ITV

Tag: SET

  • SET-Discovery announces sign-on to Dish TV

    SET-Discovery announces sign-on to Dish TV

    MUMBAI: It’s now official. The Sony-Discovery One Alliance today announced a distribution tie-up with India’s first direct-to-home service Dish TV to carry their channels.

    The announcement confirms the exclusive report put out by Indiantelevision.com last week (7 June) that the two parties had arrived at a memorandum of understanding and the official signing would happen withinin the next few days.

    The official signing of the deal means that all the channels from ‘TheOneAlliance’ bouquet – SET, MAX, Discovery Channel, Ten Sports, SAB, Discovery Travel & Living, AXN, Animax, MTV, PIX, Animal Planet and Nick – will be available on the Dish TV DTH platform by today. Currently, Dish TV carries more than 120 channels and is available across the country.

    Commenting on the tie-up, SET India CEO SET-Discovery chairman Kunal Dasgupta said, “We expect significant growth in the subscriber base for Dish TV and for the DTH market in India due to this tie-up between SET Discovery and Dish TV.”

    “We welcome the SET Discovery channels on Dish TV. We have been growing at a healthy rate in the last year and the addition of ‘TheOneAlliance’ bouquet of channels will enable us to offer our customers a complete family package at affordable prices.” said Dish TV CEO Sunil Khanna.

    Elaborating on the SET Discovery – Dish TV tie-up, Deepak Shourie, EVP & MD, Discovery Networks India and Director, SET Discovery said, “We are extremely pleased with this arrangement as we believe that it would enhance a Dish TV consumer’s television viewing experience and take it to a new level.”

  • OpenTV to offer advanced digital television solutions to Time Warner Cable

    OpenTV to offer advanced digital television solutions to Time Warner Cable

    MUMBAI: OpenTV Corp. a provider of enabling technologies for advanced digital television services has announced a multi-year license agreement with Time Warner Cable to deploy the cable operator’s digital navigator on the Open TV platform.

    The Time Warner Cable digital navigator will enhance existing programme guides, facilitate cross platform integrated services and speed to market new product introductions on the company’s Motorola set-top boxes.

    Additionally, OpenTV’s Core 2.0 software and related interactive television services will be available to Time Warner Cable divisions running Motorola equipment for deployment.

    This licensing agreement represents the first US cable deployment of OpenTV’s advanced digital solutions and applications, informs an official release.

    Initial launch of OpenTV’s solutions is expected in late 2006 on Time Warner Cable’s Motorola set-top boxes, ranging from the DCT-2000 to more full-featured Motorola set-top boxes. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

    OpenTV will provide its Core 2.0 set-top software, interactive applications, and infrastructure systems for application delivery, set-top messaging, and advanced two-way communications.

    As part of the deal, OpenTV has agreed to make available a variety of interactive applications for Time Warner Cable’s use, and expects to write additional applications for the OpenTV platform, OCAP, and other platforms that Time Warner Cable introduces within its Divisions.

    “This deal marks a historic milestone for OpenTV and the culmination of many years of work,” said OpenTV CEO James A.Chiddix. “Gaining a strong foothold in the U.S. cable market has long been a goal of OpenTV, and with an anchor customer like Time Warner Cable we now have a firm foundation from which to continue extending and enhancing our solutions and services as digital television moves ahead in the market. We look forward to fostering this new relationship with Time Warner Cable and furthering its commitment in delivering choice, quality, and value to its subscribers with the most advanced digital television services.”

  • AXN’s Calcutta switchoff: Sony’s viewpoint

    AXN’s Calcutta switchoff: Sony’s viewpoint

    Sony Entertainment Television (SET) has denied that Calcutta-based cable TV operator RPG Netcom has switched off AXN, a channel it distributes in India, a claim the MSO had made a couple of days ago. RPG had claimed that it had pulled the plug on AXN because SET was asking it to pay higher subscription fees to continue re-transmitting the service to its sub-operators. SET COO Rajesh Pant says this is untrue and that it was actually Sony, which had switched off the cable operator’s signal and not the other way around. Says Pant: “There isn’t even a price hike for AXN. What we are asking them to do is pay us for a higher subscriber base than they have been doing so up to now. We are asking for higher subscriber counts. We had given them some notice but they were not interested so we switched them off.”

    He however is quick to add. “We are not in a fighting situation with them as of now. I expect the entire situation to get resolved very amicably across the table. Give it time.”

    Pant says the channel is doing fine having achieved a penetration of 2.5 million subscribers. “The actual figure is actually 11-12 million because cable ops actually declare only 20-30 per cent of their subscriber base. We are reasonably happy with out collections from the cable TV trade. I am sure cable operators and consumers see value in the service, hence we are asking them to give us fees for a larger number of subscribers.”

  • CAS Rollout Could Provide Huge Push for DTH Operators as Well

    In business as in life, timing is everything. And despite all the expected noises from the government (state elections are due in Kolkata after all) and the broadcasters (re-dusting the same arguments against CAS that they offered in 2003), one lot who might not be so peeved by the developments are the DTH operators.

     

    IF, the CAS Dwitya rollout saga doesn’t get derailed again by the usual suspects, we have quite an interesting proposition that is on offer for the consumer. Tata Sky is quietly preparing its launch schedule and would more than likely advance its timelines if there is a definite direction from the powers that be that CAS is really going to take off.

     

    In the meantime Dish TV, at present the only existing private sector DTH service provider, would be expected to sort out programming contracts with SET Discovery before that and any and all contentious issues with the Star Network at least by the time Tata Sky launches.

     

    One could ask why is the CAS rollout timeline critical here? After all DTH retains the advantage of having a national footprint while CAS will be limited to the three metros in the first phase.

     

    There is of course Chennai, which is already under the CAS regime but that should be kept out of this debate. Why? Because despite SET India CEO Kunal Dasgupta’s comment on “the CAS experience in Chennai not having been a happy one” the fact remains that the biggest reason that set top uptake did not happen was because the channel that is most critical in the Tamil viewer’s scheme of things – Sun TV (and others of its ilk) – is available in the FTA package so there was and still is no compelling enough reason to invest in one.

     

    Coming back to the main discussion, crucial to our premise is the staggered rollout of the addressable system of transmission of pay channels that had been notified in 2003.

     

    As per the notification, each of the three metro cities (Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata) would be divided into four zones. Within a one-month time frame, in Zone A in each metro, pay channels can be watched only with the use of STBs. From the second month onwards, CAS will take effect in Zone B in each metro. And so it follows in Zone C from the third month onwards and Zone D from the fourth month onwards.

     

    For the government, there are two choices — implement the court order or appeal. For the purposes of this argument we are going with the implement premise.

     

    The court instituted deadline for CAS rollout is 10 April. Therefore, the government after due consideration would be expected issue its fresh updated notification on 10 April that within a month all pay channels in Zone A would have to be delivered through a set top i.e deadline for Zone A to be “set top compliant” 10 May. Taking that timeline forward, Zone B’s deadline would be 10 may, Zone C 10 June and Zone D 10 July.

     

    IF Tata Sky can launch by 10 April then it, along with Dish TV will be able to go to the consumer with their individual offerings as possible alternatives to cable delivered addressability. What is critical here is that the consumer is COMPELLED to take a set top box if he wants to get his daily fix of Star Plus or HBO (whatever the case may be). Since the set top is a given the only issue is which service he / she selects.

     

    It will all then come down to which of the three alternatives is the best as per consumer understanding. Who offers the best deal, who is perceived as being capable of delivering the best in terms of technological quality and viewer experience at the most competitive cost?

     

    We believe that of critical importance here will also be the perceptions and prejudices that are attached to the service providers. These issues could well guide choices if all other parameters remain basically the same.

     

    What we could see is more “sophisticated” Zone A consumers opting for the DTH option while the skew could well be towards the more familiar “cablewallahs” in Zone D for example. Whichever way the skew swings, STBs will move. That ultimately is what all the players in the digital delivery game want.

     

    A moot point though is this. IF the CAS rollout does go forward as per the Delhi High Court ordered schedule and IF there is a huge uptake of set top boxes (digital cable or DTH), one big loser could potentially be Anil Ambani’s Reliance, which is neither ready with its IPTV nor its DTH offering. Once there are a large number of boxes out in the market, to get consumers to make the switch to something else would take twice the effort.

  • CAS Ruling: MSOs now have the ammo to take on DTH

    CAS Ruling: MSOs now have the ammo to take on DTH

    It was one piece of news that cable TV networks were waiting to hear for long, too long in actual fact!

     

    Buffeted by potential competition from direct-to-home (DTH) operators, the timing of the Delhi High Court ruling that has ordered the government to enforce the rollout of conditional access system (CAS) in India within four weeks couldn’t have been more crucial. Tata Sky is preparing to launch in June and Dish TV, at present the only existing private sector DTH service provider, is expected to sort out programming contracts with Star India and SET Discovery by then.

     

    Cable TV can take DTH head on with its digital service. It has the firepower to do so, having built a rich battery of last mile operators (LMOs) who have serviced consumers over the years.

     

    Firstly, it can cobble together more channels than DTH can offer at the initial stage when the consumer is making the shift from analogue to digital. Already, some MSOs are making available a little under 150 TV channels. DTH operators, on the other hand, are limited by transponder space on satellite and can only ramp up under MPEG-4 compression technology.

     

    Second, cable TV can bundle broadband and, with preparation in future, telephony services.

     

    Third, it can develop interactive features with its fibre network.

     

    Fourth, it has manpower in place which can be quickly energised to push digital set-top boxes (STBs).

     

    Sure, MSOs and independent operators would have preferred the courts to have come up with the same verdict much earlier, after the government withdrew CAS in 2004. That would have given them a first mover advantage with a considerable time lag before DTH could kickstart operations.

     

    But there was one issue which had still to be sorted out for an effective rollout: LMOs felt insecure and did not back the rollout of digital cable. With competition from DTH looming large, they now have the support of their franchisee operators.

     

    But what if the verdict on CAS had come after Tata Sky’s launch and Dish TV’s content contracts had been stitched with Star and Sony? Cable TV operators would have been able to fight against DTH with two weapons in their armoury – analogue cable and voluntary digitalisation. On analogue cable, operators have the flexibility of dropping subscription fees drastically. With a price warrior in place through analogue service, digital cable could offer an alternate choice to consumers to combat DTH head on. On the flip side, the digital service would still remain unaddressable while DTH could provide consumers the choice of selecting channels and packages they want to pay for.

     

    Under CAS, cable operators do not have the flexibility of delivering pay channels on their analogue network. Consumers will have to select between DTH and digital cable for receiving these channels. They will, in other words, have to buy either a DTH or a cable TV set-top box.

     

    But delaying the direct knock-to-knock face-off between cable and DTH operators hardly serves any purpose. The business model for MSOs and independent operators can only get worse if no CAS is in place. Because the way out to stop DTH from invading into cable territory without a properly tiered and price-packaged digital service would have been possible only through rate drops. While LMOs would have been unaffected, the MSOs would have felt the pinch.

     

    Retooling business strategies and organising the sector is in the commercial interest of the cable operators. The hour has come to change the mindset and bring in quality and service-oriented practices. It will be meaningless to wish away competition from DTH and later IPTV providers.

     

    Several networks already have a stockpile of digital STBs. So far, they have been unable to place these boxes in consumer homes. Even Hathway Cable & Datacom, the more aggressive of the digital cable TV players, claims it has managed to distribute just 40,000 boxes. It would do better for operators to take a more positive view: that with CAS, digitalisation, either through cable or DTH or IPTV, would move faster.

     

    After all, the market is too big and diverse for any single player to cover it all.

     

    Ensuring a ramp up in supply of boxes, erecting a solid encryption system, and having a sound billing mechanism should be the focus areas. Also, it is crucial for operators to find more, better and premium content which can lure customers. They will also have to work out rental schemes and low up-front charges to subsidise the boxes in order to stay competitive with DTH.

     

    Another hard lesson to be learnt from this is that investments on old technologies won’t help. For those who have put their money on analogue STBs, the chances of surviving the battle look grim. Yes, there is a market for free-to-air analogue service. But no, not for analogue STBs as that will limit the channel offerings at a time when supply is growing rapidly.

     

    There will be competitive pressure for cable operators to upgrade their networks and services. Territorial monopolies will end and cable operators will also have to fight amongst themselves for retaining or acquiring subscribers.

     

    DTH, of course, retains one advantage. It has a national footprint while CAS is limited to the four metros in the first phase. This will give DTH economies of scale, but then it will still face the big hurdle of drawing in consumers to buy a box in the non-CAS areas.

     

    By bringing in CAS, the MSOs realise the entire business model changes in favour of them. Gaining control over the entire value chain across the network and having an addressable system will pump up valuation of cable companies and draw in global investors.

     

    The green signal on CAS couldn’t have come at a riper time. If there is any year which can drive digitalisation forward, this is it. In June-July, ESPN Star Sports will show live the football World Cup. The other key properties on the roster are ICC cricket Champions Trophy in September and the cricket World Cup early 2007 (both events on Sony).

  • Will the new scripted dramas make an impact?

    Will the new scripted dramas make an impact?

    After two years, finally, some light ahead on the narrative television sightscreen? Hindi entertainment certainly needs it. 24 April will witness the launch of five new scripted dramas across the GEC channels, with three other prime time shows subsequently lining up for launch during this April-May phase.

     

    The K-shows continue to have a clamp on share of audience, but on share of mind, it has been the reality and gameshow genres that have held sway since 2004
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    One would really hope that some of these offerings hit bulls eye since it’s been a while since scripted drama got front row mindspace on Hindi entertainment television. It was way back then, in September 2003 to be precise, that narrative entertainment made headlines and IMPACT when Star Plus’ Kahiin To Hoga and Sony Entertainment’s Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin debuted almost simultaneously on the small screen.

     

    What of Balaji’s K-serials, one might ask? True, the K-shows (let’s not forget Kahiin To Hoga is one as well but it is different) continue to have a clamp on share of audience, but if one were to look at a share of mind + audience combo, it has been the reality and gameshow genres that have held sway since 2004.

     

    If end-2004 and beginning 2005 belonged to SET’s Indian Idol, the second half of 2005 belonged to Star Plus’ KBC2 and Star One’s Nache Baliye and The Great Indian Laughter Challenge (TGILC), with Zee TV’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge also making a year-end splash.

     

    Barely have the viewers gathered their collective breaths on these shows, we’re already into Star One’s TGILC 2, Sony’s Fear Factor India and Zee’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Ek Main Aur Ek Tu.

     

    It is pertinent to note that even Star, which has had by far the most success on its narrative offerings, would have reported a rather flat year had it not been for the success that KBC2, TGILC and Nache Baliye provided.

     

    Now coming back to the narrative tale, it has happened abroad, with scripted drama making a grand comeback thanks in particular to extremely strong and successful worldwide successes such as Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Lost.

     

    Star, which has had by far the most success on its narrative offerings, would have reported a rather flat year had it not been for the success that ‘KBC2’, ‘TGILC’ and ‘Nache Baliye’ provided
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    In India meanwhile, it is refreshing therefore, to know that in the middle of all this format overdose, Zee TV has been able to build a scripted success in Saath Phere – Saloni ka Safar (not your regular saas-bahu weepy) that rode beyond the spike provided by Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge. That is critical if such efforts are to get acceptance. Because while mind share is fine, the brutal truth is that the moolah is in audience share.

     

    To quote Star Entertainment India CEO Sameer Nair: “Going by the theory, ‘People watch programmes and not channels,’ you require really strong magnetic programming to be successful. TV programmes and channels are going to further focus on the differentiation.”

     

    More power to the drama is what we say. And since so much of television in India gets its cues from cinema, here’s hoping that the box office success of offerings as different and diverse as Rang De Basanti, Malaamal Weekly and Being Cyrus is reflected on the small screen as well with the new shows that are set to debut. And those which follow.

  • SET targets the serious viewer with ‘ACHANAK’ and ‘PAR IS DIL KO KAISE SAMJAYE’

    SET targets the serious viewer with ‘ACHANAK’ and ‘PAR IS DIL KO KAISE SAMJAYE’

    Sony has set its sights on leading prime time ratings every Friday with innovative fare. To this effect it has announced the launch of two shows aimed at having a dramatic effect on the audience.

    The first one is a weekly supernatural show with a difference. Achanak the brainchild of writer Shridhar Raghavan will air every Friday at 10:30 pm starting from 22 March. It has the tagline 37 saal baad.

    Speaking on this Director On Air Programming SET Anupama Mandloi said, ” The name grabs your imagination. This is a psychological thriller. It is like reading a novel on television. The show is built on a solid foundation a great script. It is representative of the faith the channel and the producers have in taking this genre a step further. Most importantly it is created by a team which understands this genre and where its appeal lies for the viewer”.

    The producers of the show are Pradeep Uppoor and Neo Films. They together with Sridhar have worked on Aahat and CID for the channel. Like Achanak both of them had a lot of suspense. A serial from Pradeep Uppoor and Neo Films Srikant was shown on Doordarshan and Channel 4.

    Speaking about the project Shridhar Raghavan said, ” Achanak started off a few years ago as a slightly wild outrageous notion, a set of unlinked fragments of ideas. What if you went home and your parents did not know who you were? What if you were happily married and someone from your past told you that it was nothing more than a hallucination?

    Achanak is a battle royal between good and evil. But its a long fight, a tough fight mostly a losing fight for good. Good eventually wins over evil but it gets one hell of a bloody nose before it does. Or does it?”

    Shridhar also envisioned the setting which is the town of Gahota as a twisted version autHor R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi. He sees the project as something unlike anything seen on Indian television. It is weird, bizarre and outrageous with a complex undercurrent running through it.

    In the deceptively calm town of Gahota over the past couple of months something evil has been occuring. Murders, suicides and acts of madness have been taking place. An alchoholic journalist Dipankar travels to Gahota believing that he has the explanation for why crimes are committed in the town once every thirty seven years for a period of three months. Once the turbulent period has passed people cannot recollect what happened.

    The producers built a real town in Panvel not just a TV serial set. a town square, clock tower, residential areas etc were created.

    Regarding casting decisions Shridhar said that some important members do not appear until half the episodes are completed. Also some characters have a touch of eccentricity to them like a professor whose stance shifts with each encounter. There is a hint of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde waging a war within the characters. He also revealed that one of the central protagonists will appear only in the final act. Cast members include Raj Zutshi, Faraaz Khan and Shishir Sharma.

    He pointed out the differences between Achanak and Aahat. Aahat was episodic involving a single continous story. Aahat dealt with big issues concentrating more on pace as opposed to plot. Achanak on the other hand is about small things. It is about how decption can hide underneath a sea of normality. It also deals with the thin line that separates sanity and insanity, light and dark, good and evil.

    The second new weekly show on SET is called Par Is Dil Ko Kaise Samjaye. It premiers on 29 March at 8:30pm. It deals with how the relationship between two sisters gets affected by a series of accidents brought about through sheer fate.

    A woman loses her sister and husband. For companionship and to support her sisters offspring she marries her brother in law. However later on it turns out that her sister survived the accident. Now both of them are married ot the same man. The show is directed by Imtiyaz Punjabi and stars Raj S Verma, Shweta Salve and Pooja Ghai.