ITV

Category: DTH

  • Get Fit with Dish TV’s new ‘Fitness Active’ service

    Get Fit with Dish TV’s new ‘Fitness Active’ service

    MUMBAI: Dish TV India Limited, world’s largest single-country DTH Company announce the launch of ‘Fitness Active’ service on its DishTV & d2h platforms. ‘Fitness Active’, a unique offering along with a strong strategic partnership with Brilliant Living TV, country’s largest content provider in fitness and wellness, will help Dish TV bringing value added services into this space. This fitness service will be available on channel number 132 on DishTV & d2h. 

    DishTV’s subscribers and fitness enthusiasts will get up close and personal with the celebrity fitness trainers to gain insight on fitness and nutrition. These fitness trainers come from diverse fields of Yoga, Nutrition, Meditation, Martial Arts, Pilates, who are responsible for training and coaching of famous celebrities like Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor, Aamir Khan, and the likes. Grand Master Shifuji- world’s best commando trainer, Shivoham from Shivfit, Yasmin Karachiwala – celebrity Pilates coach are few of the trainers who will share tips to become fit offering a holistic fitness regime to DishTV and d2h subscribers.

    ‘Fitness Active’, a 24×7 service will be available at just Rs.40 per month in both Hindi and English language. Additionally, the service will be available for a free preview till September 18th, 2018.

    Announcing the new service, Mr. Anil Dua, Group Chief Executive Officer, Dish TV India Limited, said, “We’re excited to offer our customers personalized solutions to their wellness regime in the comfort of their homes. With rising awareness about fitness among Indians, we at Dish TV will offer a simple platform and guide to all their fitness queries and requirements. Our ‘Fitness Active’ service will provide best of fitness and wellness content on both our platforms, providing our customers with an easy access to world-class health and fitness trainers.”

    Speaking on the partnership Mr. Adarsh Gupta Founder and CEO of “Brilliant Living TV”, said, “Brilliant Living TV is excited to be associated with Dish TV to bring ‘Fitness Active’ to many households with the help of Dish TV’s reach across India. We’re focused on creating unique fitness content to guide Indians through their workout regime with work-out videos including yoga and meditation. With our partnership with Dish TV, our aim is to encourage users to preach healthy living in the comfort of their homes. We’re sure that the new offering will thoroughly be enjoyed by the viewers of both DishTV and d2h platforms.”

  • Airtel gets regulatory approval to offload 15% from DTH arm to Warburg Pincus

    Airtel gets regulatory approval to offload 15% from DTH arm to Warburg Pincus

    MUMBAI: In a regulatory filing Bharti Airtel said that its DTH arm Bharti Telemedia has received the government’s approval for the transfer of 15 per cent stake to private equity firm Warburg Pincus. The approval has been granted by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

    Earlier the telecom player said it plans to sell 20 per cent stake in its DTH arm to an affiliate of Warburg Pincus for about $350 million. The deal was announced in December 2017.

    “Bharti Telemedia Ltd, a subsidiary of the company, has been granted the approval dated 28 August 2018, from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for transfer of its 15 per cent stake to an affiliate of Warburg Pincus,” Bharti Airtel said.

    However, of that total 20 per cent stake while 15 per cent stake is from its DTH arm, the balance 5 per cent stake will be sold by another Bharti entity. Though the approval of 15 per cent has been mentioned in the filing, as per a Press Trust of India report the entire deal has received the clearance.

    Airtel Digital TV faces new challenges. Reliance Jio has announced it will offer a set top box for TV when it launches ultra-high speed fibre-based broadband services setting up competition in the DTH sector. If Jio comes up with aggressive pricing it will again put pressure on the average revenue per user of existing DTH players.

  • Tata Sky rolls out broadband service to take on Reliance Jio

    Tata Sky rolls out broadband service to take on Reliance Jio

    MUMBAI:  Now, even DTH players are growing wary of the threat from Reliance Jio. Even as the registrations for Jio’s GigaFiber have commenced, one of the oldest DTH networks, Tata Sky, has ventured into the fixed line broadband sector in 12 cities.

    Last month, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio formally announced the rollout of Jio GigaFiber. The new disruption in the market created an ambience of cautiousness predicting that it could affect India’s multi-billion-dollar cable TV and DTH businesses. In a bid to secure market share, Tata Sky has now joined the race.  

    Mumbai, Thane, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Noida, Pune, Bhopal, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and Mira Bhayandar will be the first to get the service. The new plans are available on five packages including one, three, five, nine and twelve months. The data speed and limit will vary depending upon the type of the package. Starting from 5Mbps, the speeds will go up to 100Mbps. For monthly and three month plans, a one-time amount of Rs 1200 will be charged at the time of installation with which a wifi-router will be given free of cost. Rest of the packages will not require any installation charge. There are five add-on plans called ‘Quota on Demand’ which will only be valid through the validity period of the base pack. The pricing seems costlier than that of local cable players while there’s already a perception that Tata Sky is a premium service.

    Jio lured customers with several additional amenities including Jio Giga TV set top box. The way it wrecked the telecom market with cheap data pricing, it was feared that it could disrupt the broadband sectors as well and can emerge as a replacement to DTH and cable players. In this regard, it could be tough for Tata Sky with its limited amenities to attract more users.

    Comparatively, India has low penetration in fixed broadband sector. A report from Media Partners Asia said India’s FLBB penetration was expected to increase to 10.3 per cent from the present single digit share by the year 2022. Moreover, as content and applications keep getting heavier and denser in size, FLBB high speed broadband solutions could be ideal for offices and homes.  Hence, unexplored opportunities of FLBB can fuel the growth of new players also.

  • Dish TV Partners with Shemaroo to bring Bhojpuri regional active service on its two platforms

    Dish TV Partners with Shemaroo to bring Bhojpuri regional active service on its two platforms

    MUMBAI: Dish TV India Limited, world’s largest single-country DTH Company, expands its value added services and launches ‘Bhojpuri Active’ service on its DishTV& d2h platforms. This value-added service is being offered in partnership with Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd, one of India’s leading filmed entertainment content house. ‘Bhojpuri Active’- a 24-hour service is now available at channel number 1556 on DishTV and channel number 861 on d2h platform.

    As an inaugural offer, ‘Bhojpuri Active’ will be available on free preview of 15 days on both the platforms. Post free preview, the viewers can continue to enjoy amazing Bhojpuri content with a nominal subscription price of Rs 40 + GST.  Now customers can enjoy complete ad-free 24X7 Bhojpuri entertainment content. ‘Bhojpuri Active’ offers more than 200 movies and over 1000 songs of super-hit Bhojpuri movies. In addition to this, every month there will be a premier of a latest released Bhojpuri movie.

    Announcing the new service, Mr. Anil Dua, Group Chief Executive Officer, Dish TV India Limited, said, “In regional markets, language content is preferred by viewers. With an overall bouquet of more than 655 channels & services, our focus has always been on innovative content, best value proposition and novel entertainment initiatives. The launch of Bhojpuri Active service on our Dish TV and d2h platforms reiterates our commitment to bring handpicked quality content for our audience from all regions. We are sure this new regional offering will successfully cater to non-stop entertainment needs of our customers in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand who prefer entertainment options in their native language.”

    Hiren Gada, Director – Shemaroo Entertainment Limited said, “We are pleased to extend our partnership with Dish TV to bring Bhojpuri Active, a premium Bhojpuri regional content service that will showcase the best of Bhojpuri films and songs. It will be fueled by Shemaroo’s rich and exhaustive library of content and programming prowess. We are sure 

  • Arabsat denies giving signal to BeoutQ, demands apology from FIFA

    Arabsat denies giving signal to BeoutQ, demands apology from FIFA

    MUMBAI: A few days ago FIFA accused the Saudi Arabia’s satellite operator Arabsat of being involved in the act of transmitting pirated signals of the World Cup to BeoutQ. Arabsat president and CEO Khalid Balkheyour has strongly denied the involvement. Instead, Arabsat is demanding an apology from FIFA for its allegation.

    In a letter it wrote to the body on 15 July, it said that seven independent satellite communications experts confirm that its satellite frequencies had not been used by BeoutQ. Balkheyour said, “Arabsat has always been confident that our satellite network has not been used by BeoutQ.”

    “Nevertheless, we undertook a very costly investigation to eliminate any doubts and to provide evidence to share with FIFA and the world. Arabsat has been deeply offended and harmed by beIN’s and FIFA’s attacks,” he declared. “Now that FIFA has been proven wrong, it should apologise for making such offensive statements” he added.

    BeoutQ users point their dishes to 26 degrees East, which either means an Arabsat slot, or its neighbour (at 25.5 deg East) Eutelsat 25B and its spacecraft partner Es’Hail 1. FIFA claims that BeoutQ was operating on Arabsat frequency 12341 MHz (and normally home to MBC ‘Pro Sports’ transmissions) for several World Cup matches and also 11996 MHz.

    The experts showed that that frequency carried no video content at all dates and times mentioned by FIFA. Arabsat’s expert also added that blocking the frequency had no effect on BeoutQ’s pirate World Cup broadcasts, and that only legitimate broadcasts (e.g., BBC, Sky News and CNBC) were available on that. Saudi Arabia denies BeoutQ as an entity of the country.

    BeoutQ users need to buy a dedicated ‘DreamBox’ satellite decoder receiver (for about 430 Saudi Riyals-[€98.60]). The marketing offer promises that buyers will also receive all of MBC’s (legitimate) sports channels and tournaments like Champions League, Premier League, Fifa World Cup’18, La Liga, Bundes Liga and many more.

  • Dish TV, Videocon d2h merger impacted global TV subscriber numbers

    Dish TV, Videocon d2h merger impacted global TV subscriber numbers

    MUMBAI: The merger of India’s two direct-to-home (DTH) players, Dish TV and Videocon d2h partly played a role in the loss of over five million subscribers or 1.14 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, as per the global report of TV subscribers released by Multiscreen Index.

    Excluding Dish TV and Videocon d2h, the index rose by just 1.49 million subscribers, or 0.36 per cent, which is the lowest quarterly increase Informitv has seen. The average quarterly gain over the previous three years has been around 4.5 million, or 1.15 per cent.

    Before the merger, it was reported that Dish TV and Videocon d2h will have a total 29.51 million subscribers. After merging in March, the enlarged Dish TV had 6.90 million more subscribers than it had the previous quarter, although overall there appeared to be an apparent loss of 6.51 million from the previous combined total.

    Informitv Multiscreen Index editor William Cooper said, “Traditional television subscriber numbers are flat or falling for some services and tracking them through mergers and acquisitions, together with changes in reporting methodologies is increasingly complex. Only 48 of the 100 services in the index reported subscriber gains in the first quarter. That does not include some services that only report figures once or twice a year.”

    Dish TV in India emerged with 23 million subscribers, sending it straight to the top of the Multiscreen Index, ahead of American operators Comcast with 21.21 million and DirecTV with 20.27 million.

    AT&T still has more subscribers overall in the US, with a total of 25.32 million including U-verse and DirecTV NOW. AT&T has the largest number of subscribers as a group, with 38.89 million across the Americas, up by 93,000.

    Satellite services in the US continue to see subscriber losses, with DirecTV losing 188,000, and Dish Network losing 185,000 subscribers. The top 10 services in the US lost 212,000 subscribers in the quarter, with only three of them reporting gains. The largest of these was from the online service DirecTV Now, which added 336,000 subscribers, taking its total to 1.42 million. Sling TV from Dish Network added 91,000, for a total of 2.30 million.

    With Sling TV and DirecTV Now regularly reporting subscriber numbers, the report now accounts for online distribution as a separate category, in addition to cable, satellite and telco networks. With a total of 3.71 million online subscribers in the index, it is far smaller than satellite, which still leads with 182.12 million subscribers.

  • Dish TV reports profits in first full quarter post merger with Videocon d2h

    Dish TV reports profits in first full quarter post merger with Videocon d2h

    BENGALURU: Indian direct to home (DTH) behemoth Dish TV India Limited (Dish TV) reported profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 22.5 crore for the quarter ended 30 June 2018 (Q1 2019, quarter under review). Dish TV and Videocon d2h were merged on 22 March 2018 and hence Q1 2019 was the first full reporting quarter for the merged entity. In the immediate trailing quarter – Q4 2018, the company had reported more than four times the PAT of Q1 2019 at Rs 118.2 crore, but that could be attributed to differed tax to the extent of Rs 147.1 crore. In Q1 2019, the company reported differed taxes to the extent of Rs 1.8 million.

    Since results of the year ago quarter are not comparable, a quarter on quarter (q-o-q) comparison of the numbers of the joint entity has been done here. Operating profit or EBITDA in Q1 2019 was Rs 556.8 crore as compared to an adjusted EBITDA of Rs 400.6 crore in Q4 2018. The company says in its earnings release that adjusted EBITDA is EBITDA adjusted for merger expenses to the tune of Rs. 600 million booked in Q4 2018 that have been excluded while calculating adjusted EBITDA.

    The company reported an eight percent q-o-q increase in operating revenue for the quarter under review at Rs1,655.6 crore as compared to Rs 1,532.4 crore in Q4 2018. Dish TV says that subscriber additions picked up speed during the first quarter. The net number of 301 thousand additions took Dish TV’s subscriber base to 2.33 crore.

    The company says that higher revenue is attributed to an 8.1 percent q-o-q increase in subscription revenue for Q1 2018 at Rs 1,489.3 as compared to Rs 1,377.1 crore. Incrementally higher HD viewership, lower discounts at package levels and a price hike across a majority of recharge packages brought about this increase in subscription revenues during the quarter. Dish TV says that 44 percent of all subscriber additions were of High Definition and that in total, HD subscribers formed 17 percent of the total net base of the company. ARPU for the quarter increased to Rs 214 from Rs 201 in the previous quarter.

    Dish TV CMD Jawahar Goel said, “Price hikes initiated during the quarter were a result of some pricing power gathered over the months. It is a positive sign and should stand us in good stead in the year ahead. The first quarter often sets the pace for the full year. Our performance in the first quarter gives us the confidence to deliver in line with our expectations going forward.”

    “We remain positive on achieving the Rs 5.1 billion synergies that we have envisaged from the merger for the current fiscal. Part of the estimated synergies are going to be due to a more rational programming cost. Our interactions with our broadcasting partners so far reinforce our belief in the strength of the new Dish TV platform,” added Goel.

    Let us look at the other numbers reported by Dish TV

    The merged Dish TV’s consolidated total expenditure reduced 2.9 percent q-o-q in Q1 2019 to Rs 1,098.9 crore from at Rs 1,131.7 crore in Q4 2018. Cost of goods and services in Q1 2019 increased 1.7 percent q-o-q to Rs 884.1 crore from Rs 868.9 crore. Employee benefit expense during the quarter under review reduced 13.7 percent to Rs 57.7 crore from Rs 66.8 crore in Q4 2018. Finance cost in Q1 2019 increased 33.5 percent q-o-q to Rs 177.5 crroe from Rs 132.9 crore. Other expenses in Q1 2019 reduced 19.9 percent q-o-q to Rs 157 crore from Rs 195.97 crore.

  • Dish TV targets double customer base in Tamil Nadu

    Dish TV targets double customer base in Tamil Nadu

    MUMBAI: The leading direct-to-home (DTH) brand Dish TV wants to strengthen its customer base in Tamil Nadu, the biggest market for the company. With the hope of nearly doubling customer base in the state, the company is already building up stronger presence by launching new packages and an advertising campaign.

    The Hindu Business Line reported that it also expects a 35-40 per cent increase in revenues. The revenue from the state for the merged entity of Videocon d2h and Dish TV in last financial year was Rs 550 crore. As the state is going through digitisation, there are high chances of the company’s growth in Tamil Nadu where it currently has a customer base of nearly 1.5 million.

    As reported by the publication, the company announced to offer 65 popular Tamil channels in the state from Friday. A 360-degree advertisement campaign called ‘Surprise Machi’ is also in the store which will be rolled out soon. It will also offer five new base packs based on the language the customer speaks.

    Dish TV India senior vice president-marketing Sukhpreet Singh thinks there’s no threat from state-run Arasu Cable TV. The state government-owned network is gradually increasing its penetration across the state. Singh thinks there’s enough scope for DTH players to convert 8 million analogue receivers using customers into digital.

    Also Read:

    Dish TV offers SD channels at Rs 8.5 per month

    Dish TV sharpens focus on Tamil Nadu

  • Dish TV India concludes Grand Finale of M&E and Broadcasting industry’s first ever Hackathon

    Dish TV India concludes Grand Finale of M&E and Broadcasting industry’s first ever Hackathon

    MUMBAI: Dish TV India Limited, world’s largest single-country DTH Company, held the 30-hour Grand Finale of India’s first and largest M&E and Broadcasting industry hackathon ‘Dish-a-thon’ on June 23-24 2018 at CoWrks, Gurugram. 30 plus teams competed in a thrilling battle of innovation, creativity and technical skills for over two days to resolve challenges and come up with constructive solutions to advance digital transformation for great customer experience. This also included a grueling round of live demo and Q&A session with judges from Dish TV India. Team Git Init from DTU claimed the top position with Teams Voicebox and Zodiac finishing as the first and second Runners up, respectively.

    The winning teams created solutions like easy accessibility of DTH without using a remote, foolproof ready-to-use lead management system and AI enabled video commerce platform prototype. Dish-a-thon, powered by IncubateIND, was a unique hackathon aimed at inviting disruptive ideas covering path-breaking technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Big Data and witnessed spectacular participation of more than 1000 talented teams of young innovators, startups, students, developers, designers and data scientists across India.

    Gracing the finale with his presence, Dish TV India, Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Anil Dua said, “We received overwhelming response from all over India and we are thrilled with the success of Dish-a-thon. The innovative solutions designed by the top teams are pointers to the direction that technological advancements in Media & Entertainment industry will take. We are excited with the grand finish to our industry-first initiative and will work on these innovative ideas to turn them into revolutionary real-world solutions for the benefit of customers and the industry, as a whole.”

    Talking about the solutions created during Dish-a-thon, Dish TV India, Chief Technical Officer, Mr. V K Gupta said, “We are delighted to see participation from designers, developers, professionals, students and wizards from all over the country to create the future of M&E and Broadcasting industry. The teams used diverse themes in addition to their own disruptive ideas. These critical solutions based on absolute creativity will definitely have a wide impact on the entire industry and help us in further transforming and upgrading the television viewing experience for our customers.”

    Delighted at the grand finale, Dish TV India, Corporate Head – Marketing, Mr. Sukhpreet Singh said, “As an industry-first initiative, Dish-a-thon accomplished wide scale and depth while encouraging the nation’s brightest minds to innovate and drive digital transformation in DTH industry. The grand finale, beaming with the enthusiasm of participants, was a fitting culmination to a successful competition sowing the seeds for future disruptions in the industry.”

    Excited on the strong partnership with Dish TV India, Co-founder of IncubateIND, Samkit Sharma said, “We are proud to partner Dish TV, the pioneer in DTH industry in the inaugural year of Dish-a-thon. Dish TV has always been at the forefront of development with its path-breaking initiatives and the most receptive brand that has imbibed innovation in its culture. We are sure that some of the ideas that have come from this Dish-a-thon will be found useful by the leadership team of Dish TV.”

    Dish-a-thon was open for individual team of developers and startups. Dish TV, along with IncubateIND, shortlisted more than 40 teams for the 30-hour open-format grand finale. During the grand finale, participants got an opportunity to interact with industry experts and work with mentors to co-create and co-develop. The winners were recognized through certifications and cash rewards and also stand a chance to start a strategic engagement with DishTV. Before this, the first grand finale took place in Bangalore on June 16 & 17, 2018 with Team CoDish from Hyderabad claiming the title. Please visit dish-a-thon for further details.

  • Tata Sky inks deal with ThinkAnalytics for personalised content recommendations

    Tata Sky inks deal with ThinkAnalytics for personalised content recommendations

    MUMBAI: Leading DTH brand Tata Sky has selected content recommendation Engine ThinkAnalytics to power its personalised content recommendations across connected devices. The yet-to-be-launched service will be available on Tata Sky’s applications across mobile and PC platforms to begin with.

    Tata Sky has partnered with ThinkAnalytics because of its proven skill to scale to millions of users along with its track record in helping Pay-TV and OTT operators to boost engagement and loyalty.

    The company believes that a personalised contextual recommendation will give users a new realm of experience.

    “ThinkAnalytics has a strong reputation as the market leader in personalized recommendations and we are confident that together we can get a better understanding of our customers’ behavior and build a superior, customized experience for them across our connected platforms,” Tata Sky chief commercial officer Pallavi Puri said.

    While content discovery is an issue for users across platforms, Tata Sky subscribers will find it easier to find content on the back of advanced AI and machine learning techniques. The content discovery platform is combined with ThinkMovies and ThinkTV semantic microgenre metadata to enhance the level of personalisation of the content recommendations.

     “Tata Sky is India’s leading content distribution platform and a brand that strongly believes in pushing the innovation boundaries to simplify and enhance the user journey. By offering personalised recommendations across connected devices, Tata Sky’s customers will find it really easy to discover relevant live and on-demand content to watch, boosting viewer engagement and increasing loyalty,” Think Analytics APAC senior VP Alan Dishington said.

    Also Read :

    Tata Sky offers Reliance DTH consumers migration deal, Dish TV too in play

    How Harit Nagpal plans to keep Tata Sky ahead