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This is a State where political populism in the past has provided unprecedented primacy to the television set as a basic amenity — a fact best brought out by Census 2011. The Census data pointed to a 48 per cent increase in the number of TV sets in Tamil Nadu. In terms of television penetration, the State with 87 per cent of homes having a TV set was second only to New Delhi.
More significantly, the urban-rural differential in access to television has vanished with 85.3 per cent of rural households and 88.7 per cent of urban homes having a TV set.
However, the journey to digitisation is much more than a numbers game. There is a lack of clarity on the future role of private players as Multi System Operators (MSOs), with the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation (TACTV) as a super MSO, the economies of scale of Local Cable Operators (LCOs) and the post-digital price point at the consumer end.
TACTV, which is offering cable TV services through head-ends in 31 districts, will provide digital signals to the LCOs in the DAS/CAS areas of Chennai initially and gradually to a targeted consumer base of 10 million across Tamil Nadu.
TACTV, which will award the contract for setting up a digital head-end with conditional access system and subscriber management system, provisioning for 20 lakh set-top boxes (STBs) in Chennai, expects the firm with the best bid to start the distribution of STBs in a few weeks.
Association president P. Sakilan points out that at least 27 lakh subscribers in Metropolitan Chennai form the low and middle income segment who may not be able to fork out Rs. 1,500-Rs. 2,000 for a set-top box.
The Hindu