BENGALURU: The 31 December, 2015 deadline for Digital Addressable System (DAS) Phase III has been a boost for the carriage industry in subscriber additions, revenues, and operating profits. Buoyed by the government’s decision to stick to deadlines for digitisation, the direct-to-home (DTH) industry in India is continuing its bloom run, if one were to go by the results reported by Bharti Airtel for its Digital TV services (Airtel DTH) for the quarter ended 31 December, 2015 (Q3-2016, current quarter).
Revenue in Q3-2016 increased 19 per cent to Rs 742.2 crore, up 19 per cent YoY as compared to Rs 623.4 crore. EBIDTA for Q3-2016 grew 45 per cent to Rs 247.4 crore (33.3 per cent margin) as compared to Rs 170.7 crore (27.4 per cent margin).
The segment’s subscriber base grew 13.2 per cent YoY to 111.06 lakh in the current quarter as compared to 98.10 lakh and grew five per cent as compared to 105.76 lakh in the immediate preceding quarter. Though in US dollar terms, average revenue per user (ARPU) was constant YoY and QoQ at $3.5, in Indian rupees it has increased seven per cent YoY to Rs 229 from Rs 214 and increased two per cent QoQ from Rs 224. Given that the deadline for DAS phase III was 31 December, 2015, Airtel DTH segment reported 5.30 lakh net subscriber additions in the current quarter, which was almost double (1.96 times) the 2.70 lakh subscriber additions in Q3-2015 and more than triple (3.2 times) the 1.64 lakh subscribers added in Q2-2016.
Subscriber churn in Q3-2016 was lower at 0.7 per cent as compared to one per cent in Q3-2015 and 1.3 per cent in the immediate trailing quarter.
Airtel’s CAPEX for its DTH segment more than doubled (by 2.1 times) to Rs 342.2 crore as compared to Rs 163 crore in Q3-2015. Airtel’s cumulative investments in its DTH segment increased 17 per cent YoY to Rs 6177 crore as compared to Rs 5494.8 crore.
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: DTH players like Videocon d2h, DishTV et al have been shouting from rooftops about being DAS Phase III ready for a few months now. And since the DTH sector stands to benefit the most with the cable TV digitisation drive in India, most players have rolled out aggressive advertising campaigns to acquire more customers.
While Videocon d2h expects Phase III to be 50 million TV households in terms of size, the scope for customer acquisition is vast.
More so now with the ongoing High Court cases filed by various multi system operators (MSOs) and cable operators to extend the Digital Addressable System (DAS) Phase III implementation deadline, as many as five states have got temporary respite. With cable operators in several states facing shortage of set top boxes (STBs), the situation proves beneficial to DTH players in acquiring new subscribers in DAS Phase III.
Dish TV, which is the oldest direct-to-home player in the country, has stepped up its campaign following the deadline of the Government for switching off analogue signals in all urban areas covered by DAS Phase III.
In fact, the DTH player has been very upfront about their marketing strategy that capitalises on the confusion over digitisation in Phase III areas, as seen from their latest aggressive campaign titled Dish99. Targeting the Hindi speaking market, the catch phrase for this new campaign reads “Set-Top-Box Matlab DishTV” (Set-Top-Box Means DishTV).
The TVC features popular TV actress Radhika Madan, who is a household name for daily soap watchers, addressing two housewives to tell them that their serials would be off air soon.
When the panic-stricken women ask what they should do, she urges them to switch to Dish TV that offers service starting at just Rs 99 before their analogue signals are disrupted and they miss out on their daily entertainment.
Explaining their current marketing strategy, Dish TV MD Jawahar Goel said, “DishTV’s advertising has always been very pro-active, but the ongoing campaign has been designed in view of the obvious shortage of set top boxes with cable operators. With the deadline of phase III of TV digitisation coming to a close, we aim to capitalise the huge captive user base that will eventually be on digital platform.”
With this product, further, to augment the digitisation drive in Phase III, DishTV has introduced a 360 degree multi-media campaign spanning TV (across leading entertainment, sports and news channels), outdoor, radio, digital, online and direct marketing that leverages the power of popular TV celebrities. This DAS campaign features DishTV’s relatable faces to strike a chord amongst the audience and create awareness about TV digitisation among every household to shift from analog to digital platform,” added another DishTV spokesperson.
Earlier Tata Sky too had rolled out a similar engaging campaign with Kangana Ranaut as its brand ambassador reaching out to people and telling them why they should switch to Tata Sky and enjoy paying for selective channels.
However, Tata Sky points out that their campaign was not intentionally targeted to capitalise the digitisation situation.
Tata Sky CEO and MD Harit Nagpal says, “We didn’t do any special campaign and the ads with Kangana Ranaut had commenced last year before the deadline. The ad simply says that if the viewer gives a missed call on the displayed number, Tata Sky will call back for installing their system. Thus, the viewer will save money as well as get the work done.”
The campaign kick started earlier in June 2015, saw itself drawing several eyeballs from both consumers and industry experts by virtue of its casual and conversational style of narrative.
On the other hand, sources share that Doordarshan’s free to air DTH service FreeDish has no plans to step up its publicity or marketing in view of the extension orders by High Courts of the DAS Phase III.
“FreeDish was in a market that was different from the other DTH players as it was a free to air platform. DD generally publicised FreeDish only on its own channels and has no intention of any cross-channel promotion,” a source informs.
It is undeniable that the current situation of DAS Phase III poses an opportunity for several DTH players to provide an easier alternative to consumers and bring them on board as subscribers while cable operators find a solid ground on the digitisation proceedings. What’s more, even as the government has announced 31 December, 2016 as the deadline for DAS Phase IV, it now remains to be seen how DTH players get even more aggressive on the marketing front as the year progresses.
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: DTH players like Videocon d2h, DishTV et al have been shouting from rooftops about being DAS Phase III ready for a few months now. And since the DTH sector stands to benefit the most with the cable TV digitisation drive in India, most players have rolled out aggressive advertising campaigns to acquire more customers.
While Videocon d2h expects Phase III to be 50 million TV households in terms of size, the scope for customer acquisition is vast.
More so now with the ongoing High Court cases filed by various multi system operators (MSOs) and cable operators to extend the Digital Addressable System (DAS) Phase III implementation deadline, as many as five states have got temporary respite. With cable operators in several states facing shortage of set top boxes (STBs), the situation proves beneficial to DTH players in acquiring new subscribers in DAS Phase III.
Dish TV, which is the oldest direct-to-home player in the country, has stepped up its campaign following the deadline of the Government for switching off analogue signals in all urban areas covered by DAS Phase III.
In fact, the DTH player has been very upfront about their marketing strategy that capitalises on the confusion over digitisation in Phase III areas, as seen from their latest aggressive campaign titled Dish99. Targeting the Hindi speaking market, the catch phrase for this new campaign reads “Set-Top-Box Matlab DishTV” (Set-Top-Box Means DishTV).
The TVC features popular TV actress Radhika Madan, who is a household name for daily soap watchers, addressing two housewives to tell them that their serials would be off air soon.
When the panic-stricken women ask what they should do, she urges them to switch to Dish TV that offers service starting at just Rs 99 before their analogue signals are disrupted and they miss out on their daily entertainment.
Explaining their current marketing strategy, Dish TV MD Jawahar Goel said, “DishTV’s advertising has always been very pro-active, but the ongoing campaign has been designed in view of the obvious shortage of set top boxes with cable operators. With the deadline of phase III of TV digitisation coming to a close, we aim to capitalise the huge captive user base that will eventually be on digital platform.”
With this product, further, to augment the digitisation drive in Phase III, DishTV has introduced a 360 degree multi-media campaign spanning TV (across leading entertainment, sports and news channels), outdoor, radio, digital, online and direct marketing that leverages the power of popular TV celebrities. This DAS campaign features DishTV’s relatable faces to strike a chord amongst the audience and create awareness about TV digitisation among every household to shift from analog to digital platform,” added another DishTV spokesperson.
Earlier Tata Sky too had rolled out a similar engaging campaign with Kangana Ranaut as its brand ambassador reaching out to people and telling them why they should switch to Tata Sky and enjoy paying for selective channels.
However, Tata Sky points out that their campaign was not intentionally targeted to capitalise the digitisation situation.
Tata Sky CEO and MD Harit Nagpal says, “We didn’t do any special campaign and the ads with Kangana Ranaut had commenced last year before the deadline. The ad simply says that if the viewer gives a missed call on the displayed number, Tata Sky will call back for installing their system. Thus, the viewer will save money as well as get the work done.”
The campaign kick started earlier in June 2015, saw itself drawing several eyeballs from both consumers and industry experts by virtue of its casual and conversational style of narrative.
On the other hand, sources share that Doordarshan’s free to air DTH service FreeDish has no plans to step up its publicity or marketing in view of the extension orders by High Courts of the DAS Phase III.
“FreeDish was in a market that was different from the other DTH players as it was a free to air platform. DD generally publicised FreeDish only on its own channels and has no intention of any cross-channel promotion,” a source informs.
It is undeniable that the current situation of DAS Phase III poses an opportunity for several DTH players to provide an easier alternative to consumers and bring them on board as subscribers while cable operators find a solid ground on the digitisation proceedings. What’s more, even as the government has announced 31 December, 2016 as the deadline for DAS Phase IV, it now remains to be seen how DTH players get even more aggressive on the marketing front as the year progresses.
NEW DELHI: The Government, which had last month issued an updated list of urban areas to be covered during Phase III of the Digital Addressable System (DAS) in West Bengal, today issued a fifth list relating to West Bengal.
Earlier, the list issued on 3 November was related to the urban areas to be covered in seven states and one union territory. That was in addition to the 16 states for which upgradation had been announced on 16 October.
Around 80 towns have been deleted from Karnataka but around 20 have been added or upgraded. This leaves a total of 2,044,940 TV households to be covered in DAS Phase III.
The third updated list had referred to changes in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Telangana, and the Union Territory of Daman & Diu.
Earlier in October, the states and union territories where changes were made were: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Rajasthan, Punjab, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar, and Puducherry.
The updated list attached on the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s website with regard to these states and UTs also indicates areas that have been deleted and those which have been added, apart from the number of television households to be covered in each case.
The changes have been made on the basis of the list of Urban local Bodies received from Karnataka government.
The list does not contain areas covered in the first two phases.
The list of areas to be covered in Phase III had been issued on 30 April last year.
NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has granted provisional licences to another 12 multi system operators (MSOs) after 1 January, 2016 in a bid to help expedite the implementation of Phase III of digital addressable system (DAS) in all urban areas in the country.
The number of MSOs that have received provisional licences has now gone up to 424, from 412 on 1 January, which had proved lucky for 30 MSOs as they got their provisional licences in a single day. In fact, once again, all the 12 MSOs got their licences on a single day – 12 January. So far, January has seen as many as 42 MSOs getting provisional licences.
An earlier list had put the figure at 382 provisional licensees on 31 December, 2015 the day the analogue signals were to be switched off, showing 45 new MSOs had been added in the last fortnight of 2015.
Adding to the 230 who have 10-year permanent licences, the total number of registered MSOs now goes up to 654.
While the MIB website did not display the number of permanent licensees, indicating that the number remains at 230 as it has remained since 20 November.
With the Home Ministry directive about doing away with security clearances for MSOs not being communicated in writing to the MIB, the pace remains slow.
The new licensees covering 11 states include one MSOs in the northeast for Tripura, but it also includes two MSOs in Tamil Nadu and one in Chhattisgarh where DAS Phase III remains stayed.
The other states covered include states like Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Padesh, and Kerala.
The number of MSOs was 612 on 31 December, 567 in mid-December, 553 by 24 November and 470 earlier in November, but this increase was merely in those who have provisional licences.
Sources said many MSOs holding provisional licences had not completed certain formalities relating to shareholders and so on.
NEW DELHI: Even as almost six states now have received two months’ extension from their respective High Courts to implement Phase III of Digital Addressable System (DAS), the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting granted provisional licences to as many as 30 multi-system operators (MSOs) on New Year’s Day (1 January) in a bid to push cable TV digitisation.
With the new licenses granted, the total number MSOs holding provisional licenses has jumped from 382 to 412 in a single day.
An earlier list had put the figure at 382 provisional licensees on 31 December, the day the analogue signals were to be switched off in Phase III that covers all urban areas in the country, showing 45 new MSOs had been added in the last fortnight of 2015.
Adding to the 230, who have 10-year permanent licences, the total number of registered MSOs now goes up to 642.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry website did not display the number of permanent licensees, indicating that the number remains at 230 as it has remained since 20 November.
But this slow pace is in direct contradiction to the fact that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had nearly seven months earlier announced that it was aiming to do away with security clearances for MSOs.
The new licensees covering 11 states include two MSOs namely Hashmee Cable Network and Vaadi Television, who have got provisional licences in Jammu and Kashmir.
The other MSOs are from states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu where the implementation of DAS Phase III has been extended by varying periods. These are: Yuvaraj Cable and Anantha City Digital Comm. Network from AP; Hi – Tech Communication Network from Telangana; Rainbow Digitech, Sangli Media Communication, World Vision Cable Network, Chikhali Cable Network, Shah Cable Network, Shree Balaji Cable Network, TK Cable Network, Alone Cable Network, Amarnath Cable Network and Creative Cable Network from Maharashtra; and Tiruvannamalai Cable Network and Amoga Digital Netcom from Tamil Nadu.
MSOs who have received licenses from the state of Uttar Pradesh are: Netvision Elegant Networks, V.B Distribution Cable Network, Welcome Cable Network and Jagjeet Cable TV Network; from Rajasthan are: Shekhawati Cable Networks, Om Cable Network, Kankroli Digital Network and Jaisal Cable Vision; and from Chhattisgarh are: CCN Digital Network and Vande Mahamaya Cable Network.
Additionally, one MSO each from MP, Haryana and Karnataka namely Yash Cable Network, ABC News Palwal and RST Digital Media Services respectively received the provisional licenses.
The number of MSOs was 612 on 31 December, 567 in mid-December, 553 by 24 November and 470 earlier in November, but this increase was merely in those who have provisional licences.
Sources said many MSOs holding provisional licences had not completed certain formalities relating to shareholders and so on.
MUMBAI: Amidst huge confusion of how much of the Phase III of Digital Addressable System (DAS) has actually happened on ground, Chrome Data Analytics & Media released extensive data on the status of digitisation.
Chrome Data Analytics founder Pankaj Krishna says, “The government mandated an extended deadline for DAS Phase III to Dec’15; we witness 70.04 per cent of Phase III as digitised – which I feel is decent progress considering the various challenges that digital comes with. Digitisation is imperative; transparency in transactions, subscription and carriage, entry/existence of more niche channels, consolidation of cable networks (more so in 10lac below population strata), increase in retail, regional, geographical level advertising and marketing, increase in viewership of content as well as an increase in e-commerce/e-transactions (broadband connected homes) will increase as a subset of digitalisation.”
In terms of households, Bihar leads the tally with 100 per cent digitisation as per the Chrome analysis. Goa too reached the 100 per cent analysis mark, while Punjab successfully digitised 99 per cent of the Phase III areas.
Telangana, which legally fought its way through to a stay order on DAS, surprisingly has 82.50 per cent of the Phase III areas digitised.
Uttar Pradesh, which has the maximum number of cities in it, has over 30 per cent households yet to be digitised.
Tamil Nadu, which is yet to digitise its Phase III areas, has over 1095 cities in it, while Uttar Pradesh is not far behind with 906 cities.
Moreover, with the unprecedented rains and floods in December last year, Tamil Nadu is yet to start digitising the Phase III areas. Uttarakhand has over 54.32 per cent left to be digitised.
NEW DELHI: Even as the Government claimed total success in the switchover to Phase III of Cable TV Digitisation from today (1 January, 2016), there were reports from various multi system operators (MSOs) in different parts of the country who complained of shortage of set top boxes (STBs).
An MSO in a city that came under Phase II in Madhya Pradesh told Indiantelevision.com that he had received frantic calls from some MSOs wanting STBs.
Similarly, an LCO in Mumbai said that he had received similar calls from other parts of Maharashtra. He claimed that there was just around 50 per cent seeding across the country.
The Hyderabad High Court has already extended the Digital Addressable System (DAS) deadline for two months in Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Meanwhile, the 13th meeting of the Task Force was told on 30 December that more than 75 per cent seeding of STBs had been acomplished.
Describing the progress as “very positive,” an official release today noted that seeding has taken place in most of the notified urban areas with STBs, while the seeding-dark area were only around 400 out of more than 6000 urban areas, many of which had population below 1000 while the rest were in areas having population of less than 5000.
The seeding figures as shared in the meeting indicated a high level of seeding in the country, to the extent of more than 75 per cent, excluding Tamil Nadu where certain legal matters have restricted the process of digitisation. This figure was expected to be higher when all the registered MSOs provide their final figures.
Broadcasters were advised to ensure that no analogue signals are transmitted in Phase III areas after 31 December but without affecting analogue signals in Phase IV areas.
It was unanimously decided at the meeting presided over by Special Secretary J S Mathur that looking to the positive outcome of the Digitisation Phase III exercise and the fact that the notification for the cut-off date for phase III was issued more than a year ago, there was absolutely no requirement for extension of the cut-off date.
The Task Force, where Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) R Jaya and Adviser Yogendra Pal were present, noted that various awareness campaigns, Task Force and MSO sub-group meetings and orientation workshops for the state and district Nodal officers have been held during this period. A multilingual toll free helpline (1800 180 4343) has also been made operational.
NEW DELHI: The Government, which had last month issued an update list of urban areas to be covered during Phase III of the Digital Addressable System (DAS), today issued a fourth list relating to West Bengal.
The list issued on 3 November had related to the urban areas to be covered in seven states and one union territory.
That was in addition to the 16 states for which upgradation had been announced on 16 October.
Around 250 towns have been deleted from the West Bengal list while DAS has been shifted to around 10 other towns in 20 districts in West Bengal. This leaves a total of 1,055,469 TV households to be covered by midnight tonight.
The third updated list had referred to changes in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Telengana, and the Union Territory of Daman & Diu.
Earlier in October, the states and UTs where changes were made are as follows: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Rajasthan, Punjab, Tripura, Uttarakahd, Uttar Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar,and Puducherry.
The updated list with regard to these states and UTs also indicates areas that have been deleted and those which have been added, apart from the number of television households to be covered in each case.
The changes have been made on the basis of the list of Urban local Bodies in West Bengal received from the Joint Secretary, Municipal Affairs Department, West Bengal according to an e-mail of 18 December.
It has been clarified that the list does not contain areas covered in the first two phases.
The list of areas to be covered in Phase III was issued on 30 April this year.
NEW DELHI: Broadcasters have been asked to ensure that signals should not be made available to those multi-system operators (MSOs), who have not received registration from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and who do not provide digital encrypted signals in Digital Addressable System (DAS) Phase III areas from the cut off date of 31 December.
This was conveyed at a meeting convened by the MIB with over 120 MSOs, which was held prior to a meeting of the Task Force over the weekend for the third phase of DAS.
The Ministry has deployed engineers from All India Radio and Doordarshan to inspect the technical set ups of MSOs.
The status of digitisation and stock & supply position of set top boxes (STBs) was also reviewed and all stakeholders were requested to ensure that seeding of STBs is completed in Phase III areas by 31 December so that consumers do not face any difficulty due to stoppage of analogue signals.
In the 12th Task Force meeting held over the weekend presided over by its chairman and Ministry Special Secretary J S Mathur and Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) R Jaya, broadcasters were advised to increase the frequency of publicity on cable TV digitisation and to ensure that it is carried by all the approved TV channels.
While a public awareness campaign is being carried by all stakeholders; the meeting was told that the multilingual Toll Free Helpline and 12 Regional Units are operational.
The government has updated the list of urban areas to be covered in Phase III for 24 States & Union Territories after comments from State/UT Governments.
In response to the concerns raised by some of the stakeholders about delay in signing of interconnection agreements between Broadcasters and some MSOs, it was decided that these MSOs may furnish the details of pending cases to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) by the middle of this month for holding immediate meeting with Broadcasters.
As was earlier reported by Indiantelevision.com, TRAI will hold a meeting with stakeholders on 18 December to iron out any problems in this regard.
In the meeting with MSOs, it was emphasised that MSOs must carry public awareness campaign on cable TV digitisation on their local channels and by distribution of leaflets, holding meetings and putting kiosks etc.
A demo of the MIS system, which has been deployed to collect seeding data of STBs online from all operators, was also made.
MSOs who have not started feeding the seeding data in MIS were advised to start immediately and update it regularly.
It was informed that multilingual Toll Free Telephone Number 1-800-180-4343 to answer queries of stakeholders, including consumers, for seamless transition to digitisation is already operational and they were advised to publicise it.
As was reported earlier, all stakeholders were told categorically that there would be no extension of the deadline for Phase III and analogue signals should be switched off from 1 January, 2016 in all urban areas of the country. The final phase covering the rest of India will be completed by 31 December, 2016.
TRAI had earlier asked all stakeholders to apprise it by 28 October of any problems arising out of finalising agreements amongst various stakeholders.
