSpace channels — Farishta (old Bollywood songs); Moksha (wellness and lifestyle); Gandharv (Hindustan classical); Spin (international pop); Upcountry (Western country music); Shruti (Carnatic music); Spandana (Telugu); Sonar (Bengali); Umang (Gujarati); and Falak (Urdu).

AirTel downloads these channels through WorldSpace satellite receivers, re-encrypts them to suit its compression format, uplinks them to its satellite and then beams them like it does any other video channel.

Though these channels are chargeable at Rs 10 a month (for all the 10 channels), “they are bundled into our Rs 200-package and above,” says Mr Banerji. The annual bill works out to Rs 120, compared with Rs 2,000 that WorldSpace charges for 40 channels.

Once AirTel gets more transponder capacity, it “will consider carrying all the channels”.

According to him, even with these limited channels, AirTel actually added more subscribers for WorldSpace than the broadcaster managed to garner since its launch in India, directly.

Mr M. Sebastian, Managing Director (Asia Star), WorldSpace, says the broadcaster has an arrangement with a Select Media. “The AirTel pact is with them,” he says. However, WorldSpace’s arrangement with AirTel is not exclusive.