ITV

Tag: Dish TV

  • Innovative I-Day ‘Dangal’ on Zee with audio description & subtitles

    MUMBAI: Innovation in presentation and telecast seems to be continuing phenomenon. Versatile actor Aamir Khan’s ‘Dangal’, which is having its television premiere on Zee Cinema on 15 August, will be a special Independence Day treat for the visually impaired and hearing viewers: it will have subtitles for those who cannot hear and audio description for those who cannot see.

    Marking its silver jubilee this year, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd is launching a “Zee For All” initiative with strong content and technology support. ZEE covers 172 countries and it has reached over one billion viewers, driven by its philosophy of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” – The world is one family. The film is being telecast on 15 August at 12 Noon.

    The telecast of ‘Dangal’ was long awaited for its emotional resonance, technical artistry and compelling performances. Director Nitesh Tiwari’s sports biographical drama features Aamir Khan, Sakshi Tanwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sanya Malhotra, Suhani Bhatnagar, ZairaWasim, Aparshakti Khurrana, Ritvik Sahore and Girish Kulkarni. It is based on the true story of a former Indian national wrestling champ who battles the existing social order to train his two young daughters to be world-class contenders in the otherwise male dominated sport of wrestling.

    According to World Health Organisation 2010 Report, India accounts for eight million blind, 54.5 million people with low vision and 62.6 million people with visual impairment – which makes India home to the second largest visually challenged population globally.

    The objective of ‘ZEE For All’ is to ensure that the large population of the Visually and Hearing Impaired receives access to what is truly world class, inspiring entertainment. Zee Cinema has also associated with the National Association For The Blind (Mumbai, Indore, Chandigarh and Lucknow), National Association For The Blind – The Workshop for the Blind in Mumbai, Institution For The Blind in Delhi and Patiala School of Blind & Deaf in Punjab. Zee Cinema will host preview screenings with audio Description and subtitles to sensitize the visually Impaired with the technology of audio description to bring entertainment within their reach,

    The audio description feed will be available on Dish TV, Videocon, Tata Sky and Airtel. The subtitles will be in English on HD and in Hindi on SD.

    Zee Entertainment (ZEEL) CEO – domestic broadcast business Punit Misra said, “On India’s 70th Independence Day, ZEE redefines the ‘freedom to see’ and offers all our audiences a superlative movie watching experience in the comfort of their homes. We hope that the premiere of Dangal reaches out to the maximum number of visually and hearing Impaired audiences in India. We are also exploring adding audio description in other Indian regional languages in the future. Just like Aamir gave us the audio description assets for Dangal, we will reach out to all our content partners requesting for the same as we expand the initiative. ‘ZEEForAll’ will surely be a milestone in the history of TV broadcasting in India.”

    Zee Hindi Movie Cluster Business Head Ruchir Tiwari said, “It is wonderful to associate with Aamir Khan on this pioneering initiative with Dangal – a film that is inspiring, emotional and entertaining. I am personally very happy that Dangal has inspired our team to do what is needed to make the movie accessible to all our viewers.”

    Aamir Khan said, “It is with great anticipation that I look forward to the television premiere of Dangal on 15th August on Zee Cinema SD. I instantly agreed to the idea of premiering Dangal with audio description for the visually impaired and it is a matter of absolute pride to associate with ZEE on this Independence Day premiere of my film.”

    Essentially, audio description conveys the most important visual aspects of the story by providing commentary during natural pauses and moments of quiet. It is a voice-over narration that explains what is happening on the screen, including physical actions made by various characters and other important visual elements. The narration is inserted between lines of dialogue. This audio description is recorded and made available as a separate audio track that can be selected by the audience on their remote.

  • Dish TV partly adopts ‘game changer’ tariff order of TRAI

    MUMBAI: It’s seeking to make a point. Even as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) TV tariff order is going through the motions in Indian courts, the Essel group-owned Dish TV India has announced that it is going to toe – if at least partly – its line.

    It has announced a new initiative called ‘Mera Apna Pack’ under which subscribers can opt for standard definition channels at an a la carte rate of just Rs 8.50 each in addition to their basic service pack that they have subscribed. For high definition channels, the sticker price has been pegged at Rs 17 per channel. Dish TV has on its platform more than 615 channels and services including 30 audio channels and over 67 HD channels and services.

    Says Dish TV India group CEO Anil Dua: “We are delighted to enable them to exercise the freedom of choice in viewing their favorite television content. This initiative will truly empower consumers to choose from the bouquet of channels and pay for only those channels that they would like to watch. This will also be in tune with TRAI’s new tariff regulations, an attempt to make channel pricing flexible yet affordable.”

  • Educational DTH channels to remain free-to-air, says minister

    NEW DELHI: Swayam Prabha, the 32 educational direct-to-home educational TV channels launched early in July, are free to air and will transmit high-quality educational content on 24X7 basis direct to every home, the Parliament has been told.

    (At a National Convention on Digital Initiatives for Higher Education om 8 July 2017, it had been announced that these channels would be available on Dish TV and Doordarshan’s FreeDish platforms.)

    Minister of state in the ministry of human resource development Mahendra Nath Pandey said digital initiatives of his Ministry also include Swayam, an indigenous MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Platform for providing best quality education to anyone, anytime and anywhere using the IT System.

    The National Academic Depository (NAD), a digital depository which authenticates all the certificates issued by Institutions according to the need of the user is another digital initiative.

    The minister said these were inaugurated by former president Pranab Mukhejee at a National Convention on Digital Initiatives for Higher Education from 8 to 10 July 2017 attended by vice-chancellors of central universities, deemed-to-be universities, private universities, state universities, state-private universities, directors of central institutes such as IITs, IIMs, IISERs, IISc, IIITs, NITs and other central institutes.

    ALSO READ :

    32 free DTH educational channels on Dish TV & FreeDish start functioning

    Only Dish TV carrying HRD ministry’s educational TV channels

    DTH channels being launched by September to impart education: Javadekar

     

  • DEN Networks allots Rs 7.5 mn worth shares for eSOP

    MUMBAI: DEN Networks Limited has informed the corporate  relationship department of the National Stock Exchange of India and BSE Limited that it has allotted shares under DEN eSOP Plan B, 2014.

    In a communique signed by DEN company secretary Jatin Mahajan, it stated: This  is to inform you that the Securities  Committee, in its meeting dated 21 July, 2017, has issued  and allotted 7,50,000 equity shares of Rs. 10/- each at par to eligible employee(s) under DEN ESOP Plan.

    In a separate earlier report, Dish TV, Hathway & Den Networks were amongst the top 10 global Pay TV platforms, according to the Global Pay TV Operator Databook from Digital TV Research.

    Also, as reported earlier, three years after it announced its intention to get into TV home shopping, the Samir Manchanda-promoted  multi systems operator Den is exiting from it.  The company had launched a channel called DEN Snapdeal Home Shop in 2016   (in partnership with the ecommerce site) only to have its partner exit from it in March 2017.

    Also Read :

    Dish TV, Hathway & Den amongst top 10 global Pay TV platforms

    DEN Networks exits TV home shopping channel business

    DEN Networks ties up with Visiware, launches premium gaming service

     

     

  • Dish TV, Hathway & Den amongst top 10 global Pay TV platforms

    MUMBAI: Indian companies — Dish TV, Hathway & Den Networks are amongst the top 10 global Pay TV platforms, according to the Global Pay TV Operator Databook from Digital TV Research. For the top 10 operators, the global TV revenue share was 55 per cent in 2016, with the leading 50 operators taking three-quarters of the total.

    Despite high number of subscribers but low ARPUs, Asia Pacific’s top operators are much less prominent in the PPV and subscription rankings with respect to revenue. This is where the US companies were leading – with six among the top 10 in 2016.

    Subscribers of Pay-TV for 522 operators reached a significant number — 839 million in 2016 (that is, 87 per cent of the 959 million global subscribers).

    In all, 50 leading operators accounted for two-thirds of the global Pay-TV subscribers by end-2016, Advanced Television reported. At that time, 10 million paying subscribers were using the services of 15 operators, according to the Databook.

    Globally, China Radio & TV is the largest pay-TV operator with a huge gap. Chinese government policy to consolidate cable TV translated as China Radio becoming the globe’s largest by 2016 — accumulating 227 million subs.

    Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray said that India and China’s dominance of the top pay-TV operator rankings had been increasing, as US operators lost subs and the two nations subscriber bases swelled.

    PPV and subs revenues for the 522 operators were around Rs 11.9 trillion (US$185 billion) in 2016. Around 30 pay-TV operators earned more than Rs 64.5 billion (US$1 billion) revenue.

    MUMBAI: Indian companies — Dish TV, Hathway & Den Networks are amongst the top 10 global Pay TV platforms, according to the Global Pay TV Operator Databook from Digital TV Research. For the top 10 operators, the global TV revenue share was 55 per cent in 2016, with the leading 50 operators taking three-quarters of the total.

    Despite high number of subscribers but low ARPUs, Asia Pacific’s top operators are much less prominent in the PPV and subscription rankings with respect to revenue. This is where the US companies were leading – with six among the top 10 in 2016.

    Subscribers of Pay-TV for 522 operators reached a significant number — 839 million in 2016 (that is, 87 per cent of the 959 million global subscribers).

    In all, 50 leading operators accounted for two-thirds of the global Pay-TV subscribers by end-2016, Advanced Television reported. At that time, 10 million paying subscribers were using the services of 15 operators, according to the Databook.

    Globally, China Radio & TV is the largest pay-TV operator with a huge gap. Chinese government policy to consolidate cable TV translated as China Radio becoming the globe’s largest by 2016 — accumulating 227 million subs.

    Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray said that India and China’s dominance of the top pay-TV operator rankings had been increasing, as US operators lost subs and the two nations subscriber bases swelled.

    PPV and subs revenues for the 522 operators were around Rs 11.9 trillion (US$185 billion) in 2016. Around 30 pay-TV operators earned more than Rs 64.5 billion (US$1 billion) revenue.

    Top 10 operators by subscribers (000)
    Ranking Operator Country 2016
    1 China Radio & TV (total) China 226,535
    2 China Telecom (IPTV) China 52,038
    3 BesTV (IPTV) China 26,019
    4 AT&T (total) USA 25,065
    5 Comcast (total) USA 22,508
    6 Charter merged (total cable) USA 16,836
    7 Dish TV (satellite) India 13,582
    8 Hathway (total) India 13,300
    9 Den Networks (total) India 13,000
    10 DISH Network (satellite) USA 12,521
    Source: Digital TV Research

  • 32 free DTH educational channels on Dish TV & FreeDish start functioning

    NEW DELHI: Thirty-two direct-to-home educational channels under the name Swayam Prabha were formally launched during the weekend to telecast high-quality educational content free of charge.

    Launching the channels which will be beamed via the GSAT-15 satellite transponders and will shortly be available both on Dish TV as well as Doordarshan’s FreeDish, President Pranab Mukherjee said the use of satellite technology to reach the unreached is time-tested. He was happy to note that the scale and reach of this technology has been raised manifold through the 32 Swayam Prabha DTH channels. These channels will help students in the rural areas and in the remote areas where IT infrastructure have not penetrated so well.

    These channels transmit four hours of fresh content every day, and contain lectures from the best teachers in the country. There is no monthly charge for viewing these channels. These channels include the IIT-PAL channels which were intended to help students taking the prestigious JEE examination, taught by the IIT faculty.

    In a function organised on the eve of the Guru Poornima, a day for salutation to teachers, the President also launched the Swayam portal that has become fully functional.

    The portal enables one to take courses offered by the best teachers, remaining where they are. Swayam should be a call to the pioneers amongst teachers to put new courses in the upcoming areas on this platform in the MOOCs format. It is also a call to the other teachers to use this material and improve their own teaching capacity. Ultimately, it should lead to better attainment levels in the students.

    With the launch of Swayam, India has become one of the few countries in the world which has its own online interactive learning platform that provides not only video lectures and reading material, but also assignments/quizzes that could end up in securing credits after completing the assessment system. More than 400 Courses are available on Swayam covering all the engineering and non-engineering subjects at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. The University Grants Commission has already issued Regulation that allows transfer of credits earned through the courses done through Swayam into the academic record of the students. It is now possible for the students and others to take courses of the prestigious IITs or IIMs without formally studying there. The platform has been constructed by Microsoft with totally indigenous efforts.

    Mukherjee also launched the National Academic Depository at the National Convention on Digital Initiatives organized by Ministry of Human Resource Development in New Delhi.

    Speaking on the occasion, the president said the spread of technology, telecom penetration and internet has offered an opportunity to quell the divide in terms of access and quality. Digital technology enables good teachers to directly teach large number of students who are not physically present in classes. ICT solutions offer an interactive learning experience through which students in remote parts of the country can benefit from lectures of the top teachers. The digital modes are cheaper, more easily accessible, interactive, and offer flexibility for people to learn at their own pace. We need to work together to ensure that they are widely adopted for teaching.

    The president said that the National Academic Depository would help in easy authentication of the credentials issued by the institutions. This would also help in increasing transparency and ease of operation. The several other digital initiatives taken up under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) being showcased today should help all in going the digital way in order to improve the quality of teaching.

    He said during the last five years, he had been emphasizing on improving the quality of education whenever he met Vice Chancellors of central universities, Directors of IITs, NITs and IISc/ IISERs. The conferences at Rashtrapati Bhavan have also acted as platforms for nurturing ideas. Many initiatives and ideas like the GIAN, IMPRINT and GRIN have taken root here. He called upon participants present there to ensure that these initiatives are taken to their logical conclusion for the benefit of the nation.

    Human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar and MoS Mahendra Nath Pandey were also present on the occasion.

    The president has expressed hope that these digital initiatives would help in producing the highly qualified youth required for the Make in India campaign. He exhorted all the higher educational institution to march on the path of educational excellence consisting of creation of new knowledge and dissemination of the same for the benefit of the nation. It was an emotional moment for the president since many of these initiatives have taken shape under his guidance as visitor of these institutions.

  • DTH subscriber addition disappointing in calendar 2016

    BENGALURU: The carriage industry — more specifically the direct-to-home or DTH industry — has had a disappointing calendar year 2016 (CY-16) going by data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in the first edition of its Yearly Performance Indicator Report of the Indian Telecom Sector for  2016 (IR-2016). This was mentioned by indiantelevision.com earlier after some players declared their results for fiscal and fourth quarter ended 31 March 2017. (FY-17 and Q4-17).

    Substantiating our findings, the TRAI report says that in CY-16 the registered DTH subscriber base grew only 14.45 percent from 84.8 million in CY-15 to 97.05 million in CY-16. A further downside was that the active subscriber base grew just 11.91 percent to 62.65 million in CY-16 from 55.98 million in CY-15. In absolute numbers this means that a little more than half (54.45 percent) of the registered suppliers (12.25million) added were active suppliers (6.67 million).

    The DTH industry had expected to grab a substantial percentage of the analogue cable subscribers from DAS Phase IV, – the sunset date for which had been extended by the government to 31 March 2017 from the earlier date of 31 December 2017.

    Please refer to the figure below for the market share of the six private pay DTH players in India. According to TRAI data, these three players had a 68 percent share of the private DTH market. Besides the six private pay DTH players, Doordarshan’s (DD) FreeDish DTH service  is a major player and is the largest DTH player by far in terms of subscribers with an estimated 15 million or 1.5 crore subscribers in 2015 as per the KPMG-FICCI Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2016 (KPMG-FICCI M&E Report 2016) titled The Future: Now streaming. It must however be noted that an exact number for registered or active subscribers is not available even with DD, since this is a free DTH service.

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    Of the 6.67 million active DTH subscribers added by the industry, 4.65 million (69.72 percent) were added by three major DTH players whose information is available in the public domain. They are Bharti Airtel’s digital TV services or Airtel DTH, Dish TV and Videocon DTH.

    DAS was a huge opportunity for all the players in the television carriage ecosystem – in phase IV alone, this meant about 42 million analogue cable television homes. It is quite obvious from TRAI data that the industry has failed to do so. The DTH players could capitalize on just about 16 percent of this opportunity. And despite the extension of the sunset date to 31 March, 2017, DTH subscriber growth has slowed down even further, if one were to go by the subscribers added by the three big players mentioned above in the fourth financial quarter (1 January 2017 to 31 March 2017) – the three added a shade above half a million subscribers combined in Q4-17. Please refer to the figure below for the subscriber addition data by the three major players.

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    In FY-16 (year ended 31 March 2016) , the three players had added about 65 percent more subscribers in absolute numbers at 4.93 million as compared to the 3.81 million added in FY-17 (year ended 31 March 2017).The DTH industry witnessed a slowdown in subscriber growth even in the previous financial year. Combined subscriber additions for the annual period ended 31 March 2016 (FY-16) vis-à-vis the previous year (FY-15) grew by 14.8 percent of the three pay-direct to home operators in India.  This subscriber growth rate was however a little less than half that these entities had in FY-15 at 24.7 percent as compared to FY-14.

    Also Read :

    DTH subscriber growth slows down even further

    Active DTH subscriber growth subdued in Oct-Dec’16 quarter

    The growth of DTH in India

     

  • ThinkAnalytics focuses on India expansion, hires former TiVo & Zee exec Samir Narsiker

    MUMBAI: ThinkAnalytics, a developer of the world’s most-widely deployed TV search and recommendations engine, is strengthening its presence in India. Samir Narsiker has been appointed as the vice-president to head business development activities in India and neighbouring countries.

    ThinkAnalytics already has a global R&D team in Pune. Based out of Mumbai, Narsiker will report to Singapore-based senior VP – APAC region Alan Dishington.

    Narsiker is a seasoned industry professional with a proven track record. Prior to joining ThinkAnalytics, he was the director of business development at TiVo / Rovi. He has also held senior positions at Ericsson, Cisco, NDS, Dish TV and Zee TV Group.

    “We already have a substantial number of customers in India. With Narsiker spearheading our efforts locally, we are anticipating even stronger growth. In particular, he will be responsible for expanding Thinkanalytics Search and Recommendations platform and the leading ThinkInsight customer and video insight platform to local TV and video providers,” ThinkAnalytics founder and CTO Peter Docherty said.

  • DTH subscriber growth slows down even further

    BENGALURU: Despite the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry extending the deadline for phase IV of cable television digitisation by three months to 31 March 2017, owing to the “unsatisfactory progress of installation of set top boxes (STBs) in phase IV areas”, reports submitted by the carriage industry indicate that subscriber additions in the extended period have been low.

    Financial results of companies or entities from the carriage industry whose financial and limited operational data is available in the public domain – Airtel Digital TV (Airtel DTH), Dish TV, and Videocon DTH show poor subscriber adds in the quarter ended 31 March 2017 (fourth quarter, Q4-17). As a matter of fact, subscriber adds in Q4-17 was the lowest that the three Indian major operators reported in a quarter for the financial year ended 31 March 2017 (FY-17). The combined subscribers for all the three players grew 8.33 percent to 41.23 million in FY-17 from 38.06 million in FY-16. It maybe noted that subscriber numbers are generally rounded off by the players in their reports, in some case to an extent of 10,000. In FY-16, the three players had added about 65 percent more subscribers in absolute numbers at 4.93 million as compared to the 3.81 million added in FY-17.

    Please refer to the figure below:

    public://dth-1.jpg

    The DTH industry witnessed a slowdown in subscriber growth even in the previous year.Combined subscriber additions for the annual period ended 31 March 2016 (FY-16) vis-à-vis the previous year (FY-15) grew by 14.8percent of the three pay-direct to home operators in India.  This subscriber growth rate was however a little less than half that these entities had in FY-15 at 24.7 percent as compared to FY-14.

    Let us see where the three pay DTH players considered in this paper stand in the Indian DTH eco-system

    Airtel DTH, Dish TV and Videocon d2h have about two thirds (65 percent) of market share of the DTH universe by private players in India. Of the other three players, according to a TRAI report Tata Sky has a market share of 23 percent, while Sun Direct and Reliance have a market share or 10 percent and 2 percent respectively. It may be noted that at present probably the largest DTH player in India could be the government’s FreeDish, but since it is a free service, no subscriber data is available even with Prasar Bharati. Please refer to the chart below:

    public://dth2_0.jpg

  • Seven free Fashion TV 4K UHD channels available in India

    MUMBAI: Fashion TV has launched a 4K revolution in the country and surrounding regions by starting transmission of first seven FTA 4K UHD (Ultra-HD) television channels after NASA’s scientific content channel.

    The new channels can also be seen in China, Pakistan, the Middle East, East Africa and South East Asia, Ultra News reported.

    The channels utilise new video compression technology called HEVC or H.265 to reduce the amount of bandwidth needed for transmitting UHD content.

    The new channels however cannot be watched using most of the satellite receivers and available STBs. 4K satellite receivers with HEVC support in India at present costs around Rs 4,500, compared to Rs 1,000-1,300 for HD receivers with MPEG-4 support. But, cheaper HEVC models with 4K support could be purchased from e-commerce websites.

    The seven channels are being telecast from Apstar 7 satellite, which has been placed over India. The channels cater to different areas of fashion, such as films, make-up, photoshoots, men’s fashion, ‘midnite secrets’ and events.

    In India, a majority of the Ku-band channels are encrypted, and viewers need smart cards from DTH providers such as Dish TV and Tata Sky. Some services such as DD’s FreeDish and ABS are transmitted without encryption.