Couch surfing has become more than passive television viewing over the past decade. Indian TV sets now have DVD-like picture quality with loads of value add-ons thanks to new technologies like DTH, CAS and IPTV.

Idiot box goes digital

The country has about 130 million television households, including 96 million Cable & Satellite (C&S) homes. As per TAM, average time spent watching television per day was 153 minutes in 2008

Direct-to-home (DTH): DTH consumers receive digital TV channels’ signals through satellite on their dish antennae which are then transmitted to TV through a set top box (STB)

There are seven players and an estimated 20 million subscribers. Dish TV is the market leader; the others are Tata Sky, Sun TV, DD, Big TV, Airtel digital television and the latest entrant, Videocon’s D2H.

The industry expects at least 40% C&S homes to turn DTH subscribers by 2015

DTH offers pay per view where consumers get access to the latest movies for just Rs 75-100

Conditional Access System (CAS)& digital cable: Cable operators use CAS to compete with DTH, where content is beamed to consumers through STBs. But it is limited to parts of New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. The government is yet to come out with a policy to extend it to other cities

The cable industry remains fragmented. Large multi system operators include WWIL, Hathway and Incablenet besides new generation firms, DEN and Digicable

The government recently announced a headend-in-the-sky policy, allowing MSOs to send signals to local operators through satellite. While it will expedite digitalisation, there are still some loose ends

IPTV: Internet Protocol Television allows subscribers to get television content through broadband internet. MTNL, BSNL and Bharti Airtel are offering this service. IPTV is also a digital service offering more channels and interactive services. It is yet to catch up in India

ET Comment

Connect the dots

Several countries have switched to digital television signals, which is where India still has a long way to go. The government needs to encourage faster digitalisation with clear policies on technologies like CAS. The television viewer will eventually benefit as he will get access to better picture quality, a larger number of channels and more control over what he wants to watch. But the big question is, how long will DTH and cable companies survive on the relatively lower levels of ‘average revenue per user’? Indians’ average monthly spend on pay television services is $3.5 compared to $15 spent by Americans.

Source: The Economic Times