Archive for February, 2012
Set-top box mandatory for all beginning July 1st?
Cable TV users in Chennai will have to buy a set top box before July 1, when all cable operators will switch to providing signals only in digital mode. This has been directed by the Union information and broadcasting ministry. Some 20 lakh households in the city with non-DTH connections will have to go for set-top boxes to continue watching their favorite television channels. “All households in Chennai which are using the conditional access system (CAS) will have to buy new set-top box from the cable operators. Currently only 2.5 lakh have set-top boxes, while over 20 lakh homes have direct connections »»»
Budget 2012: Reduce tax burden on DTH industry, says Dish TV
NEW DELHI: Dish TV said it is looking for positive steps from the government to reduce the heavy taxation on Direct to Home industry as the service providers are paying multiple taxes such as service tax , entertainment tax , license fee and value added tax. The company has urged the government to provide some relief in license fee by reducing it from the current 10% to 6% as earlier recommended by Trai. Salil Kapoor COO Dish TV said, “The double charge of service tax and entertainment tax should be subsumed in Good and Service Tax.” The company also said that the government should »»»
Tata Sky gearing up to meet demand post-digitisation
Direct-to-Home (DTH) broadcaster Tata Sky is gearing up to meet the demand for new connections that would come up from the four metros following digitisation of cable TV networks from July 1. Households in the four metros – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata – will have to switch to digital TV before June 30 as the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has mandated nationwide cable digitisation as recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Vikram Mehra, chief marketing officer, said Tata Sky has enough set-top boxes to cater to the expected demand. “We are »»»
India’s DTH base ends 2011 with 45 million subscribers
India’s DTH pay TV market ended 2011 with almost 44.4 million subscribers, 30 million of which were on a net basis. This is equivalent to 25-30 per cent average market share, according to Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) latest research findings. Dish TV continues to lead with a market share of 28.2 per cent, while late entrant Videocon D2H has seen robust additions to surpass Big TV. Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV have 19 per cent and 16 per cent market share, respectively. Big TV and Sun Direct have seen limited growth due to funding, churn and legacy satellite issues. In November 2011, major »»»
Direct-To-Home hits 44 mn homes in India
It is happening. When the government mandated a deadline for cable digitisation last year, the bets were that cable companies wouldn’t be able to cope and DTH (direct-to-home) operators would step in. They have. The total base of DTH subscribers in India grew to a massive 44.4 million homes in 2011, up from 25 million in 2010, according to data released by Singapore-based consulting firm Media Partners Asia (MPA). That is a massive 77 per cent increase over the last year. DTH now penetrates 30 per cent of India’s 148 million television households, just over twice the number that analog »»»
Govt for uniform FDI limit in cable TV at 74%
The government has proposed a uniform Foreign Direct Investment cap of 74% across the digital cable TV sector. “We are definitely looking at having a uniform FDI cap of 74% for the digital cable TV sector which at present has different caps. The cap for non-digital cable TV would continue at 49%,” Uday Kumar Varma, secretary, information and broadcasting ministry, told HT. Explaining the rationale behind the move, Varma said: “Digitalisation would require huge investment. With raised FDI limits we are looking at greater capital flows into the sector.” India is targeting »»»
Airtel Digital TV Q3 net loss widens 10% to Rs 1.96 bn
MUMBAI: Airtel Digital TV’s net loss widened in the fiscal third quarter but subscriber additions stayed competitively strong in a slowing environment. The DTH arm of telecom major Bharti Airtel posted a net loss of Rs 1.96 billion for the quarter ended December compared to Rs 1.8 billion in the trailing quarter. The net loss in the third quarter of the previous fiscal was Rs 1.2 billion, while the total loss from Airtel’s DTH business for the financial year ended March 2011 stood at Rs 5.18 billion on a revenue of Rs 7.7 billion. For the first nine months of this fiscal, net loss was »»»
