Archive for January, 2010
Exempt set-top boxes from 5% customs duty: Assocham
NEW DELHI: Industry body Assocham has urged Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to withdraw the 5 per cent customs duty on set-top boxes (STBs) in the forthcoming Budget to encourage digitisation in the broadcasting sector. “This is aimed at providing support to the direct-to-home (DTH) industry and advance objectives of digitisation,” the chamber said in a pre-Budget memorandum. Assocham said customs duty on STBs was exempted in 2006 to provide impetus to industries involved in digitisation of TV services like DTH, IPTV and digital cable. But this was reimposed in the last Budget, it »»»
RCom’s BIG TV restructures sales operations into two
Reliance Communications’ (RCom) DTH services arm, BIG TV is set to enter its next phase of growth. The company has undergone organizational restructuring of its Sales Operations to divide it into two, Retail and Institutional. The retail division will focus on sales through the nationwide retail network including channel partners. The Institutional division will focus on high-ticket Multi-Dwelling Units (MDU) deals. The company is attaching special focus to this division as it expects a market share of 40% in this segment within the first year of operations. To tap the MDU segment, the company »»»
Big TV ties-up with real estate firms to market DTH services
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group company Reliance Big TV today said it has reached deals with real estate developers to market its Direct-To-Home television services in their residential building projects. The company has signed multi-dwelling units (MDU) agreements worth about Rs 20 crore with developers, including Kalpataru, Super Tech, Arihant Builders and Elysium Builders, to target residential and commercial clusters, Reliance Big TV (RBTV) said in a statement. “The MDU strategy will be an integral part of RBTV’s focus to achieve leadership position in the Indian DTH sector… Such »»»
Soon, watch 200 channels free
If you’re happy watching just the free to air (FTA) channels, you can indeed get them entirely free of cost by the end of the year. All you need do is install a set top box. Currently, the various direct to home (DTH) service providers — Tata Sky, Dish TV, Reliance Big TV among others — offer various ‘bouquets’ of free and paid channels, which cost between Rs 80 to Rs 1,200 per month. With the new option Doordarshan is planning, you won’t have to pay anything at all. Doordarshan has its own DTH service already, called DD Direct, and it is free, but it provides only 59 FTA channels, »»»
Dish TV could build on first-mover advantage
With the entry of big players such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance BIG TV, besides Tata Sky and Dish TV India, the direct-to-home (DTH) business has caught the fancy of subscribers and investors alike. Dish TV India, which is the only listed company in the DTH segment, had at the end of December last year close to 6.4 million subscribers. This indicates that DTH is catching on and some estimates indicate that the DTH market would grow more than 50% over the next three years. Investors have not discounted this fact. For the past 18 months, the company’s stock has beaten the Sensex by a good margin. »»»
DishTV losses swell; subscriptions go up, ARPU reduces
DishTV has reported a loss of Rs 762 million in the third quarter of FY10, as compared to a loss of Rs 561 million in Q2 of this fiscal. The company had reported a loss of Rs 1,180 in the corresponding quarter of FY09. However, revenues of the company increased by 8 per cent to Rs 2,786 million in Q3, as compared to Rs 2,579 in Q2 of this fiscal. It had reported revenues of Rs 1,927 million in Q3 FY09. Out of its DTH revenues, Rs 2,140 million came from subscriptions, while Rs 390 million came from rental, Rs 55 million from carriage fees and the balance from miscellaneous. Although the company »»»
WWIL consumes Rs 2.12 bn from rights issue
MUMBAI: Wire and Wireless (India) Limited (WWIL) has mopped up Rs 2.12 billion from the first tranche of its Rs 4.5 billion rights issue. The remaining amount will pour in by March-end as the Subhash Chandra-promoted cable TV distribution company plans to go aggressive on its Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) operations. “WWIL has utilised the entire Rs 2.12 billion. The company has repaid Rs 1.6 billion towards unsecured loans. Investment has also been made for HITS and some acquisitions,” WWIL CEO Sudhir Agarwal tells Indiantelevision.com. WWIL has invested Rs 1.5 billion for HITS and is »»»
