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Tag: Siti Network

  • Siti Network content and carriage GM Rajesh Sharma succumbs to Covid

    Siti Network content and carriage GM Rajesh Sharma succumbs to Covid

    Kolkata: Ever since the pandemic broke, cable operators have been working on the frontlines to ensure uninterrupted cable TV and broadband service across the country. Several of them have battled the infection and the challenges that came along with it, while others succumbed.

    On Monday, another cable operator lost his life to Covid. Siti Network content and carriage GM Rajesh Sharma succumbed to the disease. He was 42 and survived by his wife and two sons in Delhi.

    According to his colleagues, Sharma was loved by everyone in the office for his lively presence. He was promoted to his current position last year during the pandemic. “He was a kind human being, always helpful. He was cooperative, and everyone liked him in the organisation. Unfortunately, we have lost him at such a young age. He had a long career in front of him,” said Siti Networks CEO Anil Malhotra as he condoled his demise.

    India is battling the worst-ever health crisis, with the second wave of Covid-19 taking a heavy toll on people across the states. On Monday, the country recorded as many as 2.22 lakh new cases, which is lowest since 15 April. India has lost 4,454 lives to the deadly virus during the last 24 hours and the death toll has surpassed the three lakh mark, making India the only country after the US and Brazil to record over three lakh fatalities. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra remain the most impacted, with the highest number of new infections.

  • Filamchi will now be available on Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, GTPL, SITI – ICNCL & SITI Network

    Filamchi will now be available on Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, GTPL, SITI – ICNCL & SITI Network

    strategic alliance with leading Direct-To-Home (DTH) and leading cable service providers in the country. Under these new partnerships, the premium Bhojpuri channel on boards Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, GTPL and SITI – ICNCL & SITI Network, giving users of the respective platforms access to the channel’s exciting movie library.

    Filamchi can now be watched on Tata Sky at channel number 1114, on Airtel Digital TV at channel number 665, on GTPL Hathway at channel number 277, on SITI (ICNCL) at channel number 219 and on SITI Network at channel number 453. The pay channel can be subscribed for a nominal charge of Rs. 0.25 (excluding taxes) across platforms. Filamchi is also available on Darsh Digital at channel number 187.

    Targeted towards the Bhojpuri speaking audiences in the country, Filamchi brings a vast range of titles across genres to entertain and engage diverse movie buffs. The channel hosts an extensive collection of Bhojpuri films, including blockbusters featuring the industry’s biggest superstars Nirahua, Khesari Lal Yadav, Pawan Singh, Arvind Akela, Yash Mishra, Chintu Pandey, and legends like Ravi Kishan and Manoj Tiwari.

    Commenting on the recent partnerships, Filamchi   strategy VP  Tarun Talreja said,“Filamchi was designed to be accessible to Bhojpuri fans across the country through a robust distribution plan. Partnering with two of the leading DTH service providers, Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV, and leading cable service providers GTPL and ICNCL, augments our reach strategy, enabling us to bring our latest offering to a wide base of audiences in the country.”

    Apart from Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, GTPL and SITI – ICNCL and SITI Network, Filamchi is available on leading multi-system operators in Bihar and Jharkhand. 

  • Inside SITI Networks’ effort to grapple with COVID-19 crisis

    Inside SITI Networks’ effort to grapple with COVID-19 crisis

    MUMBAI: All of a sudden, our normal life has gone for a toss with the mandatory stay-at-home in place in order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. As all physical options of communication, entertainment are now out of reach, traditional TV, online content, and the internet have emerged as a boon. Government has also declared cable TV and broadband a part of essential services during this time.

    SITI Network’s business continuity plan:

    Quickly grasping this situation and the importance of maintaining its services, as an effort to keep customers at home, SITI Networks has been working with its partners and governmental agencies to ensure that “the show must go on”. Its employees have upped the ante and are striving to ensure that customers’ connectivity remains intact so that they can remain at home. Multiple teams of technically trained and dedicated personnel are continuously working at the grassroots level to deal with any inconvenience to ensure that digital TV and broadband run smoothly for SITI’s 45 million customers. All this is happening despite not having full support from local administrations.

    SITI even released a best practice guide for its customers and partners on the SITI Information Channel 999 on its network. This guide informs customers on how to keep their connectivity running while keeping social distancing. SITI has also made available the option of Quick Recharge on its website www.sitinetworks.com, for the convenience of the customers. Through this, customers can recharge their account by sitting at home and without contacting LCO. The MSO has shared an educational video also with its consumers.

    SITI Networks CEO Anil Malhotra said: “We are in this fight, and have to ensure that our customers stay at home. In the words of our Dr Subhash Chandra, this will be our national service. In this battle, SITI employees strive to keep people stay indoors by providing them entertainment and information of their choice and preferences at home. The entire team is engaged to run the services smoothly. Our teams are maintaining the chain by their sheer willpower so that the Corona virus chain can be broken”.

  • Suresh Kumar Arora appointed as whole time director of Siti Networks

    Suresh Kumar Arora appointed as whole time director of Siti Networks

    MUMBAI: Siti Networks Ltd has appointed Suresh Kumar Arora, who was non-executive non-independent director, as a whole time director of the company with effect from 14 June 2019.

    The appointments have been done on the basis of recommendations of Nomination and Remuneration Committee, confirming that Arora is not debarred from holding the office of director pursuant to any SEBI order or any other authority.

    Arora has experience of about 34 years in various fields and in particular finance and accounts, export/import procedures and documentation and sales and marketing. His last assignment was with Pan India Network Ltd (PINL) at a senior position in sales and marketing department.

    PINL is an Essel Group Company and is engaged in the business operations of Online/Paper Lottery in the state of Punjab. Arora has successfully created a strong network of channel partners – about 50 distributors and 3000 plus retail outlets. PINL was present in almost each and every city of Punjab. During his tenure with PINL, he got the opportunity to interact and coordinate with the senior officials of the Punjab government.

  • Broadband on cable fibre declining?

    Broadband on cable fibre declining?

    BENGALURU: Is broadband on cable fibre on the decline in India? Results over the past few quarters of some of the multisystem operators or MSOs seem to indicate just that. Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani’s largest start up in the world Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (JIO) is the one of the biggest upheavals that has happened in the Indian telecommunications ecosystem ever. With its operations of scale and low cost services, there just does not seem to be a better bet for the prudent Indian internet user. What is missing is quality of services, but, then that is the case also with all the major mobile  and internet service providers in India, be it an Airtel or a Jio or a Vodafone or the public sector BSNL and MTNL.

    Wired broadband internet subscriber numbers have been declining, while wireless broadband internet subscribers have been growing according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data. Among the top five wired internet services providers in India, BSNL and MTNL have been slowly and steadily losing subscribers. However, the overall loss of wired broadband subscribers is higher than the numbers bled by these two public sector behemoths. Subscription numbers of the other three players in Trai’s top five wired broadband internet service providers list such as Bharti Airtel, ACT and Hathway have been either increasing slowly or have been steady month-on-month in calendar year 2018 according to Trai data. MSOs and LCOs are among the other wired internet service providers in the country. Financial numbers released by major and other MSO and wired internet service providers such as Siti Networks, Den or Ortel indicate lower revenues from their respective broadband segments, implying either loss of subscribers or lower ARPU due to competitive pricing or both.

    Is the laying of fibre cable or FTTH (fibre to the home) that Jio has planned to provide broadband internet services to the doorstep out the right way forward? Anything that Reliance does will be on a huge scale. However, why not pause and limit the size of Jio’s FTTH plans and then leapfrog and start offering 5G services? 5G is a wireless service to the user’s door and needs no messy holes or wires for access into the user’s home. All that is needed by the user is a modem that works like a wireless modem.

    Affordable 5G services could effectively change how a user receives internet and related services. It’s not going to be easy and will require a huge amount of capital for the infrastructure for line of sight transmission in crowded cities, etc. But, already players such as AT&T and Verizon in the US have planned a slow but steady rollout of 5G services in the US. One the US majors will roll 5G services first in four cities by the end of 2018 and then across the US over time. Players in the US are planning to bundle 5G services with offers such as free Youtube.com TV and Apple TV 4K for a limited period of time. Jio has the resources, the wherewithal to do so.

    Of course 5G could be even more bad news for the current Indian cable TV ecosystem’s wired broadband offerings, maybe even the current Indian media and entertainment ecosystem, but could be a huge beneficial and cost effective game changer for the user. Using the cliché, change is the only constant, well maybe the entire ecosystem that brings entertainment to the common Indian does need a huge shakeup?

  • Siti reports improved numbers for Q1

    Siti reports improved numbers for Q1

    BENGALURU: Backed by higher subscription revenue and a 93 percent collection efficiency, Indian multi-systems operator (MSO) Siti Networks Limited (Siti) posted 146 percent higher operating profit (EBITDA) for the quarter ended 30 June 2018 (Q1 2019, quarter or period under review) as compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year Q1 2018. The company says that collection efficiency in July 2018 has increased to 97 percent. For the immediate trailing quarter (Q4 2018), the MSO had reported a collection efficiency of 95 percent.

    Siti’s operating profit (without considering activation charges) for Q1 2019 increased to Rs 54.9 crore as compared to Rs 22.3 crore in Q1 2018. The company attributes the growth in EBIDTA to a 26.3 percent surge in subscription revenue to Rs 214.9 crore in Q1 2019. EBITDA including activation declined 24.1 percent during the period under review to Rs 76.71 crore from Rs 101.01 crore in Q1 2019.

    Total comprehensive loss (TCL) for the period was higher at Rs 56.96 crore as compared to Rs 15.19 crore in corresponding quarter of the previous year. However, on quarter on quarter basis Rs.70 Cr has gone down to Rs.57 Cr, an improvement of 18.8 per cent. It must be noted that all numbers mentioned in this report are consolidated unless stated otherwise.

    Siti’s consolidated total income in Q1 2019 was Rs 352.45 crore as compared to Rs 371.11 crore in Q1 2018. Consolidated operating revenue in Q1 2019 was Rs 350.05 crore as compared to Rs 364.96 crore in Q1 2018.

    The MSO says that it has added 3.5 lakh (0.35 million, 0.035 crore) digital subscribers in Q1 2019 and has reached a 117 lakh (11.7 million, 1.17 crore) active digital subscriber base. Siti had added 31 lakh (3.1 million, 0.31 crore) digital subscribers in fiscal 2018 (year ended 31 March 2018) It claims to have added 40,000 new HD subscribers to reach a HD subscriber base of 3.56 lakh (0.356 million, 0.0356 crore) during the period under review.

    Let us look at the other numbers reported by Siti

    Siti’s consolidated total expenditure (TE) increased 10 percent in Q1 2019 to Rs
    406.72 crore from Rs 369.52 crore in Q1 2018. Carriage sharing, pay channels and related costs in Q1 2019 increased 5.4 percent to Rs 164.46 crore from Rs 156.06 crore in Q1 2018. Employee benefit expense during the quarter under review reduced 12.9 percent to Rs 20.41 crore from Rs 23.45 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Other expense in Q1 2019 increased 3.5 percent to Rs 87.10 crore from Rs 84.18 crore in Q1 2018.

    Company speak

    Siti chief business transformation officer Rajesh Sethi said, “Siti had a great start to FY 2019 with strong improvement in all operational metrics. Our ‘Customer First’ strategy helped drive superlative 146 percent EBITDA growth coupled with expansion of 892 bps in the margins. While we increased our subscription revenue by nearly 26 percent year on year, we have further initiated an ARPU increase program and the results will be visible in the coming quarters. With the New Tariff Order Notification, we are well positioned to move to the new regime. Our systems and processes are ready for the seismic transformations of the last mile operations. In FY 2019 we plan to drive efficiencies along with solid EBITDA and margins growth, in line with our core strategy of profitable and sustainable growth.”

  • SITI Networks’ transformation begins with slashing of bloated workforce

    SITI Networks’ transformation begins with slashing of bloated workforce

    MUMBAI: The breeze of change is being felt at the Essel Group-owned SITI Networks. Work is on to claw the 13-million subscriber base strong MSO – which has estimated accumulated losses of Rs 650-odd million – back to profitability. And, the Essel group chairman Subhash Chandra is relying on the chief transformation officer Rajesh Sethi to do the job.

    According to an industry observer: “All the major publicly-listed MSOs have to spruce up and streamline their operations keeping in mind the digitisation of cable TV.  Almost all the companies’ financials are in a bit of a mess. Some more, some less. Siti Networks is no different. Hence, Sethi has his task cut out for him.”

    The SITI Networks scrip  – like other listed cable TV companies – has been languishing at its lowest – somewhere in the Rs 22-25 range, after reaching a 52 week high of Rs 41.35, and in the Rs 30 range for the past two years.

    Amongst the first things Sethi decided to do after agreeing to take up Subash Chandra’s challenge is making presentations to investors overseas, admitting that mistakes have happened in the past, assuring them that  he is seeking  to rectify them with the backing of the promoters.

    “Subhashji is very passionate about TV distribution and he wants to really get the company on track,” says Sethi.

    Sethi has earned his stripes by building Ten Sports as a brand (before the Goel family finally sold its sports TV channel network to Sony earlier this year), and later  looking after the distribution of the Zee group channels. He was then asked to take over SITI Networks’ management  as CEO & ED but he preferred the title of chief transformation officer.

    Sethi has been instrumental in roping back former Airtel hand Sanjay Berry as chief financial officer, who rejoined the company on 1 September. Berry had joined SITI Networks  for a brief stint of three months earlier this year.

    “We are committed to getting things in order,” says Sethi. “It will take time, but we will do it. People, processes and product are what we are focusing on.”

    Sethi has spent the past few months reviewing SITI Networks’ operations. And  his discovery was that the company had a bloated workforce: 3,500 employees, and 500 field offices – 22 in Delhi alone.

    Hence, last week, he wielded the axe on headcount. Close to 670 employees were issued pink slips, with three months severance pay.  Almost 100 of those asked to go were in administration. “Cost-cutting is imperative,” says Sethi. “These were people who were hired over the years, and they were there.”

    Sethi points out that he has retained most of the sales force of SITI Network. “We have to keep the money coming in,” he says, with a smile.

    What next? “Get the basics of business right. And, take up initiatives that bring in revenue,” he says.

    That should give  a lot more confidence to SITI Networks’ shareholders and investors.

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  • Siti Network looks to raise $100 million

    Siti Network looks to raise $100 million

    MUMBAI: Essel group multisystem operator (MSO) Siti Network has plans to raise $100 million through an issue of securities and/or equity related instruments.  The company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that  it  needs the money to fund its operations. It has an ambitious plan to further expand its footprint in the cable TV  and broadband landscape in India as DAS progresses into its last phase.

    Siti Network said it had got an in-principle board approval to raise the money taking the equity or equity related instrument route through a qualified institutional placement (QIP)/external commercial borrowings (ECBs) with rights of conversion into equity shares, foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs),  American Depository Receipts (ADRs), global  depository receipts
    (GDRs) or any other securities convertible into or exchangeable for equity shares or securities linked to equity shares.

    The company’s board of directors approved the fund raising and other  proposals at its meeting held on 26 August. 

    Siti Network further stated that as per a family  arrangement  agreed between the  promoter  group, communication has been received from Dr Subhash Chandra, Jawahar Lal Goel, Laxmi Narain Goel and Ashok Kumar Goel to  declassify the three mentioned along with their respective family  members as promoters of the company in terms of Regulation 31A of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015.

    The board decisions will take effect after necessary corporate and regulatory approvals are obtained.

    This is not first time that the company is raising funds. In October 2014, the company’s shareholders had approved raising up to $100 million by passing a special resolution through postal ballot.  However, against this, it made a QIP issue not exceeding Rs 250 crore; of which it received a subscription for Rs 221.11 crore at a price of Rs 35 per Re 1 share. 

    Then earlier this year, it received promoter funding to the tune of Rs  Rs 530 crore. Most of it was used to pare down its debt, while a minority portion was used for acquisition, including bigger stakes in associate companies and joint venture partners. 

    ALSO READ: 

    Siticable partners dittoTV; to push OTT to cable TV and broadband …

  • Siti Network looks to raise $100 million

    Siti Network looks to raise $100 million

    MUMBAI: Essel group multisystem operator (MSO) Siti Network has plans to raise $100 million through an issue of securities and/or equity related instruments.  The company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that  it  needs the money to fund its operations. It has an ambitious plan to further expand its footprint in the cable TV  and broadband landscape in India as DAS progresses into its last phase.

    Siti Network said it had got an in-principle board approval to raise the money taking the equity or equity related instrument route through a qualified institutional placement (QIP)/external commercial borrowings (ECBs) with rights of conversion into equity shares, foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs),  American Depository Receipts (ADRs), global  depository receipts
    (GDRs) or any other securities convertible into or exchangeable for equity shares or securities linked to equity shares.

    The company’s board of directors approved the fund raising and other  proposals at its meeting held on 26 August. 

    Siti Network further stated that as per a family  arrangement  agreed between the  promoter  group, communication has been received from Dr Subhash Chandra, Jawahar Lal Goel, Laxmi Narain Goel and Ashok Kumar Goel to  declassify the three mentioned along with their respective family  members as promoters of the company in terms of Regulation 31A of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015.

    The board decisions will take effect after necessary corporate and regulatory approvals are obtained.

    This is not first time that the company is raising funds. In October 2014, the company’s shareholders had approved raising up to $100 million by passing a special resolution through postal ballot.  However, against this, it made a QIP issue not exceeding Rs 250 crore; of which it received a subscription for Rs 221.11 crore at a price of Rs 35 per Re 1 share. 

    Then earlier this year, it received promoter funding to the tune of Rs  Rs 530 crore. Most of it was used to pare down its debt, while a minority portion was used for acquisition, including bigger stakes in associate companies and joint venture partners. 

    ALSO READ: 

    Siticable partners dittoTV; to push OTT to cable TV and broadband …