ITV

Category: Cable TV

  • Cable operators take steps to ease vaccination process for staff

    KOLKATA: Despite the imminent health risks, the cable industry employees have continued to work on the frontlines all through the pandemic. Now with vaccination drives in full swing across the country, leading cable operators, too, are taking a step ahead and getting their employees inoculated. Apart from organising special vaccination drives in some cities, they are also helping employees schedule slots wherever the camps could not be set-up.

    NXTDigital organised a three-day vaccination camp at its head office in Mumbai in conjunction with Hinduja Hospital last week for its workforce in the city. The company extended this drive to also include employees’ families.

    “The philosophy has always been to hold the good health and safety of its employees as a paramount endeavour, something that we strived hard for since the pandemic began. NXTDIGITAL, therefore, set up an Employee Health & Safety (EHS) team to help our personnel and their families across the country impacted by COVID, including organising hospital treatment, access to critical medication and the like,” NXTDigital MD & CEO Vynsley Fernandes said.

    The EHS team is working with NXTDigital employees all across the country, not just supporting personnel to get vaccinated, but also providing every possible assistance to enhance their health and safety.

    GTPL Hathway also arranged vaccination drives for 45+ employees in many of its offices, with the help of state governments, GTPL Hathway cable TV head and chief strategy officer Piyush Pankaj said. However, the company could not organise such drives for 18-45+ due to shortage of vaccines. The human resources are helping employees to get the vaccinations scheduled, especially for people on the frontline. Teams are also trying to get the employees slots through government centres.

    On the other hand, Siti Networks could not organise the vaccination drive in one or two places given its pan-Indian footprint. But the MSO encouraged all employees to get vaccinated and reimbursed the vaccination cost, said Siti Networks group chief executive officer Anil Malhotra.

    Along with vaccination, the company informed that it would help employees procure PPE kits, masks whenever needed. It also imported oxygen concentrators to provide to employees if needed.

  • Make in India push for set-top boxes face challenges

    Make in India push for set-top boxes face challenges

    KOLKATA: Last year it made headlines when large DTH players including Tata Sky, Dish TV announced their decision to move manufacturing of a significant portion of set-top boxes (STBs) in India. The announcements were in line with the government’s renewed push for Make in India. But with complexities looming over the initiative, manufacturers remained worried about the impact of the initiative, if it remained limited to just ‘assembling the products in India’.

    There have been talks around different aspects of the Make in India push for STBs since the last two years. “In 2020, the department for the promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) formed a committee. It asked the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) to be a part of it and a meeting was held with operators and STB manufacturers to gauge the overall situation,” said MyBox Technologies MD and CEO Amit Kharbanda. “STB as an electronic product falls under the purview of the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY)Meity, but buyers are regulated by MIB, an ‘unusual situation’.”

    According to MIB, Make in India is not just about assembling the product in India but also about promoting Indian designs.

    “Our entire HITS business was premised on furthering the mission of ‘Digital India’ – taking signals to remote semi-rural and rural areas across our pan-India satellite footprint; facilitating a digital transition. As regards local sourcing, our Cable Operator Premise Equipment or COPEs bear testimony to our ‘Make In India’ approach; with a significant percentage of locally sourced components. With Set-Top Boxes, we have already moved whatever inventory production was possible, to India. This includes not just India-based manufacturers but also Indian companies. But, the challenge is that several components of the STBs still need to be procured from overseas manufacturers,” said NXTDigital MD & CEO Vynsley Fernandes.

    The draft National Broadcasting Policy (NBP) finalised early this year also focused on policies to indigenise the production of consumer premises equipment including the set-top boxes, which are heavily import-dependent. This will be done by setting up a self-reliant local manufacturing ecosystem and roping in the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and other agencies to publish the quality benchmark. The policy also called for setting up measures to rationalise the import tariffs and provide preference to domestically manufactured electronic products and mandate increasing deployment of indigenous equipment.

    GTPL Hathway cable TV head and chief strategy officer Piyush Pankaj said, “MIB has been promoting the initiative for the last two-three years, focusing on Indian manufacturers. But, the problem is many components like chipsets still come from a foreign country and are being assembled here. However, the MSO is also buying boxes from Indian vendors.”

    While domestic manufactures are trying to make way for Indian designing, it takes more than a year to develop designing. “Indian design companies have competence but the business is not in good shape, so the domestic manufacturers are requesting the operators to cooperate with them. The operators can be worried about the quality of boxes but they can opt for trial orders,” said MyBox Technologies MD and CEO Amit Kharbanda.

    On the other hand, some operators have distanced themselves from the matter.

    “We support the Make in India initiative. But, we have also clarified that it applies to any product manufactured in India by an entity here, whether it’s an Indian company or a foreign one. As a service provider, I can’t go checking on the antecedents of the company and whether it has ‘designed’ or ‘assembled’ in India, or whether there was a technology transfer or indigenous technology used. It is very complicated for us. We are buying from a company registered in India, paying Indian taxes, not importing. As long as we are doing that, we believe we are buying from India. Now it is up to the government to find out this nitty-gritty and it wants to take a policy initiative,” a senior executive with a large MSO said on conditions of anonymity.

  • Cable industry veteran Lt Col VC Khare passes away

    Cable industry veteran Lt Col VC Khare passes away

    KOLKATA: Cable TV expert, retired Lt.Col VC Khare has passed away. He contributed to the cable TV industry in India at different roles for nearly three decades.

    He was a member of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) where he played a significant role in formulating 8 BIS Specification for cable TV hardware. He published over 30 papers on cable television.

    The cable industry veteran was also a part of Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd. (BECIL). During his stint at BECIL, he established the Wireline Broadcasting Division and set up training in collaboration with SCTE UK in India.

    He also worked with renowned brands like Videocon, Reliance Communications. At Videocon, he guided the setting up of d2h earth station for its DTH platform. At Reliance Communications, he set up Reliance Digital DTH platform from concept to service on screen.

    Khare was very vocal about industry issues like DAS implementation, new tariff order roll out. He spoke at different forums to share his expertise with the operators.

    At the early part of his career, he was associated with the Indian army for 24 years. He got his education on telecommunications engineering in the field of military communications from the Military College of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering Secunderabad.

  • SCTE India announces its new executive board for the term 2021-2024

    SCTE India announces its new executive board for the term 2021-2024

    New Delhi: The Society of Cable Telecommunication Engineers (SCTE), India has appointed NXTDIGITAL Limited MD and CEO, Vynsley Fernandes as the honorary chairman, Sandeep Bhargava as the president, and Rahul Nehra as the national secretary.

    The announcement was made at the recently held annual general meeting.

    The new executive has a very aggressive charter for the year 2021 with initiatives like SCTE Academy, SCTE Consulting, SCTE Innovation, and SCTE India Tech TV to help India get the correct technical knowledge and facilitate the impetus in the years to come.

    “I am delighted to join the SCTE family as the Chairman. SCTE India has a significant role to play in Digital India; especially on the back of the rapidly changing technology landscape,” said Fernandes.

    Sandeep Bhargava said, “With data being the new fuel, Skilling and Innovation would play a significant role, and SCTE is right in the center of both.”

    SCTE India is a part of SCTE UK which celebrates its 75th year of existence and defines standards, certification, and innovation in the digital cable and the broadband space.

  • GTPL KCBPL partner with UKIO, spread smiles

    GTPL KCBPL partner with UKIO, spread smiles

    KOLKATA: GTPL KCBPL has partnered with UKIO to spread smiles during these difficult times and expand their product offering. UKIO is a personalised messaging platform that allows users to share video call messages with their loved ones via their favourite celebrity icons. Customers can get customised video messages made from their favourite Tollywood celebrities for as low as Rs 299. 

    Bleak times call for more emotional support and a feeling of being cared for and celebrated by our loved ones no matter what. As people across the country are forced to adhere to contact-less mannerisms, here’s a way out to still reach out to the closest people in our lives and make them feel special. This can only be made possible with the mindful use of technology at our disposal.

    “This initiative is very important and close to the hearts of GTPL KCBPL’s family as it will cheer people up and make them forget their woes. These videos are ideal gifts to loved ones in these tough times. They have already seen a great demand for Eid wishes and Covid related courtesy messages”, GTPL KCBPL transformation manager Ankit Agarwal said.

    “This platform also allows users to get on a video call with their favourite megastars which can easily be turned into a special greeting and a memory locked in for years to come. These services will be available through our 8000 plus cable operators across the states of West Bengal and Odisha and people can create a video message to send congratulatory or occasional greetings to their friends and family. They can reach out to their local cable operator to get one of these videos. 

    Users can choose between celebrities across categories like sports, cinema, models, actors, comedy, health and fitness, TV actors, and so on. They have endless options to choose from Tollywood as well as Bollywood. Some of the biggest names in the business who have already created memorable moments include popular stars Rachna Banerjee, Ena Saha, sports megastar and Badminton Player Saina Nehwal, TV Actor, Host, and Bollywood actor Siddharth Banerjee, and Bollywood Actor and Music Composer Salim Merchant to name a few of the galaxy of stars on UKIO’s platform.

  • NXTDigital turns around its business with Rs 13.66 crore profit in Q4

    NXTDigital turns around its business with Rs 13.66 crore profit in Q4

    KOLKATA: NXTDigital has turned its business profitable by raking in Rs 13.66 crore profit after tax (PAT) for the fourth quarter. The company has reported Rs 277.96 crore consolidated revenue for the quarter.

    It posted Rs 0.32 crore PAT in the previous quarter and a loss after tax of Rs 43.43 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The revenue also grew by 6.95 per cent over the previous quarter of Rs 259.90 crores and by 22.38 per cent over the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

    The Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter at Rs 67.54 crores was higher by 8.10 per cent over the EBITDA of the previous quarter of Rs 62.47 crores and a 167 per cent growth over the EBITDA of the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

    For overall FY 21, the company recorded an EBITDA of Rs 232.08 crore, growing by 6.16 per cent over the EBITDA of the previous year of Rs 218.62 crores (excluding one-time revenues of Rs 123.12 crores in the previous year. Consolidated revenue for the year remained consistent at Rs 1,008.5 crores, marginally down from Rs 1,038 crores –due to a reduction in the low-margin non-core trading business.

    “The stellar performance can be attributed to the company’s focus on uninterrupted customer service during the lockdown and after, innovative products and solutions to combat the myriad of ground challenges, driving close to a 100 per cent digital mode of collections on a prepaid basis and the unstinting and tireless efforts of all our employees and our Last Mile partners – all of whom rose to the occasion, without exception,” NXTDigital MD & CEO Vynsley Fernandes said.

    The company will continue to focus on its transformation to an “all-digital” services company, driving a host of new products and solutions, whilst expanding into new geographies. One of the key growth drivers for the future will be its recently launched infrastructure sharing PaaS or Platform-as-a-Service offering.

  • GTPL Hathway earmarks Rs 400 crore capex for FY22

    GTPL Hathway earmarks Rs 400 crore capex for FY22

    KOLKATA: Pan India multi-system operator (MSO) GTPL Hathway is increasing its capex projection for FY22 to Rs 400 crore, compared to Rs 335 crore it invested in FY21, a top executive revealed in an investors call.

    Out of the overall capex projected for this financial year, Rs 225 crore to Rs 230 crore will be invested in the broadband segment, while the rest is going to be deployed for the cable TV side, especially for expansion in new markets. All capex will be funded through internal accruals only. The company is not looking forward to any fund raising activity at this point of time, GTPL Hathway cable TV head and chief strategy officer Piyush Pankaj noted.

    Earlier, the MSO revealed its plans to grow its cable TV subscriber base by more than 50 per cent in the next three years. While the growth in FY21 was flat, the company has cited the  decline in commercial connections as reason for the sluggish addition. 

    “The hotels, corporates, housekeeping, offices, small offices and all, which have not come back totally because of the pandemic. We are looking forward that in the normal scenario this business will grow. The residential customers are growing. We have connected around half a million more residential houses in the pandemic. We are looking forward that we will continue to grow,” Pankaj commented.

    GTPL Hathway is excited about six new states it entered for potential organic growth. Moreover, there is a lot of opportunity for consolidation, Pankaj added. It is already on the verge of executing some deals. While pandemic came in the way to executing deals in FY21, it is looking at closing the consolidation deals as the situation improves going forward.

    Overall, the cable TV market has been growing from anything between four to seven per cent CAGR, mentioned GTPL Hathway chairman and non-executive director Rajan Gupta. It varies from state to state, where states like Odisha have grown higher.

    It is also optimistic about maintaining its broadband additions as well, which is around 60,000 quarterly. “If you see 31 March 2020, we were showing the ISP internet service at around Rs 5 crore, which has increased to Rs 43 crore in 2021, quarter-to-quarter it is down, but year-to-year it is ten times more,” GTPL Hathway promoter and MD Anirudhsinh Jadeja highlighted.

    Rather than increasing broadband ARPU, the current focus is to create the broadband market where it enjoys a high market share in cable like Gujarat. As upgradation happens from LAN to FTTH, there will be some ARPU increase, said  Gupta. The shift in ARPU with change in connection happened last year, and he expects the momentum to continue.

    GTPL Hathway planned to launch hybrid boxes in Q4FY21, but production has been delayed due to the pandemic. The boxes are ready and they are getting shipped, Pankaj stated.

    While Jio is adding broadband subscribers aggressively, Jadeja claims it is not a competitor yet. “It is good now that Jio is also our partner and we might say that we are getting the cost synergy benefits related to the content, infrastructure, or whatever Jio’s expertise is for the overall industry,”  remarked Jadeja.

    “Jio’s market is spread in Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat, and some other cities in Gujarat. GTPL covers almost the majority of Gujarat with a presence in 100 towns. The major competitor is BSNL and there are no other players,” he added.

  • NXTDIGITAL & Siti Networks ink industry-first pact for infra sharing

    NXTDIGITAL & Siti Networks ink industry-first pact for infra sharing

    NEW DELHI: Hinduja Group’s Headend-in-the-Sky (HITS) platform NXTDIGITAL and multi-system operator (MSO) Siti Networks have inked a first-ever infrastructure sharing agreement in the MSO space in the country. The move, the first of its kind, will have two conventional competitors share infrastructure, heralding a new era of collaboration in the digital platforms space.

    The potential market for such PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) or infrastructure sharing services in India is estimated at over 60 million cable TV subscribers; connected to around 1,000 MSOs – largely independent or regional players, who often face such cost, connectivity and quality challenges.

    NXTDIGITAL MD & CEO Vynsley Fernandes commented, “With significant investments in technology, our HITS platform was designed to facilitate MSOs deliver digital content across India. We’re happy that Siti Networks, India’s biggest and most progressive MSO, has chosen to work with us, sharing our infrastructure to deliver their services in markets where conventional connectivity remains a challenge. Our HITS PaaS solution, in line with the government’s support for our industry is the right step in this direction, helping MSOs save on connectivity costs whilst improving their quality of service; and we are sure this tie-up with Siti will be a landmark moment in the industry.”

    This move is in line with Siti strategy of enhancing its operational efficiencies and providing high up-time and quality services to its customers across the country. Financially, this move will help Siti control its connectivity costs and deliver uninterrupted services to existing and new markets.

    Siti will leverage the HITS infrastructure to deliver its signals to its local cable operators (LCOs), thus providing its services to semi-urban and rural subscribers while also expanding its footprint across the country through satellite. For this integration, NXTDIGITAL’s PaaS vertical has worked with Siti Networks’ existing set-top boxes to provide services with the HITS platform wherever required.

    Siti Networks CEO Anil Malhotra said this infrastructure sharing initiative forms an integral part of the government’s digital India strategy and would help in the spread of other services like broadband to the last mile faster.

    “Siti has been focusing on enhancing its operational efficiencies. With the government approving Infrastructure sharing in our domain, this tie-up with NXTDIGITAL is a natural progression and helps us overcome the difficulties of a terrestrial network in some markets through the HITS approach. Operational efficiencies, along with uninterrupted services, will help improve our customer experience. Both Siti and NXTDIGITAL have integrated the HITS infrastructure with Siti’s existing subscriber management and conditional access systems while ensuring that the existing capex is better sweated. Both teams have ensured all necessary testing and compliances. We do believe that evaluation of more such Infrastructure sharing,” he detailed

    Through the PaaS model, NXT expects to see MSOs faced with challenges of rising connectivity costs and quality – transition to a robust and independent sustainable model with better quality of service.

  • Reliance to sell 11.61 per cent stake in Hathway

    Reliance to sell 11.61 per cent stake in Hathway

    NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries is preparing to sell 11.61 per cent of its stake in Hathway Cable & Datacom to comply with SEBI’s minimum public holding norms.

    Through offers for sale (OFS), Reliance plans to offload Hathway shares worth Rs 442 crore, bringing down its holding in the cable company to 75 per cent from 86.6 per cent earlier.

    According to exchange filings, Hathway promoters Jio Content Distribution Holdings, Jio Internet Distribution Holdings and Jio Cable and Broadband Holdings will sell 205.44 million shares with a floor price of Rs 21.50 aggregating to Rs 441.61 crore.

    This comes barely a month after the above mentioned Jio subsidiaries sold 338 million shares, or a 19.1 per cent stake in Hathway, aggregating to Rs 853.45 crore.

    The share sales by promoter firms are aimed at achieving minimum public holding in the companies in accordance with the guidelines set by market regulator SEBI.

    The OFS will open for non-retail investors on Monday and for retail buyers on Tuesday.

  • Den Networks calls off merger with Hathway, TV18

    Den Networks calls off merger with Hathway, TV18

    KOLKATA: Multi-system operator Den networks has decided not to proceed with the scheme under which TV18 Broadcast, Hathway Cable & Datacom and Den Networks were to merge into Network18 Media & Investments.

    “Considering that more than a year has passed from the time the board considered the scheme, the board of the company has decided not to proceed with the arrangement envisaged in the scheme,” it said in a regulatory filing.

    In February 2020, Reliance Industries announced a consolidation of its media and distribution businesses spread across multiple entities into Network18. It was planned that the broadcasting business would be housed in Network18 and the cable and ISP businesses in two separate wholly owned subsidiaries of Network18. The restructuring would create value-chain integration, and render substantial economies of scale, Reliance said at that time.

    The shareholders are aware that the scheme was filed with both the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange for their no-objection letter, Den Networks stated in the latest filing.

    “The Company had also disclosed in its quarterly financial results for the quarters ended 30 June 2020 and 30 September 2020, that the stock exchanges had returned the scheme stating that the company may apply to the stock exchanges once the Scheme is in compliance with SEBI circulars/ SEBI regulations. This pertained to the compliance by the company and Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd of the minimum public shareholding requirement,” it said.