ITV

Tag: satellite TV

  • Govt. considering ways to check hoax calls and their sensationalization on electronic media: Rathore

    Govt. considering ways to check hoax calls and their sensationalization on electronic media: Rathore

    New Delhi, 20 March: The Government is examining ways to ensure that hoax calls about planting of bombs etc and sensationalizing of such news by the electronic media can be checked.

    Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said in reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha recently that the matter was ‘under consideration’.

    The question also related to the I and B Ministry planning concrete steps in consultation with the Home Ministry in this regard.

    In response to a similar question relating to anti-India messages on television channels asked in the Lok Sabha, the Minister said action is taken whenever any report is received by the Ministry about any anti-India messages.

    He stressed that programmes and advertisements telecast on private satellite TV channels are governed by the Programme and Advertising Codes prescribed under the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act 1995 and the rules framed thereunder.

    The Act does not provide for pre-censorship of the programmes and advertisements aired on these channels. However, all these channels are required to adhere to the Programme and Advertisement codes which provide for a whole range of parameters to be adhered to for programmes on TV channels.

    Rule 6(1) of the Proqramme Code is clear that no programme should be transmitted/retransmitted on any cable service if it contains attack on religions or communities or visuals or words contemptuous of religious groups or which promote communal attitudes.

  • Govt. considering ways to check hoax calls and their sensationalization on electronic media: Rathore

    Govt. considering ways to check hoax calls and their sensationalization on electronic media: Rathore

    New Delhi, 20 March: The Government is examining ways to ensure that hoax calls about planting of bombs etc and sensationalizing of such news by the electronic media can be checked.

    Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said in reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha recently that the matter was ‘under consideration’.

    The question also related to the I and B Ministry planning concrete steps in consultation with the Home Ministry in this regard.

    In response to a similar question relating to anti-India messages on television channels asked in the Lok Sabha, the Minister said action is taken whenever any report is received by the Ministry about any anti-India messages.

    He stressed that programmes and advertisements telecast on private satellite TV channels are governed by the Programme and Advertising Codes prescribed under the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act 1995 and the rules framed thereunder.

    The Act does not provide for pre-censorship of the programmes and advertisements aired on these channels. However, all these channels are required to adhere to the Programme and Advertisement codes which provide for a whole range of parameters to be adhered to for programmes on TV channels.

    Rule 6(1) of the Proqramme Code is clear that no programme should be transmitted/retransmitted on any cable service if it contains attack on religions or communities or visuals or words contemptuous of religious groups or which promote communal attitudes.

  • Arianespace launches GSAT-15 successfully

    Arianespace launches GSAT-15 successfully

    MUMBAI: At 3:04 this morning, Arianespace’s A5 rocket blasted off from its launch pad in Kouru, French Guiana with its payload of two satellites Arabsat 6B (BADR7) and GSAT-15. The former found its slot in space 27 minutes later, while the latter attained its Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) 43 minutes after launch.  It was a flawless launch on a perfect evening, said officials from ISRO and Arianespace.

     

    India’s satellite control centre at Hasan in Karnataka is in control of the satellite  at the time of writing and maneuvres over the next three days will see it attaining its geo-stationary orbit at 93.5 degrees East. It will be replacing two ageing satellites Insat3A and Insat 4B.

     

    GSAT-15 has 24 Ku-band transponders to serve the needs of DTH and satellite TV operators over India as well as  VSAT operators who provide DSNG operations to news channels. It  also carries the  GPS-Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) payload operating in L1 and L5 bands,  to enable communications for civil aviation and other location-based services.

     

    Speaking from Kouru ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) Director M Annadurai said two other  communication satellites GSAT-17 and GSAT-18 are getting ready for launch by an Ariane vehicle in the next year. “The realisation of both the satellites is in a very advanced stage,” he said.

     

  • Zeel tastes success in satellite TV signals’ theft & piracy; mastermind arrested

    Zeel tastes success in satellite TV signals’ theft & piracy; mastermind arrested

    MUMBAI: In a major relief for Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zeel), Delhi Police acting on FIR No. 243/2014 after carrying out a detailed initial investigations raided premises in Kalyanpur area of Lucknow on 22 May, 2015 and found illegal tapping and unauthorised uploading of live-content of all popular Indian television channels like Zee TV, Star Plus, Colors and Sony TV amongst other on pirated websites.

     

    During the raid, more than two dozen workers were caught red-handed, digitally stealing live feed of Indian pay TV channels using more than 50 DTH and cable TV set-top boxes. These persons were extracting TV feeds, removing watermarks and uploading them on their sites such as www.Desitvforum.net. The websites are being accessed by millions of viewers abroad in USA, Canada, Europe, UK and Netherlands. Thousands of dollars are being illegally earned by the pirates, which in turn is causing a huge amount of loss to broadcasters. In addition, there has also been rampant violation of foreign exchange regulations and money laundering.

     

    The Delhi Police arrested the mastermind of this piracy racket, Md. Asif Siddiqui. Various equipment including computers and other accessories, used in carrying out the piracy and signal theft were also seized.

     

    Investigations in the matter are continuing and more such raids and arrests are likely to follow based on the interrogation of the accused.

     

    Zeel had lodged an FIR no 243/2014 u/s IPC 379/420/465/107/109/120B, u/s 63 Copyright Act 1957 and u/s 66/66C of IT Act 2000 with Delhi Police in Chanakyapuri Police Station for unauthorised streaming of the episodes of various Zee channel programs within 10 to 12 minutes of their actual broadcast. The modus operandi was that in addition to tapping and stealing live feed of various channels from DTH and cable set top boxes, the accused persons within these 10-12 minutes, were recording video, editing identifiable information, adding their logo and uploading it to several servers simultaneously.

     

    This is the first occasion when an internet-pirate has been caught red-handed in India. Normally identifying individual persons and their physical locations behind their pirated sites is very difficult. It took more than a yearlong investigation and digital evidence gathering by Zee’s in-house IT security team to collect irrefutable evidence to identify humans behind the mask of these websites, which were hosted from Sweden.

     

    With the proliferation of Internet enabled devices, the Indian broadcasting industry has been bleeding badly. According to an open-source web-based analytics, this particular group had more than 10 lakh daily viewers and has been earning thousands of dollars every day. The targeted customers were mainly from US, Canada, Europe etc.

     

    With the rapid advent of technology enabling the dissemination of content across digital platforms and web, there are enormous revenue opportunities for broadcasters and other content owners. The Indian channels, which are available in more than 100 countries around the world, are extremely popular amongst the South-Asian diaspora. However, piracy, stealing of signals and their unauthorised transmission and streaming on web has been a major stumbling block in revenue monetization. In fact, broadcasters are losing huge revenue to these pirates.

     

    Unfortunately the provisions of existing laws such as Copyright Act, IT Act 2000 have not proved to be effective in curbing these kinds of new-age crimes as piracy is categorised as a “bailable” offence. In order to effectively deal with the menace of copyright piracy the copyright infringement should be made “non-bailable.”

     

    Similarly, whether signal theft could be regarded as theft of “property” as contemplated under section 379 of IPC also needs to be clarified. The need of the hour is to review these laws and introduce more stringent provisions to deal with such offences so that these provisions may act as an effective deterrent.

  • Indian satellite TV revenues to touch $2.5 billion by 2020: Digital TV Research

    Indian satellite TV revenues to touch $2.5 billion by 2020: Digital TV Research

    NEW DELHI: Satellite TV (DTH or DBS) revenues will overtake total cable TV revenues in 2015, and the growth of digitisation in India will have a major role to play in this.

     

    According to Digital TV Research, India will add the most satellite TV revenues to the tune of $2.5 billion, moving from tenth to fifth place between 2014 and 2020.

     

    India will add $3.2 billion in digital cable TV revenues to take its total to $4.3 billion. India’s revenues will climb by $4.7 billion between 2014 and 2020, with China up by $1.6 billion and Japan increasing by $1.1 billion.

     

    Covering 138 countries, the Digital TV World Revenue Forecasts report estimates that satellite TV accounted for 44 per cent of the total in 2014, going up to 46 per cent by 2020. However, cable TV revenues (both analogue and digital) will drop from 46 per cent of the total in 2014 to 40 per cent in 2020. Meanwhile, IPTV – the fastest growing platform – will climb from a 10 per cent share in 2014 to 13 per cent by 2020.

     

    Satellite TV revenues will reach $94.8 billion in 2020. The United States will remain satellite TV market leader. Brazil will be second by 2020 ($6.8 billion); having overtaken the United Kingdom in 2013. However, the US will fall by $421 million, Canada by $805 million and France by $232 million.

     

    Global cable TV revenues peaked at $93.8 billion in 2012, and will fall to $81.9 billion in 2020. However, cable operators will gain extra revenues by converting subscribers to bundles. Analogue cable TV revenues will plummet by $14.4 billion between 2014 and 2020 to only $1.5 billion.

     

    Digital cable TV revenues will climb by 5.6 per cent from $76.1 billion in 2014 to $80.3 billion in 2020 – or up by nearly $19 billion between 2010 and 2020. Digital cable TV revenues in the US will fall by $8.9 billion between 2014 and 2020 to $34.1 billion. In fact, digital cable TV revenues will drop for 20 countries over the same period. Second-placed China will increase its revenues by $2.1 billion to $8.9 billion and third-placed Japan by $2.0 billion to $5.1 billion.

     

    IPTV revenues will climb to $27.9 billion in 2020; triple the 2010 figure. US IPTV revenues will increase by $1.3 billion between 2014 and 2020 to $9.5 billion, with Canada second with $2.3 billion. Third-placed China will be up by $1.1 billion to $2.1 billion – just ahead of Japan.

     

    Pay-TV revenues will more than double in 33 countries between 2014 and 2020. Most of the fast growing nations by percentage increase will be in Africa, with Myanmar, Laos and Bangladesh providing notable exceptions. India’s revenues will climb by $4.7 billion between 2014 and 2020, with China up by $1.6 billion and Japan increasing by $1.1 billion.

     

    Global pay TV revenues (subscription fees and on-demand movies and TV episodes) will only grow by 2.6 per cent between 2014 and 2020 to $207 billion. This follows 14.5 per cent growth between 2010 and 2014. 

     

    Total revenues in North America will fall by 11.7 per cent (or $12 billion) between 2014 and 2020. Western Europe will be flat at $32 billion.

     

    On a more positive note, revenues will grow by nearly $10 billion (up by 30 per cent) in the Asia Pacific region to $42 billion. Asia Pacific will overtake Western Europe in 2015, and will be larger than the whole of Europe by 2019. Eastern Europe will add $1 billion (up by 17 per cent) between 2014 and 2020. Latin America will add a further $2.6 billion (up by 13 per cent) between 2014 and 2020.

     

    Revenues will rocket by 76 per cent (up by $2.7 billion) in the Sub-Saharan Africa region and by 32 per cent (up by $1.4 billion) in Middle East and North Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa will pass Middle East region in 2018.

  • Digital TV Research forecasts North America to add five million Pay-TV subs by 2020

    Digital TV Research forecasts North America to add five million Pay-TV subs by 2020

    MUMBAI: Digital TV penetration reached 94.2 per cent at the end of 2013, and will increase to 100 per cent by 2017 is the forecast that has been made by Digital TV Research. Of the 17 million digital homes to be added between 2013 and 2020, 5.5 million will come from cable, 5.9 million from IPTV, 4.6 million from DTT and 0.9 million from satellite TV added the research.

     

    Despite a small decline in 2013, the number of pay-TV subscribers in North America is expected to witness a spike, with Digital TV in North America forecasted to make five million additions by 2020.

     

    However, pay-TV penetration is expected to drop from 87 per cent in 2010 to 83.8 per cent by 2020, as pay-TV penetration has peaked in Canada and US subscribers fell slightly in 2013; most of the pay-TV subscriber losses over the last few years have been analogue cable subs. With 18.39 million analogue cable subscribers still prevalent at the end of 2010, the number is expected to fall to 3.75 million by the end of this year.

     

    According to the study, satellite TV is expected to overtake cable to become the largest pay-TV platform revenue generator in 2015. However, satellite TV revenues will increase by only $1.2 billion between 2013 and 2020, to $42.8 billion. Cable revenues will fall by nearly $13 billion in the same period (dropping by $2.5 billion this year alone) the study added.

  • Netflix is gaining popularity over cable among US young adults

    Netflix is gaining popularity over cable among US young adults

    MUMBAI: The statistics portal Statista has revealed in its study that among Americans between the ages of 18 and 36, 46 per cent of paid subscribers choose cable, while 43 per cent are Netflix users.

    This, however, shifts as the demo ages up. Of those ages 37 to 48, 48 per cent subscribe to cable TV and 31 per cent subscribe to Netflix. With respondents 49 to 67, 55 per cent opt for cable and 21 per cent for Netflix.

    Looking at other pay-TV services, with Americans aged 18 to 36, 16 per cent subscribe to satellite TV, 17 per cent to Amazon Prime and eight per cent to Hulu Plus. Satellite TV is more popular with older demos, with 30 per cent of those 37 to 48 subscribing, 28 per cent of those 49 to 67, and 25 per cent of those over age 68. Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus are less popular with older demographics.

    Of Americans ages 37 to 48, 15 per cent said they subscribe to Amazon Prime, and five per cent to Hulu Plus. Among 49-year-olds to 67-year-olds, 10 per cent choose Amazon Prime and three per cent choose Hulu Plus. Amazon Prime has captured only six per cent of the demo 68-plus, according to the survey, and for Hulu Plus, the figure is just a per cent.

  • Netflix is gaining popularity over cable among US young adults

    Netflix is gaining popularity over cable among US young adults

    MUMBAI: The statistics portal Statista has revealed in its study that among Americans between the ages of 18 and 36, 46 per cent of paid subscribers choose cable, while 43 per cent are Netflix users.

    This, however, shifts as the demo ages up. Of those ages 37 to 48, 48 per cent subscribe to cable TV and 31 per cent subscribe to Netflix. With respondents 49 to 67, 55 per cent opt for cable and 21 per cent for Netflix.

    Looking at other pay-TV services, with Americans aged 18 to 36, 16 per cent subscribe to satellite TV, 17 per cent to Amazon Prime and eight per cent to Hulu Plus. Satellite TV is more popular with older demos, with 30 per cent of those 37 to 48 subscribing, 28 per cent of those 49 to 67, and 25 per cent of those over age 68. Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus are less popular with older demographics.

    Of Americans ages 37 to 48, 15 per cent said they subscribe to Amazon Prime, and five per cent to Hulu Plus. Among 49-year-olds to 67-year-olds, 10 per cent choose Amazon Prime and three per cent choose Hulu Plus. Amazon Prime has captured only six per cent of the demo 68-plus, according to the survey, and for Hulu Plus, the figure is just a per cent.

  • Dish to redeem $2.6 bn debt sold in May as Sprint Bid fails

    Dish to redeem $2.6 bn debt sold in May as Sprint Bid fails

    MUMBAI: Dish Network Corp (DISH), the satellite-TV company that abandoned its bid for Sprint Nextel Corp, will redeem $2.6 billion of bonds it issued last month to help fund the planned acquisition.

    The company will redeem on 24 June its $1.25 billion of five per cent bonds due May 2017 at 100 cents on the dollar and its $1.35 billion of 6.25 per cent notes due May 2023 at 101 cents on the dollar, plus accrued and unpaid interest, the Englewood, Colorado-based company said today in a regulatory filing.

    The company was required to redeem the securities if it failed in its bid for Sprint, based on terms of the bond sale completed on 15 May. Investors negotiated during the marketing period to increase the redemption price on the 10-year bonds to 101 cents from par during the first six months.

    The 2017 bonds were quoted as high as 100.5 cents on the dollar to yield 4.87 percent on May 28 before falling to 100 cents, yielding 5 percent, yesterday, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg.

    The 2023 securities were quoted as a low as 99.2 cents to yield 6.36 percent on June 6 before rising to a high of 100.8 cents, yielding 6.14 per cent, on June 19, Bloomberg prices show. They were quoted at 100.5 cents to yield 6.18 per cent yesterday.

  • Subhash Chandra ropes in retail and life style veteran Wadhwa to head Siti Cable

    Subhash Chandra ropes in retail and life style veteran Wadhwa to head Siti Cable

    Mumbai: There’s tremendous promise and potential in Indian cable TV. No one knows this better than Essel group and Zee TV
    chairman Subhash Chandra who floated cable TV firm Siti Cable more than 19 years ago – in the early stages of cable and satellite TV in India.

    And with the Indian cable TV sector now undergoing digitisation under a government mandate, he clearly believes he can take India’s leading MSO to greater heights.

    Today Chandra announced the appointment of V D Wadhwa as CEO of Siti Cable Network. The cable TV network has close to 10 million subscribers nationally. Reaching out to over 10 million viewers.

    As Siti Cable CEO , Wadhwa will be based out of Noida and will be responsible for taking forward the organisational aspirations of growing the business of Siti Cable multifold through digitisation.

    His last assignment was with Timex Group India where he was managing director & CEO for business operations in India and Saarc countries. Wadhwa brings with him over 28 years of general management experience in consumer life style and retail industry and largely credited with the profitable turnaround of Timex operations in India and establishing its retail operations in India and south Asian countries.

    Wadhwa is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and a fellow member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. He has served on various Ficci and Assocham committees besides serving as president of the Horological Federation of India.

    Says Chandra: “We are delighted to have Wadhwa at the helm of Siti Cable. With his strong business acumen and strategic inputs, we expect the company to touch new highs with the aggressive growth plan in the digital regime. I am confident that Wadhwa’s association with the group will add immense value to the Company and all its stake holders.”