ITV

Tag: FTA TV

  • Could India blocking ABS’ FTA TV signals lead to breach of ITU norms?

    MUMBAI: Government of India, it seems, could find itself in a Catch-22 situation over a directive to Department of Space (DoS) to block free-to-air channels available in India broadcast through Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS)-2, a foreign `bird’ not licensed to provide KU-band or DTH services in India. Reason: such a blockade may breach international laws relating to spillover of satellite signals.

    Signals of ABS-2 satellite —hosting on its South Asian beam a Nepalese and a Bangladeshi DTH service licensed in their respective countries — have been spilling over into India and a mix of Indian, Nepalese and Bangladeshi TV channels are available to Indians as a FTA service that can be accessed via some plain vanilla hardware (read set-top boxes and an antennae) at a nominal cost. This has raised the heckles of India authorities over possible national security.

    While last week junior minister for Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) Rajyavardhan Rathore informed Parliament that his ministry has requested DoS to block the “unauthorized” DTH or KU-band ABS-2 service, the foreign satellite operator feels it has not broken any Indian regulations.

    ABS source claimed that the issue is of “natural spillover” of satellite signals into neighboring countries that are outside the service area of the countries offering licensed DTH services, but falling within the coverage area of the satellite. Such issues have been debated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) where it was concluded that such a spillover or overlap of coverage areas (countries) is in “full compliance” with ITU provisions. “Consequently, ABS is not in violation of any existing provisions/guidelines stipulated by the government of India,” a company source explained.

    ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies or ICTs. It allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develops technical standards that ensure networks and technologies to seamlessly interconnect and strives to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide. Originally founded in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, ITU is one of the oldest existing international organizations. India is also a member of the organization and Indian satellites’ slots too are co-ordinated by ITU.

    Categorically denying that the company has “been providing” a DTH service in India, ABS sources said ABS-2 satellite has two customers on its South Asian beam. The customers are Bangladeshi DTH service provider marketing under brand name Realvu and Nepalese Humro TV platform. Both these services are licensed in their respective countries, the sources claimed, adding there was a “natural spillover” of these services into India that is being lapped up by Indian viewers as it has a mix of regional content in an un-encrypted format.

    ABS also clarified that it does not sell any hardware in India, nor does it advertise or provide any service to the Indian TV channels within the country. The ABS series of satellites are owned by the Bermuda-based Asia Broadcast Satellite, a comparatively young global satellite operator with offices in the United States, UAE, South Africa, Philippines, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

    Of course, this ABS-2 service is available to Indian consumers at no monthly charge and all they need to do is install a standard STB, easily available in the open electronics hardware market, which also means that the TV channels on the platform stand to gain from additional eyeballs that can be used for marketing purposes by the TV channels.

    According to an estimate, presently there are approximately 20 satellites broadcasting over the Indian skies beaming channels into India and viewers wanting to watch those channels can watch via an ordinary STB and pointing the antenna to the desired satellite’s geo-stationary location. Though this synchronization of antennae with a specific satellite’s position may be technical in nature, there would be hordes of service providers in India with adequate knowledge to do so for a small price.

    Free to view platforms have an advantage over paid DTH services like Dish TV or Tata Sky or Videocon d2h or Reliance BIG TV in the rural areas of the country where consumers may not be too quality conscious. This FTA phenomenon is evident from the considerable reach of pubcaster Doordarshan’s KU-band or FTA DTH service, FreeDish, and a clamour amongst private TV channels too to be on the platform that has a limited shelf capacity.

    Rathore, while responding to queries from three Members of Parliament last week, had said the move to block ABS-2 signals was being done keeping in view any threat to national security via a service not licensed in India. He said MIB was the licensing authority for DTH services in India and it had not received any application or reference from ABS regarding ABS-2 services. However, the minister also admitted that there was no violation of downlinking guidelines by licensed Indian channels on the ABS-2 platform.

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  • Pay-TV revenue surpasses FTA TV turnover in Spain

    Pay-TV revenue surpasses FTA TV turnover in Spain

    MUMBAI: Spanish pay-TV revenues outrun free-to-air (FTA) TV services in terms of revenues in 2012. Pay-TV turnover amounted to €1.7 billion in 2012, surpassing for the first time in its history, FTA TV revenues which amounted to €1.6 billion, advanced television reports, citing data released by Spanish telecoms regulator CMT. Pay-TV revenues grew by 2.5 per cent year-on-year, while FTA TV services dropped 17.9 per cent in 2012.

    Satellite pay-TV revenues climbed 8.4 per cent year-on-year to €1.06 billion in 2012. Mobile TV and IPTV revenues increased by 14.6 per cent and 11.6 per cent respectively; whereas cable and pay-DTT sales fell 11.6 and 19.3 per cent respectively.

    Spain‘s pay-TV user base dropped by 351,636 subscribers or 7.5 per cent in the period. Spain ended 2012 with 4.3 million pay-TV users, with satellite technology accounting for 41.3 per cent, followed by cable with 32.7 per cent, IPTV with 18.8 per cent and pay DTT with seven percent. The IPTV user base saw the most dramatic decline, shedding 126,566 subscribers in the period, followed by cable with 97,665 and pay-DTT with 93,157.

  • Maldives appeals to ABU for Fifa World Cup broadcast on FTA TV

    Maldives appeals to ABU for Fifa World Cup broadcast on FTA TV

    MUMBAI: The Government of the small island nation of the Maldives has called on the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) to help it gain access to the Fifa World Cup 2006.

    The country’s only free-to-air television station, TV Maldives, is being asked to pay more than $600,000 to broadcast a limited number of games.

    The minister of Information and Arts Mohamed Nasheed mentioned this at the opening ceremony of the ABU’s 80th Administrative Council meeting held in the Maldives this week.

    Situated in the Indian Ocean south of Sri Lanka, Maldives has a population of less than 300,000. The minister said that the local cable operator had been given the broadcast rights to all 64 games, but they had only 25,000 subscribers.

    Most of the population on the 20 atolls which made up the island nation would therefore not be able to see the World Cup unless it was broadcast on free-to-air television.

    The country was one of those badly affected by the 2004 tsunami and is still recovering from the economic hardships brought on by the catastrophe. Some of the islands were completely destroyed by the tsunami.

    The minister suggested that the holder of the broadcast rights was taking advantage of the Maldivians’ love of football. “Charging a small public broadcasting organisation such as ours whose only interest is to show its nationals their life-blood game is like taking away the means of our life and charging an exorbitant amount to return those means.

    “We cannot be victimised by this and we do not want to accept such manipulative deals,” the minister added.

    Nasheed said that the satellite operator which had acquired the broadcast rights from Fifa was asking TV Maldives to pay “a tsunami amount of money”.

    “$600,000 is equivalent to nearly 7.7 million rufiyaa. Divide that by 300,000 people, it comes to 25.7 rufiyaa per person. This is an enormous amount.

    “And if we understand correctly, there are richer and bigger countries that would pay only US$40,000 to watch all the 64 games,” the minister said.

    Nasheed has appealed to all members of the ABU to support its cause to obtain the Fifa World Cup 2006 rights “at a bearable cost that is commensurate with our nation, its population and its capacities.”

    ABU secretary-general David Astley said that the price being asked of TV Maldives was a 3,000 per cent increase on what the broadcaster paid for the same rights in 2002.

    “It is outrageous that the rights holder should be asking for an increase of this magnitude at a time that this small island nation is recovering from the devastation of the tsunami. The amount being asked is totally out of proportion to what other countries of this size are being asked to pay.”

    Astley said he had been informed that the Government was drafting ‘listed events’ legislation which would require events like the World Cup to be made available to free-to-air television at a reasonable cost.

    “This could have been avoided if the pay-TV provider had been willing to negotiate a fair price with the free-to-air broadcaster. I believe it is a case of the pay-TV operator simply not being aware of the market conditions in the Maldives,” he said.

    Astley said that the ABU’s head of sport John Barton would hold discussions with the pay-TV operator concerned and was hopeful that a deal could be reached which would not necessitate the Maldives Government rushing new legislation through parliament.

    The administrative council also discussed a number of proposals relating to how the ABU could assist broadcasters in dealing with a possible avian flu pandemic, and plans to hold the third World Electronic Media Forum in Asia in December 2007.

    Following the meeting, the councillors visited a village community on a nearby island and also the studio facilities of Voice of Maldives and TV Maldives.