A packed sports calendar for India, leading up from the Indian Premier League (IPL), progressing to the Wimbledon and the Football World Cup (FIFA) and going all the way up to the India-England cricket series, F1 German Grand Prix, and Commonwealth Games is bringing in new customers for Direct-to-home (DTH) companies. Most report 15-20% rise in subscribers in the last few months leading from the IPL to the FIFA World Cup. India has over 55 million direct to home subscribers, growing at healthy double digits. Globally, plum sports properties are a lucrative source of revenue for pay television platforms, who often bid and counter bid each other for the rights.
At the forefront of the sports celebration party is pay television company Tata Sky which is a joint venture between Tata group and Star India. The firm says that it has seen an increase in demand for Tata Sky HD—its high definition service, and its HD PVR—its personal video recorder set top boxes during the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the FIFA Cup. The DTH operator claims to have seen significant subscriber additions in areas such as the North East and South India. It has also launched its ‘Everywhere TV’ application on personal computers along with the smartphones and tablets that it was already catering to. Vikram Mehra, chief commercial officer at Tata Sky said that the overall ramp-up in subscribers was “substantial”. “Subscription for Sony Six has naturally gone up,” he says, “But what is more interesting that we have seen a windfall in the sale of high definition boxes.
In fact, 70-75% of our sales in recent months are on high definition boxes alone. Earlier the demand for high definition content mainly came from the bigger towns. Today, it is the small towns that are specifically seeking high definition connections. There is a disproportionate swing in favour of high definition content and this swing can be attributed to premium sports properties,” he said. He also said that the sale of recorder boxes or PVR as Tata Sky calls them has increased visibly. “In the top 20-30 towns, the sale of PVR boxes has more than doubled since many of the matches run well into the night.” Anticipating that more people will sample television on the go, Tata Sky also introduced this application on laptop, anticipating the demand from kids and teenagers. Mehra is also looking closely at the number of professional leagues that are springing up in the country in areas such as hockey, kabbadi, football, etc. Domestic clubs and leagues may grow the business of sports still further, remarks Mehra and this could only mean good news for DTH companies.
Scoring new goals - Financial Express
At the forefront of the sports celebration party is pay television company Tata Sky which is a joint venture between Tata group and Star India. The firm says that it has seen an increase in demand for Tata Sky HD—its high definition service, and its HD PVR—its personal video recorder set top boxes during the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the FIFA Cup. The DTH operator claims to have seen significant subscriber additions in areas such as the North East and South India. It has also launched its ‘Everywhere TV’ application on personal computers along with the smartphones and tablets that it was already catering to. Vikram Mehra, chief commercial officer at Tata Sky said that the overall ramp-up in subscribers was “substantial”. “Subscription for Sony Six has naturally gone up,” he says, “But what is more interesting that we have seen a windfall in the sale of high definition boxes.
In fact, 70-75% of our sales in recent months are on high definition boxes alone. Earlier the demand for high definition content mainly came from the bigger towns. Today, it is the small towns that are specifically seeking high definition connections. There is a disproportionate swing in favour of high definition content and this swing can be attributed to premium sports properties,” he said. He also said that the sale of recorder boxes or PVR as Tata Sky calls them has increased visibly. “In the top 20-30 towns, the sale of PVR boxes has more than doubled since many of the matches run well into the night.” Anticipating that more people will sample television on the go, Tata Sky also introduced this application on laptop, anticipating the demand from kids and teenagers. Mehra is also looking closely at the number of professional leagues that are springing up in the country in areas such as hockey, kabbadi, football, etc. Domestic clubs and leagues may grow the business of sports still further, remarks Mehra and this could only mean good news for DTH companies.
Scoring new goals - Financial Express
