ITV

Tag: Press Club

  • TAM’s Blink 2005: Digitisation the next big thing for Television

    TAM’s Blink 2005: Digitisation the next big thing for Television

    MUMBAI:The digital era will set in motion a whole new revolution in the way television content is produced, distributed and consumed.

    “Viewers can have one minute episode of Kyunki on their mobile phones. Fox has already launched one minute mobisodes of TV shows. In India, this kind of compressed content will come sooner rather than later ,” said Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea on Tuesday. He was addressing the last of the Blink Knowledge series on “New Technology and TV Audience Measurement,” organised by Tam Media Research and Press Club, Mumbai.

    Broadcasters will have to improve content and expand reach for the digital era, he added. Media consumption habits will change as the next set of viewers will be able to access media on demand.

    “We have been very slow to react. Technology is working faster than that and will challenge media orthodoxies,” Mukerjea said.

    The delivery mechanism of content is also changing and British Telecommunication (BT) recently announced its intentions of sending video over its phone lines. “We are moving into interactive TV and a digital wireless world,” he added.

    Speaking on the occasion, Tam Media Research CEO LV Krishnan pointed out interesting trends across various channels and markets.
    Some of the key insights pointed out by him were as follows:

    1) With the occurrence of any major disaster/ earthquake, ratings of news channels jump significantly, the Tsunami catastrophe being the record breaker in terms of ratings.

    2) DD Sports cashed in a lot during Olympics on account of Anju Bobby George, particularly in Kerala. A similar trend was also witnessed with Star Sports when Sania Mirza played Serena Williams at the Australian Open, with a chunk of ratings coming from Andhra Pradesh.

    3) Vijay TV which is usually beaten hollow by Sun TV, managed to divert audiences with the airing of dubbed movies like Titanic and Jurrasic Park in Tamil.

    Coming to distribution, he pointed out that Max was a classic case of raising its connectivity to 100 per cent on the back of the World Cup. Promotion and PR were also stated as important factors for increased sampling and TRPs.

     

  • Digital platforms to lead future growth

    Digital platforms to lead future growth

    MUMBAI: The direct-to-home (DTH) market is set for an explosion. Revenues from DTH operations is expected to touch Rs 40 billion in 2010, up from Rs 3.8 billion in 2006.

    Speaking today at the first of a series of interactions between the television industry and media, Dish TV CEO Sunil Khanna said the surge in revenues was based on a projected subscriber base of 11 million, as compared to two million in 2006.

    The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected go up from Rs 200 in 2006 to Rs 300 in 2010. The cable TV penetration would increase from 53 million to 77 million households during this period, Khanna said.

    He was addressing the first of the Blink knowledge series on “DTH and Distribution,”organised by Tam Media Research and Press Club, Mumbai. The other two sessions will be on news channels and regulation of the TV industry, spread over the next two Fridays.

    The entry cost was a major hindrance to the growth of DTH subscribers, Khanna said. But after Dish TV slashed hardware and software prices by half, the offtake has speeded up with 2,000 activations being added dup every ay.

    “We have touched close to 250, 000 subscribers. Earlier we were just adding up 300 subscribers a day,” he said.

    With popular channels from the Star and Sony bouquet not on Dish TV platform, the growth of the DTH platform has been affected. “Some of the popular channels are not available on our platform. The challenge for the regulator is to get the regulations implemented,” Khanna said. DTH operators are now required to give an undertaking that they would not deprive their content to other competing platforms at the time of being issued a licence, he added.

    Dish TV will launch pay-per-view and near video-on-demand (NVoD) by June-end, he said. On the content side, the plan is to offer 150 channels by the end of the year. Currently, Dish TV offers 117 channels to its subscribers.

    Speaking on the opportunities thrown up by digital TV distribution, Win Cable and ETC Networks CEO Jagjit Singh Kohli said the market was on the verge of witnessing revolutionary growth. DTH and digital cable TV have huge potential in India, even though there would be competition from IPTV players like Reliance and Tatas. State-owned telecom operators BSNL and MTNL were also gearing up for the challenge.

    “The traffic of channels is more than the capacity on the analogue cable systems. So digital is the only way forward,” he said.

    But how prepared are the rating measurement agencies? TAM announced that it was technologically ready to meet the new broadcast environment emerging in India and had the capability to measure TV audiences across diverse technology platforms like DTH and broadband. “Irrespective of any delivery platform, TV viewership can be measured through our digital peoplemeters. Our parent company has developed the new digital peoplemeters called TVM 5,” said TAM CEO LV Krishnan.

    The session was also addressed by PanAmSat managing director N Sampath. Satellite & Cable TV editor Dinyar Contractor moderated the session.