S
shawl_who
Guest
Mumbai, March 24: Subscribers should brace for higher direct-to-home (DTH) charges as the operators gear up to cash in on the digitisation drive.
Dish TV India Ltd of the Essel group has hiked prices of its monthly subscription pack by 10 per cent on a pan-India basis.
The increase comes a month after Dish TV, the country’s largest DTH operator, raised set-top box prices by Rs 300. Analysts said other operators were likely to follow suit soon.
The country is in the midst of the second phase of television digitisation. The government had earlier notified that it was obligatory for every cable operator to transmit or re-transmit programmes of any channel in an encrypted form through a digital addressable system in the entire country in four phases.
The deadline for the first phase covering four metros got over in October last year.
The second phase, the deadline for which is March 31, will cover 38 cities with a population of more than one million. This will be followed by all urban areas by September 2014, and the rest of India by December 2014.
While the digitisation drive has pitted multi-system operators and their linked local cable operators against DTH providers, experts say the focus is not on customer acquisition alone.
“Yes, the pricing power is coming to the hands of these operators. They know that profitability is also important if they have to sustain,” Abneesh Roy, associate director of Edelweiss Securities, told The Telegraph.
Dish TV India Ltd of the Essel group has hiked prices of its monthly subscription pack by 10 per cent on a pan-India basis.
The increase comes a month after Dish TV, the country’s largest DTH operator, raised set-top box prices by Rs 300. Analysts said other operators were likely to follow suit soon.
The country is in the midst of the second phase of television digitisation. The government had earlier notified that it was obligatory for every cable operator to transmit or re-transmit programmes of any channel in an encrypted form through a digital addressable system in the entire country in four phases.
The deadline for the first phase covering four metros got over in October last year.
The second phase, the deadline for which is March 31, will cover 38 cities with a population of more than one million. This will be followed by all urban areas by September 2014, and the rest of India by December 2014.
While the digitisation drive has pitted multi-system operators and their linked local cable operators against DTH providers, experts say the focus is not on customer acquisition alone.
“Yes, the pricing power is coming to the hands of these operators. They know that profitability is also important if they have to sustain,” Abneesh Roy, associate director of Edelweiss Securities, told The Telegraph.
Last edited by a moderator:
