CONTENTS OF THE PROJECT

SR No TOPIC PAGE NO
1 Executive 5
Summary
2 Problem 6
Statement
3 Research 7
Objectives
4 Research 8
Design
5 Sampling Plan 13
6 Data Analysis 16-72
& Competition
Analysis
7 Conclusion & 73
Future Ahead
8 Bibliography 78

1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The title of the project is ‘ADVENT OF DTH SERVICES IN INDIA” and its impact
on other service operators. This project is intended to study the Indian
television market and the preferences of consumers while choosing an
operator.

The main purpose of conducting the research is to study the existing DTH
services and its influence on consumers and also an attempt has been made
to study the more important factors that influence the preferences of
consumers towards a particular brand.

In order to achieve the desired objects the team will conduct a long research
of 2 to 3 months covering all the aspects of marketing research. The team
has referred to various books, journals, websites, magazines and
newspapers .

The research group has also designed a questionnaire for study and shall
target 100 respondents, people who are existing users of DTH services,
cable services and DD. Statistical tools like excel sheets, SPSS have also
been used for data interpretation.

2
Problem Statement:

Decrease in the market share of cable

operators.

3
Research Objectives:
The research objectives of the research team are as follows

1. To study the Competition between Doordarshan, Cable Operators &

DTH Players.

2. To know the Future of DTH in Indian television market.

3. To understand the Market share of DTH players.

4. To review the Key Issues faced by DTH in India.

HYPOTHESIS 1:

4
Ho: DTH services affecting market share of other TV players in
India

H1: Other players unaffected by DTH services.

HYPOTHESIS 2 :

H0: DTH services ushering market growth in the television

market

H1: Stagnation in the television market

HYPOTHESIS 3:

H0: Annihilation of cable operators due to DTH

H1: Cable operators continue to dominate the market

RESEARCH DESIGN:

5
EXPLORATORY RESEARCH

Exploratory research is conducted to clarify ambiguous problems.

Exploratory studies provide information to use in analyzing the situation
but uncovering conclusive evidence to determine a particular course of
action is not the purpose of exploratory research. The research conducted
on advent of DTH in India is with the expectation that subsequent
research will be required to provide conclusive evidence

Hence it qualifies to be an exploratory research.

DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

Descriptive research seeks to determine the answers to who, what, when

where and how questions. Accuracy is of paramount importance in
descriptive research

We will conduct descriptive survey to identify the characteristics of

people opting for DTH services and cable services.

IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY

6
  To study the characteristics of population opting for DTH
services.

 To understand the first hand information about the

behaviour of consumers regarding television services and
to understand their preferences.

 To understand the relative position of DTH players in

comparison with other service providers.

BENEFITS OF THE STUDY

7
 The benefits of this study

 The customer preferences will be understood in detail

 The various dth services available and their market share

 The growth in the television sector

 The growing popularity of dth services

 To study the key issues faced by dth services

 The business model of various players in this field

 The product differentiation offered by various dth players

LITERATURE REVIEW PLAN

1. www.draftfcbulkacomstrat.com

8
2. www.financialexpress.com

3. www.thetimesofindia.com

4. www.wikipedia.com

5. www.tatasky.com

6. www.bigtv.com

7. www.bhartiairtel.com

8. www.trai.com

9. www.dishtv.com

10. www.videocon.com

SAMPLING PLAN
1.TARGET POPULATION
The target population of this research project is
• Existing Consumers of cable DD and dth services

9
 • Consumers residing in Mumbai
• Male female and children residing in various areas of
Mumbai belonging to various stratas of the society
The metropolis of Mumbai was chosen on 2 parameters
• The population residing in Mumbai significantly
represents the entire population of our country
because it is a cosmopolitan city
• The research team situated in Mumbai and had to
complete this report within the stipulated time

2.Source of the sampling frame

The sampling frame will cover different localities of Mumbai city

3.Sampling unit
The areas would be city of Mumbai ,the reason for selecting this
area is that it represents the entire Indian population in terms of
demographics and pyschographics

4.Method of sampling

We have chosen the simple random sampling method

Because:
I. The team had constraints of time cost and place.

10
 II. The random sample are drawn because the samples drawn
have more or less the same characterstics

5. SAMPLE SIZE

N=p(1-p)[z*/e]^2
p: Probability of success
1-p: Probability of failure
Z: Confidence Level
E: Standard Error
N: Denotes sample size

N= 0.7* 0.3
(1.96/0.09)^2 =100

THE SAMPLE SIZE IS 100

6. DETAILS OF SAMPLE ELEMENTS

People belonging to the following age groups

7-15

15-25

25-40

40 and above

Living in various areas

Virar – Borivali

11
Borivali - Andheri

Andheri - Bandra

Bandra - Dadar

Dadar -Mumbai Central

DATA ANALYSIS

Data Collection Methods

There are a variety of methods that can be used. These methods
can singly be used or as combinations. The primary classification
is:
• Primary Data
• Secondary Data

Primary Data

12
 The data is collected to especially address a specific research
objective. It includes methods like:
• Qualitative Research
• Experiments
• Observations

Secondary Data

It is the data already available as it was collected for some

purpose other than the current problem. The data can be
available internally to the researcher or maybe be sourced
externally.

Data analysis is done after the data is gathered from the

respondents. The collection data is then analyzed and
interpretations are made. Data analysis involves the
transformation of raw materials into a form that is analyzed and is
presented visually in the form of charts and graphs. These graphs
are then studied to understand the data in a better way.

For the purpose of our research, data was collected from the
respondents. All the respondents were interviewed by us and the
questionnaires were filled out. All the questionnaires surveyed
would evaluated and analyzed.

13
In research study, we have graphically depicted every question
asked in the questionnaires and these graphs are then
interpreted in the best possible way.

Every question that was surveyed is first presented in a tabular

form and is followed by a graph accompanied with an analysis

PERT

Days
Immediate/ Preceding
Activity Durati
Activity
on

A: Data collected from 5 -

published
Sources

14
B: Data collection from 5 -
websites

C: Assembling and 2 A
organizing secondary
data
D:Selecting stratified 2 B,C
sample

E:Devising 4 D
Questionnaire
F: Taking expert 3 E
opinions about
questions
G: Sample 2 E
Administration of
questionnaire
H: Conducting Market 15 G
Research

I: Coding and Tabulation 5 H

J: Interpretation , 7 I
analysis of data

K: Research Report 20

15
16
LIMITATIONS

DUE TO THE VARYING NATURE OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR THIS PROJECT HAS

ITS OWN LIMITATIONS. IT ALSO HAS SOME OTHER LIMITATIONS IN TERMS OF

PLACE OF RESEARCH
THE RESEARCH IS LIMITED TO WITHIN SELECTED AREAS IN MUMBAI.

TIME AND MONEY CONSTRAINT

TIME AND MONEY CONSTRAINTS LIMIT THE LEVEL OF ACCURACY OF THE
RESEARCH.

Overview of Indian Television Market

17
INDIAN TELEVISION MARKET
According to the national readership survey 2006 India has about 57% of
color tvs and 47% black and white tvs.

India has about 133 million TV homes of which, Cable and Satellite (C & S)
services are present in 76 million (57%) of the homes.[1]

 Non cable TV homes which have DD and free-to-air channels form

32%.
 DTH services comprise 11 % of the total market with 14 million homes
in all.

Source:www.draftfcbulkacomstrat.com(2007)

History of TV broadcasting in India:

18
DD was launched way back in 1959 and was India’s only TV channel for long.
In the early 90’s, post liberalization the government allowed private and
foreign broadcasters to engage in limited operations in India. It was then
that Cable & Satellite operators became popular, thereby changing the way
the average Indian watched TV.

The cable TV industry remains largely unorganized with only about 30,000
C&S operators registered with the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India). Lack of regulation gave the Cablewallas an opportunity to report
lower number of connections than what they actually served to save on the
fee payable to the broadcasters. Hence the much needed CAS (Conditional
Access System) was introduced by the Government of India in Chennai in
2003 to control the growth of this unorganized sector that led to loss in
revenues. Soon CAS was introduced in the other metros - Delhi, Mumbai and
Kolkata following the guidelines of TRAI.[4]

In 1984-1985, the color television industry was growing at an astounding

rate of 140.3%. However, in 1985-86, it fell to 68.6%, 15% in 1988-89 and
finally in the year 1989-90 it touched a roc bottom level of 5%. In 1991-92,
the Indian economy was going through a balance of payment crisis. As a
result of this, for the first time in the history of Indian color television, one
saw a deceleration in the sales of color televisions at -14.5%.

During this period, the prices of color televisions skyrocketed due to the high
import duties imposed on color picture tubes. However, the period after the
liberalisation of the Indian economy marked a new beginning for the color
television industry.

The industry witnessed rapid growth during this period. The popularity of
cable television, the price of 20 inch color television falling drastically, the
entry of international brands, the increase in advertising expenditure and

19
various sporting extravaganzas like the World Cup cricket in 1991 and
football World cup in 1994 helped in increasing the sales of color televisions.

The sales of color televisions increased from 16.8% in 1992-93 to about

21.6% in 1993-94 to 27.9% in 1996-97 due to the cricket World Cup in 1996.
In 1999-2000, the growth rate escalated to 32.5%...[3]

The central government launched a series of economic and social reforms in

1991 under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Under the new policies the
government allowed private and foreign broadcasters to engage in limited
operations in India. This process has been pursued consistently by all
subsequent federal administrations. Foreign channels like CNN, Star TV and
domestic channels such as Zee TV and Sun TV started satellite broadcasts.
Starting with 41 sets in 1962 and one channel (Audience Research unit,
1991) at present TV in India covers more than 70 million homes giving a
viewing population more than 400 million individuals through more than 100
channels. A large relatively untapped market, easy accessibility of relevant
technology and a variety of programmes are the main reasons for rapid
expansion of Television in India.

It must be stressed that Television Entertainment in India is one of the

cheapest in the world.

Cable television :

20
In 1992, the government liberated its markets, opening them up to cable
television. Five new channels belonging to the Hong Kong based STAR TV
gave Indians a fresh breath of life. MTV, STAR Plus, BBC, Prime Sports and
STAR Chinese Channel were the 5 channels. Zee TV was the first private
owned Indian channel to broadcast over cable. A few years later CNN,
Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel made its foray into India.
Star expanded its bouquet introducing STAR World, STAR Sports, ESPN and
STAR Gold. Regional channels flourished along with a multitude of Hindi
channels and a few English channels. By 2001 HBO and History Channel
were the other international channels to enter India. By 2001–2003, other
international channels such as Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, VH1, Disney
and Toon Disney came into foray. In 2003 news channels started to boom.[2]

Entry of Music Channels. Movie based channels, How Soaps started

dominating Indian Channels How are movie based channels performing. Role
of TAM. How is TAM measured.

Audience Metrics

Television Metrics in India have gone through several phases in which it

fragmented, consolidated and then fragmented again.

DART

During the days of the single channel Doordarshan monopoly, DART

(Doordarshan Audience Research Team was the only metric available. This
used the notebook method of recordkeeping across 33 cities across India ].
DART continues to provide this information independent of the Private
agencies. DART till this date is the only rating system that still measures
audience metrics in Rural India.[5]

TAM & INTAM

21
In 1994, claiming a heterogeneous and fragmenting television market ORG-
MARG introduced INTAM (Indian National Television Audience Measurement).
Ex-officials of DD (Doordarshan) claimed that INTAM was introduced by
vested commercial interests who only sought to break the monopoly of DD
and that INTAM was significantly weaker in both sample size, rigour and the
range of cities and regions covered.]

In 1997, a joint industry body appointed TAM backed by AC Nielsen as the

official recordkeeper of audience metrics ]. Due to the differences in
methodology and samples of TAM and INTAM, both provided differing results
fo rthe same programs.[7]

In 2001, a confidential list of households in Mumbai that were participating in

the monitoring survey was released, calling into question the reliability of
the data [. This subsequently led to the merger of the two measurement
systems into TAM ]. For several years after this, in spite of misgivings about
the process, sample and other parameters, TAM was the defacto standard
and monopoly in the audience metrics game. .
[10]

aMap

In 2004, a rival ratings service, funded by a slew of American NRI investors,

called Audience Measurement and Analytics Ltd. (Amap) was launched. [11]

. Although initially, it faced a cautious uptake from clients], the TAM

[12] [13]

monopoly was broken.

aMap USP is that ratings are available as early as next day as compared to
TAM's timeline of next week.

22
Broadcast Audience Research Council

An even newer industry body called Broadcast Audience Research Council,

seeks to setup an almost real-time audience metrics system. Plans for this
was announced in march 2008 and work is said to be in progress. [

The new rating system(TRP) would be compatible with direct-to-home (DTH)

and applicable to conditional access system (CAS) areas as well. Besides
cities, the database would include rural and remote areas, which currently
do not get reflected. The development assumes significance as though DTH
is in a nascent stage in India, the number of subscribers are much higher
than the current number of households that fall under the “people metre”
that TAM or aMap has. TAM has 7,200 people metres in 145 cities. CAS has
become mandatory in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, after Chennai, where it
was tested first. As of December 31, 2007, the highest adoption rate of 42%
was seen in Mumbai for DTH. The total average DTH penetration in 2007 was
about 3.5 million in these metros.

The need for a new rating system was felt with the information and
broadcasting (I&B) minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi recently expressing
concern about the prevalent television rating system, terming it as biased.

Further, the data produced by BARC would cost much lower than of its
counterparts like TAM (Television Audience Measurement) and aMap
(Audience Measurement and Analytics) as the objective of the organization is
not to monetize its property but be a fair and reasonable instrument that can
be used by media planners, advertisers and broadcasters to determine cost
of ad-space across channels and plan their ad-spends.

The core decision making body of BARC will comprise 12 members, four each
drawn out from the three bodies, IBF, AAAI and ISA with one voting right

23
each so that every stakeholder has equal representation and right. The
sample size of BARC is likely to be in the range of 18,000 to 25,000, an
increase of three to four times of the sample size of existing agencies, which
hovers around 7,000 people meter.

. The development assumes significance as though DTH is in a nascent stage

in India, the number of subscribers are much higher than the current number
of households that fall under the “people metre” that TAM or aMap has. TAM
has 7,200 people metres in 145 cities. CAS has become mandatory in
Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, after Chennai, where it was tested first. As of
December 31, 2007, the highest adoption rate of 42% was seen in Mumbai
for DTH. The total average DTH penetration in 2007 was about 3.5 million in
these metros. [2]

the data produced by BARC would cost much lower than of its counterparts
like TAM (Television Audience Measurement) and aMap (Audience
Measurement and Analytics) as the objective of the organization is not to
monetize its property but be a fair and reasonable instrument that can be
used by media planners, advertisers and broadcasters to determine cost of
ad-space across channels and plan their ad-spends

Meanwhile, the broadcasters are in talks with two most prominent players in
the DTH business, Dish TV and Tata Sky, to develop a first-of-its-kind parallel
ratings system that will use a new software fitted within set-top-boxes to
measure TV viewing patterns.

CAS - Conditional Access System

24
CAS or conditional access system, is a digital mode of transmitting TV
channels through a set-top box (STB). The transmission signals are
encrypted and viewers need to buy a set-top box to receive and decrypt the
signal. The STB is required to watch only pay channels.

The idea of CAS was mooted in 2001, due to a furore over charge hikes by
channels and subsequently by cable operators. Poor reception of certain
channels; arbitrary pricing and increase in prices; bundling of channels; poor
service delivery by Cable Television Operators (CTOs); monopolies in each
area; lack of regulatory framework and redress avenues were some of the
issues that were to be addressed by implementation of CAS

It was decided by the government that CAS would be first introduced in the
four metros. It has been in place in Chennai since September 2003, where
until very recently it had managed to attract very few subscribers. It has
been rolled out recently in the other three metros of Delhi, Mumbai and
Kolkata.

Benefits of CAS

All the involved players and the viewers (consumers) can benefit greatly CAS
is rolled out across the country. However, vested interests and the price of
STB's have been some of the reasons for delay in implementation of CAS all
over India.

Consumers: Consumers get the option to choose the channels they want to
pay for and view, rather than receiving the whole set of channels that the
Cable Operator makes available to them, and hence benefit by having to pay
only for the channels they want to watch. Currently, in most of India, there is
no segregation and subscribers pay a blanket rate for the entire service.

Cable Operators: Cable operators get the opportunity to pay a part of the
subscription fees to the broadcasters only for the actual number of end users

25
who opt for the channel, rather than all households having cable access. This
will help streamline their infrastructure, operations and reduce points of
dispute with the MSO's and broadcasters by being able to disclose the exact
number of subscribers for each channel.

Broadcasters: Broadcasters have a long-standing complaint that the Cable

Operators under-declare the actual number of subscribers, and hence pass
on only a fraction of the paid subscriptions. With a system like this in place,
it is possible to address the exact number of subscribers with a cable
operator.

Advertisers: CAS gives a far more accurate indicator of programme

popularity with only the actual subscribers of each channel being accounted
for.

Government: Since the issue of addressibility ensures a fair degree of

transparency in accounting across the entire value chain, it minimizes the
loss of revenues to the government through mis-reporting or non-disclosure
of actual revenue figures. The government also facilitates the introduction
and development of consumer friendly systems like pay per view, interactive
programming, etc.

At the time of writing this update (April 22, 2008) according to estimates,
only 25 per cent of the people have subscribed the new technology. The rest
watch only free-to-air channels. As mentioned above, the inhibiting factor
from the viewer's perspective is the cost of the STB.

The Indian TV regulatory authority has recommended that all Cable

operators be given 5 years to change from the analogue system to the
digital platform(July 2008)

26
DTH - Direct to Home

DTH is defined as the reception of satellite programmes with a personal dish

in an individual home.

DTH does not compete with CAS. Cable TV and DTH are two methods of
delivery of television content. CAS is integral to both the systems in
delivering pay channels.

Cable TV is through cable networks and DTH is wireless, reaching direct to

the consumer through a small dish and a set-top box. Although the
government has ensured that free-to-air channels on cable are delivered to
the consumer without a set-top box, DTH signals cannot be received without
the set-top box.

DTH service was launched back in 2004 by launch of Dish TV by Essel

Group's Zee Entertainment Enterprises. Later on public broadcaster
Doordarshan launched its free to air DTH named DD Direct Plus . In 2006
Tata teleservices in collaboration with British Sky Broadcasting , a subsidiary
of News Corporation started a service named Tata Sky. In 2007 the war of
DTH heated up when 2 telecom giants e.g.- Airtel and Reliance
Communications along with a strong south Indian media group Sun TV and
Electronics company Videocon declared to launch their DTH services. The
south Indian DTH service mostly providing South Indian Channels SUN
DIRECT was launched in mid 2008 which provides service in South Indian
States and Reliance ADAG launched their DTH service BIG TV on 19th August
2008. Later on Airtel launched its services as Airtel digital TV on 9th October
2008. Videocon is yet to launch its service.

27
Advent of DTH in Indian Homes

In December 2004, DD was the first player to launch DTH services that had -

1. Digital clarity of sound and picture which was missing in C&S.

2. No hassles related to swapping of channels by cable operators or
missing channels.
3. Availability of Value Added Services (VAS) that cable operators did not
offer.

DTH services soon had takers across small towns and cities, who were
clearly unhappy with the poor transmission and lack of service of the local
cable operators.

KEY DTH PLAYERS

The largest private player in the DTH industry is Dish TV with a market share
of 24% and a subscriber base of 3.75 million followed by Tata Sky with a
subscriber base of 2.5 million customers and a o market share f 18%

28
 Source:ww
w.draftfcbulkacomstrat.com

DD Direct Plus
DD Direct Plus was launched in December 2004 by Doordarshan. It was
India’s first DTH service offering about 50 TV channels and 12 radio stations.
DD DTH is a free service and has already acquired a subscriber base of 7
million connections (Jan 2008).

• Dish TV
Dish TV is a venture by the Essel Group and was launched in March
2005. Dish TV is India’s first private player in DTH industry with a
presence in 19 states. It has a gross subscriber base of 3.75 million
(Aug 2008). It has a bouquet of over 185 channels to choose from.
Recently Dish TV has launched an entry-level subscription at Rs. 100
per month with the largest offering of 125 channels

Dish TV communication is directed towards creating dissonance about

the cable operators with their “Don’t be santusht” campaign featuring
brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan.

29
• Sun Direct
Sun Direct, a niche player in southern India as of now, is in the process
of launching its operations in north India as well. Launched in
September 2007, it currently caters to four states, viz. Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala with 110 channels. Sun Direct
has a subscriber base of 1 million (July 2008). Sun Direct has a basic
pack of Rs 75 monthly subscription which is the lowest price-point
compared to the other service providers. While Sun Direct is banking
on competitive pricing, it plans to leverage its ‘consumer experience’
in the future.

• Reliance Communication’s Big TV

Reliance Communication a more recent entrant in the DTH space has
the brand name ‘Big TV’. It has aggressively priced packages as low as
Rs. 1490 with an offering of 64 channels and a three month free
subscription in addition to 20 video-on-demand movie channels. To
garner subscriber base, the company plans to tap employees of
Reliance ADAG, customers of Reliance Energy and Reliance PCO
owners with initial cost of Rs.1000. Plans are to acquire a market share
of 40 % in its first year of operations. As a promotional offer, BIG TV
offers subscription free for first 3 months

Big TV currently offers 202 channels – the maximum to be offered

currently by any service provider. BIG TV focuses on VAS and claims to
have a next generation user guide which is indexed. Also, has a facility
of watching 12 PinP of the same genre for consumer’s convenience.

To cash in on the growing awareness of the service, DTH companies

are spreading distribution networks far and wide. Big TV who already
has a mobile service hopes to leverage its distribution network, apart
from putting its own distribution footprint in place. e.g. Big TV is

30
 available at 88,000 outlets, including 240 Reliance World and 2,000
Reliance Mobile stores across 5,800 towns

• Bharti-Airtel
The recent and much talked about player in the market is Bharti-
Airtel. The leading telecom operator, which already has infrastructure
for telecom and internet in place, is set to launch its DTH services
under the brand name ‘Airtel’. A teaser campaign ‘See you at home’
WAS followed up by a multi-starrer campaign with celebrities like Saif
Ali Khan and Kareena, Vidya Balan and Madhavan and Indian cricketers
Gautam Gambhir etc.

Airtel is expected to be an aggressive spender given their objective to

establish ‘Airtel’ as a dominant brand in the DTH category and we will
take all the steps necessary to ensure that the product and the brand
get adequate visibility and exposure in the market

Other new entrants

The coming months are set to see more new players making their
foray into DTH. Of them is Videocon’s ‘D2H’ who claims to launch their
services by end of 2008.

• Videocon ‘D2H’
Videocon – the big Indian consumer durable player plans to enter the
DTH market by mid September 2008 through its media arm Bharat
Business Channel (BBCL). Advantage over other players is that
Videocon already makes analog set top box hence they are likely to
manufacture Set Top Box for their DTH service as well.

This ends the broad overview of the category and its key players. We
now move on to Tata Sky and the key deliverables on the case[1]

31
 DD Direct+

DD Direct+ is a free Direct to Home (DTH) service that provides satellite

television and audio programming to households and businesses in the
Indian subcontinent. Owned by parent company Doordarshan, DD Direct Plus
was launched on December 16, 2004.

It competes with cable television and other DTH Service providers such as
Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct, Airtel digital TV and Big TV throughout India.
[1]

Doordarshan, the national broadcaster in India, at

present has a network of more than 1400 transmitters spread throughout
the country and its signals are available to about 90% (DD1) and 43% (DD-
News) population of country. The prime duty of any national public service
broadcaster is to make the programmes of national importance available to
all its people and nationals. It was estimated that the coverage of remaining
10 % population with terrestrial (single channel) broadcast would cost
enormously. Besides that, setting up of terrestrial transmitters in the
uncovered areas would have taken a number of years (10 to 15 years). Also,

32
operation of terrestrial transmission would have required a huge manpower
(a few thousand persons).

With the fast developments taking place in Satellite Broadcasting, it is but

natural that Doordarshan has also come up with an alternative to get the
required reach with an alternate technology option “Ku-band broadcasting”
which is envisaged for the coverage of remaining population. This is a much
cheaper and economical option as compared to the coverage through
Terrestrial transmitters.

Ku-band transmission will provide coverage in all uncovered areas including

remote, border, tribal, hilly and inaccessible areas in one go within a short
time. With this coverage, the national broadcaster proposes to meet its
obligation of covering the whole nation and its people not only with national
channels, but also make available popular Doordarshan and some other free-
to-air channels on its platform. In order to meet its obligations, it has also
been decided that 10,000 receive systems (Dish and Set Top Box) would be
provided free of cost at public institutions like Anganwadis, Schools, Public
Health Centres, Panchayats, Youth Clubs, Cooperative Societies etc. in the
uncovered areas.

It may be pertinent to mention here that incidentally Doordarshan would be

starting DTH service with Ku band broadcasting as not only uncovered areas
are covered with its commencement, but also the whole country gets multi-
channel service in one stroke. The signal will be available at each home
directly without the use of any cable etc. and one will be able to receive
the programmes with thehelp of a small Receive segment.

33
This platform has been named as DD DIRECT+

Presently the DD DIRECT+ is envisaged to telecast 50 free-to-air TV channels

(containing both Doordarshan and private channels) Satellite Earth Station
for uplink of signals has been setup at
Delhi. Honorable Prime Minister of India inaugurated the service on
16/12/2004. The high power Ku-band transponders of Indian Satellite
INSAT-4B at 93.5º E are being used for hosting the DD DIRECT+ services.

PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

Most of the DTH Systems, operating all over the world, provide Paid Service. The
encrypted TV signals are received from the satellite on the Dish Antenna and
transmitted to the DIGITAL DECODER. The customer is provided with a Viewing
Card, which is inserted into a slot in the DIGITAL DECODER. The Viewing Card
decrypts the TV signals chosen & paid for by the customer. A Viewing Card is a
credit card sized smart card, which contains information about the channels that
the customer has subscribed to. When inserted in the Decoder it enables viewing of
the channels chosen by the subscriber. The subscription charges for viewing these
channels are collected by the DTH operator.

However, DD DIRECT+ would be totally different, as Doordarshan would not be

charging any subscription fee from the viewers, making the system cheap and
affordable for all.

Receive system of DD DIRECT+ would be cheaper as compared to receive system

of other DTH operators as all the channels proposed under Doordarshan project are
Free-To-Air and therefore SMS and CAS are not envisaged. No smart
card/conditional access system is required at the uplinking or downlinking site.

34
Satellites

• INSAT-4B 93.5°(East)
• NSS-6 95.0°(East)

Freq: 9750 MHZ ON OFF

Channel list

DISH TV

Dish Network Corporation is a direct broadcast satellite service provider that

offers satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television
services to households and businesses in the United States. Services were
launched launched in March 1996. Today, the company competes primarily
with satellite rival DirecTV and with cable television providers. The corporate
office is based at Meridian, Colorado, though the postal designation of
nearby Englewood is commonly listed as the company's location in corporate
filings and news accounts. The company was spun off from Echostar in 2007.
Dish Network serves approximately 13.78 million subscribers.[1

Dish Network began operations in 1996 as a service of EchoStar. EchoStar

was formed in 1980 by its chairman and chief executive officer, Charlie

35
Ergen, as a distributor of C band satellite television systems. In 1987,
EchoStar applied for a direct broadcast satellite license with the Federal
Communications Commission and was granted access to orbital slot 119°
west longitude in 1992.

On December 28, 1995, EchoStar successfully launched its first satellite,

EchoStar I. That same year, EchoStar established the Dish Network brand
name to market its home satellite TV system.

In 1998, EchoStar purchased the broadcasting assets of a satellite

broadcasting joint venture of News Corporation's ASkyB and MCI Worldcom.
With this purchase EchoStar obtained 28 of the 32 transponder licenses in
the 110° West orbital slot, more than doubling existing continental United
States broadcasting capacity at a value of $682.5 million. The acquisition
inspired the company to introduce a multisatellite system called DISH 500,
theoretically capable of receiving more than 500 channels on one dish. In
the same year, Echostar, partnering with Bell Canada, launched Dish
Network Canada.

In January 2005, EchoStar bought the broadcasting assets of the troubled

HDTV satellite provider Voom, including its Rainbow 1 satellite colocated
with EchoStar 3 at 61.5° West. On April 29, EchoStar announced that it
would expand its HDTV programming by adding the first 10 of 21 original
Voom channels and mirror the channels on a CONUS slot.

On January 1, 2008 EchoStar split into two separate businesses, Dish

Network Corporation and EchoStar Broadcasting Corporation.[2] DISH
Network C

36
orporation, the larger of the two resulting companies, focuses on US-based
marketing of satellite television, while EchoStar Corporation runs a majority
of the satellite fleet and other signal infrastructure

Satellite dishes

DISH Network offers different types of satellite receiving equipment for

obtaining signals from its diverse satellite fleet. Most of their consumer
boxes are manufactured by Sanmina-SCI Corporation to EchoStar
specifications. Prior to the December, 2001 merger of SCI Systems and
Sanmina, DISH Network receivers were produced at factories in Huntsville,
Alabama and Fountain, Colorado. Currently, receiver assembly takes place in
Guadalajara, Mexico.

Earlier satellite dishes

DISH Network's first satellite antenna was simply called the "DISH Network"
dish. It was retroactively named the "DISH 300" when legal and satellite
problems forced delays of the forthcoming DISH 500 systems. It uses one
LNB to obtain signals from the 119°W orbital location[3], and was commonly
used as a second dish to receive additional high-definition or ethnic
programming from either the 148°W or 61.5°W orbital locations[4][5].The
119°W slot is one of two primary orbital locations, the other being 110°W,
that provide core services.[6][7]

37
After EchoStar obtained the broadcasting assets of a failed joint venture
between ASkyB and MCI Worldcom, it had more than doubled its capacity by
adding 28 transponders at the 110°W orbital location. Since EchoStar also
owned the adjacent 119°W orbital location it developed the DISH 500 to
receive the signals of both orbital locations using one dish and an innovative
dual-LNB assembly. Although the new 20-inch DISH 500 was slightly larger
than the then-current 18-inch DISH 300 and DirecTV dishes it had the
distinct advantage of obtaining signals from EchoStar's two adjacent satellite
locations for a theoretical 500-channel capacity. The DISH 500, as a result,
provided very large capacity for local-into-local service, nationwide
programming, and business services. In order to migrate existing customers
to DISH 500, DISH Network provides value-added channels in addition to
local channels that can only be received with the DISH 500 and newer
systems. Some of these channels exclusive to these newer systems are
History Channel International, Boomerang, The Science Channel,Planet
Green and Comedy Central. With the launch of EchoStar X in 2006 at 110°W
thousands of local channels will only be available with a DISH 500 system.

Higher capacity satellite dishes

In spite of all this capacity, EchoStar still needed to fulfill the dream of
nationwide high-definition television and conceived the DISH 1000 system to
receive signals from 110°W, 119°W and 129°W orbital locations. Originally,
DISH Network high-definition subscribers required two separate satellite
dishes. Today, approximately 70% of DISH Network subscribers can receive
nationwide HDTV channels using the 129°W orbital location, but since the
129°W does not effectively cover the entire United States this solution is not
available for large populations of customers in the Northeastern, mid-
Atlantic, and Southern regions of the United States. Because of issues with

38
low signal strength it has been replaced with the DISH 1000.2(not shown).
The 1000.2 has a 10% larger reflector for better signal strength and an
integrated LNB for easier installation. The DISH 1000.2 is 23" in Diameter.

During DISH Network's quest for capacity, they had accumulated an array of
satellite broadcasting technologies, orbital locations, and surplus capacity
using non-mainstream technologies requiring larger dish sizes. To capitalize
on these broadcasting assets, DISH Network started providing extensive
ethnic programming from lower-powered satellites broadcasting in the non-
DBS portion of the FSS band. DISH Network offers specialized equipment for
these customers including larger dish antennas.[citation needed]

The SuperDISH, DISH 500+, and DISH 1000+ systems receive DBS signals
from both of the primary 110°W and 119°W locations (129°W for DISH
1000+) as well as lower-powered FSS signals from either 121°W, 105°W, or
118.75°W. To underscore how exotic these systems can be the DISH 500+
and 1000+ systems receive circularly-polarized signals in the non-DBS
portion of the FSS band—the only American satellite television service to do
so.

Broadcast technology

While for years DISH Network has used standard MPEG-2 for broadcasting,
the addition of bandwidth-intensive HDTV in a limited-bandwidth world has
called for a change to an H.264/MPEG4 AVC system. DISH Network
announced as of 1 February 2006, that all new HDTV channels would be
available in H.264 format only, while maintaining the current lineup as

39
MPEG-2. DISH Network intends to eventually convert the entire platform to
H.264 in order to provide more channels to subscribers.

Both a standard receiver and a receiver with built-in DVR (Digital Video
Recorder) are available to subscribers. The DISH Network ViP722 HD DVR,
replacement to the ViP622, has received generally positive reviews[8] from
CNET and others.

Both a standard receiver and a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) are available to
subscribers for an upgrade fee. Currently DISH Network charges $5.98 per
DVR as DVR service fee, which covers cost of licensing EPG(Extended
Program Guide) from TV Guide.

Satellite fleet

Most of the satellites used by DISH Network are owned and operated by
Echostar Corporation. Since EchoStar frequently moves satellites among its
many orbiting slots this list may not be immediately accurate. Refer to
Lyngsat.com and Dish Channel Chart for detailed satellite information.

While for years DISH Network has used standard MPEG-2 for broadcasting,
the addition of bandwidth-intensive HDTV in a limited-bandwidth world has
called for a change to an H.264/MPEG4 AVC system. DISH Network
announced as of 1 February 2006, that all new HDTV channels would be
available in H.264 format only, while maintaining the current lineup as
MPEG-2. DISH Network intends to eventually convert the entire platform to
H.264 in order to provide more channels to subscribers.

Both a standard receiver and a receiver with built-in DVR (Digital Video
Recorder) are available to subscribers. The DISH Network ViP722 HD DVR,

40
replacement to the ViP622, has received generally positive reviews[8] from
CNET and others.

Both a standard receiver and a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) are available to
subscribers for an upgrade fee. Currently DISH Network charges $5.98 per
DVR as DVR service fee, which covers cost of licensing EPG(Extended
Program Guide) from TV Guide.

AIRTEL DIGITAL TV

Airtel digital TV
(Bharti Telemedia Limited)

Type Bharti Airtel Subsidiary

Founded 2008

Headquarters India, Mumbai, India

Area served All over India

Key people Sunil Mittal

Industry DTH Pay TV

Products Direct broadcast satellite

41
Parent Bharti Airtel[1]

Subsidiaries Bharti Telemedia Ltd.

http://www.airtel.in/digital
Website
tv

Airtel, the well known name in telecom sector, has now entered in to the
DTH sector. Bharti Airtel launched its DTH service on 7th of October, with in
62 cities in India, and these will be distributed through 21,000 retail points
including Airtel relationship centers.

Digital TV by Airtel is a DTH satellite television service in India, using

MPEG-4 digital compression with DVB-S2 technology, transmitting using
INSAT 4CR 74° East. It is the 6th DTH service launched in India.

Airtel digital TV is a part of Bharti Telemedia Ltd a susidiary of Bharti Airtel

Limited owned by Sunil Mittal the Indian telecom giant who brought mobile
Services to India Through the largest mobile service Provider Of India Airtel .
Airtel digital TV Started operation from 9th October 2008 with a slogan
"Come Home To The Magic". It currently offers close to 150 channels and
many interactive ones as well as WorldSpace Satellite Radio channels. The
company plans to increase the Channels in near future. It shows many
interactive channels and plans to bring internet on DTH by using Airtel Live.
It is the second pan India dth provider providing mpeg-4 technology.

With DVD quality picture and sound, your TV viewing experience will change
forever with Airtel digital TV. Now witness the magic of television with best
and widest variety of channels and programmes ranging from Sports, Music

42
and General entertainment to best on-demand content on Airtel Live. What's
more, you can choose from the best movies of Bollywood and the world,
listen to radio, play games, along with a host of other interactive features
and change the way you watch television.

Airtel’s Digital TV has come up with a number of interesting features. Like

booking cinema tickets, browsing for holiday packages, watching Onscreen
Account details, tele shopping getting stock up-dates and many other
facilities. Above all, it has made great effort to provide uninterrupted service
during all seasons. Thus they have already solved the problem of no signal
supply during bad or stormy weather. This will be an added advantage for
the general public. As, the existing users of other DTH service have
complained a lot about the same problem.

# Universal remote - that works for both Set Top Box and TV
# Highest Set Top Box memory - meaning more interactive applications
# World space Radio - integrated satellite radio for music fans
# Interactive applications - iMatinee (Book cinema tickets), Travel (book
travel packages), iShop (Shop on TV), iCity (Get city information)
# High quality games - refreshed every 6 weeks
# Audio gain control - ensures uniform audio levels across all channels
# On screen account meter - keep track of monthly expenses
# Last viewed channel - restored after power disruption/switch off
# Low battery indicator - Time to recharge

Airtel digital TV started its ad campaign with a teaser ad See you at home
Soon without any other info. It's advantage was taken by big TV which later
on showed similar ad giving a name to it as big TV’s Ad with a slogan Ho Toh
Big Ho. Later on Airtel hired many brand ambassadors including A R
Rahman, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Madhavan, Zaheer
Khan, Gautam Gambhir. Its Advertisement also included noted television
personalities including Ranvijay, Raju Srivastav, and Sudha Chandran.

43
Airtel Chief Sunil Mittal says that Airtel digital TV and other DTH players have
a bright future in Indian market as the people are getting more attracted
towards DTH because of its quality and affordability.

Airtel Digital TV Packs Pricing

Here is a list of packages available with Airtel Digital TV with the total
number of channels you can view in each and the amount you need to pay
for them, this also includes a combination of free & paid to watch channels.

44
 • RELIANCE BIG TV

BIG TV

Reliance Communications
Type
Subsidiary

Founded 2008

Dhirubhai Ambani
Headquarte
Knowledge City, Navi
rs
Mumbai, India

Area
All over India
served

Key people Anil Ambani

Industry DTH Pay TV

Products Direct broadcast satellite

Reliance Anil Dhirubhai

Parent
Ambani Group[1]

Subsidiaries Reliance BIG TV Ltd.

Website http://www.bigtv.co.in

45
Reliance BIG TV is a DTH satellite television provider in India, using MPEG-4
digital compression technology, transmitting using MEASAT-4 91.5° East. It is
the 5th DTH service launched in India.

Reliance BIG TV limited is a part of Reliance Communications Ltd. a

subsidary of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group[2] founded By Late
Dhirubhai Ambani, the Indian business tycoon and owned by his son Anil
Ambani. BIG TV started operation from 19th August 2008 with a slogan "TV
ho Toh BIG Ho". It currently offers close to 200 channels and many
interactive ones, 32 cinema halls (i.e Pay Per View Cinema Channels) as well
as many Radio channels. The company plans to increase the Channels in
near future to 400 and bring HD technology. It is the first pan India DTH
provider providing mpeg-4 technology. There are also plans to introduce
services like i-Stock, i-News and other interactive services in the future.

Reliance BigTV Pricing

Big TV subscription offers:
1. 1490 - 3 months subscription free to the top end package.
2. 2490 - 6 months subscription free to the top end package.
3. 3990 - 9 months free subscription free to the top end package.
4. 4990 - 12 months free subscription free to the top end package.

Package prices: Rs 100-175. Regional packages- Rs 30 per package.

Big TV will be available across 1 lakh retail outlets in 6,500 towns. Click here
to locate local Big TV dealer.

Reliance BigTV Features

Here are the features Reliance BigTV will offer
Get 7days TV Guide in advance and schedule your favourite shows
Unique fast scroll feature to navigate within channels & programs
Customize guide by setting up favourite shows list
Sort and view channels by name (in alphabetical order) and number

46
PICTURE in GUIDE (PIG) – Live TV view of current channel in play
Quick one click access to the ‘GUIDE’ feature via ‘GUIDE’ key on your BIG
remote
Enable subtitles for a program
Change Programs to alternate audio languages
Set Reminders for programs in advance
Change channels in PIG via Ch+/- on remote

Advertising Strategy
Reliance BigTV has launched a new advertising campaign in order to
increase their share in the Direct-To-Home television business. The new ad
campaign is scheduled to roll out in the month of september in different
media like television, radio, print media & internet media.
The Ad campaign is set to be of 1minute 31 seconds using 100 camera
setups in 7days in different locations in rajasthan and mumbai with a crew
team of 1100 experts and artists.
According to sources, in the TVC, a soldier in the battleground is seen and
when he sneezes, it is so powerful that he manages to eliminate the enemy
line. And when the women in the advertisement, caught in a traffic jam,
decides to scream, she does it so powerfully that the entire way is cleared
for her. “If it’s a scream, it should be big like this,” said the ad’s voice-over.
This Ad has made Reliance BigTV make huge sales during their launch with
15000 spots within the first week of their launch. The Ad campaigns of most
Reliance ADAG[Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group] are handled by the advertising
agency ‘Mudra Radar’.

Marketing Strategy
Reliance BigTV is offering services in over 5,000 towns and cities across the
country with a 360 degree high voltage campaign. Big TV had already
completed trial runs across 2,400 towns and offering service to customers of
other Reliance ADAG group firms for just Rs1,000 with an estimated

47
subscriber base of 40,000. Reliance, however, is offering the service at
Rs325 per month, which includes Rs100 worth free “pay per view“ content,
and hopes to make a dent in the customer base of existing players with
aggressive pricing strategies.
The company is deploying the MPEG4 technology compared to MPEG2
technology used by other DTH operators, which would enable Big TV to offer
over 240 channels versus the 160 channels that can be offered on MPEG2
Platform.

Sales Targets
Reliance BigTV has setup big plans for their Set Top box and are estimating
that the DTH Subscribers base for these services would reach 60 million
users by 2015 and by next year they would extend their services to 10,000
towns in India. Currently the service has a capacity of 5 million homes at the
moment. There are a total of 120 million TV homes in India out of which only
6 million consumers are connected to the different DTH players like Tata
Sky, Dish TV, Sun TV and DD Direct.

BigTV is going to spend in total a amount of 200 crore rupees on marketing

and promotions in the very first year of their launch which is at par with the
other DTH providers advertising campaigns. On the other hand Dish TV is the
market leader with 3.4 million subscribers and a market share of 56%
followed by other service providers and Bharti Airtel’s DTH service called as
Airtel Digital is also going to be launched soon. Hence Reliance BigTV is
trying their best in promotions and marketing to make sure they can
increase their market share as soon as possible.

48
VIDEOCON

Videocon Industries, a renowned electronic manufacturer in India, is all set

to launch its own Direct-to-Home service in India. The service was to be
launched in September, but last minute issues led this to be postponed till
November.

Videocon, probably the largest moving television manufacturer in India, till

the Korean giants came here, has still about 20-30% share in the TV market.
The company is investing a whopping Rs. 1000 Cr. into this in collaboration
with BBCL, Bharat Business Channel Ltd. The brand name has been given.
The service will be known as D2H and the test signals are already underway.

VIDEOCON’s set-top box is a MPEG-4 digital satellite receiver with built-in

IRDETO CAS system and Idway-J middleware. ARION Technology a Korean
world-leading digital set-top box manufacturer has participated in this
project as one of the consortium members and provided their experienced
HW and SW solutions to VIDEOCON. ARION’s sales director said ARION will
be able to secure stable incomes from royalty on VIDEOCON’s set-top box
sales in India market.

The number of Channels that is to be made available is believed to be

around 240+ including radio channels. Also, unconfirmed reports are there
that Internet would also be available for the subscribers, even though 2 way
communications through LNB is not even heard off.

VIDEOCON’s set-top box is a MPEG-4 digital satellite receiver with built-in

IRDETO CAS system and Idway-J middleware. ARION Technology a Korean
world-leading digital set-top box manufacturer has participated in this
project as one of the consortium members and provided their experienced
HW and SW solutions to VIDEOCON. ARION’s sales director said ARION will

49
be able to secure stable incomes from royalty on VIDEOCON’s set-top box
sales in India market.

The number of Channels that is to be made available is believed to be

around 240+ including radio channels. Also, unconfirmed reports are there
that Internet would also be available for the subscribers, even though 2 way
communications through LNB is not even heard off.

There would be seven packages in addition to regional packages. This would

really increase the competition as mostly the consumers are more interested
in getting channels of their choice.

The DTH would be made available through an Israeli Satellite that would
ensure that the middle-east customers are also romped in.

50
SUN DIRECT

The "SUN Direct", DTH service from the South Indian Media Giant, SUN
Network, started on 7 December 2007. The Initial rollout was only in its
home land "Tamil Nadu", where they face all hurdles. they were able to
launch the product in all over south and has more 2 million subscribers in
south India making it the largest and most popular DTH service provider in
south India. Kicking off its drive to achieve a pan-India presence, Sun Direct
TV Pvt Ltd launched its services in Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana,
Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and
other states of Hindi speaking belt would be targeted in the other phases of
expansion.

Sun Direct - India's youngest and most exciting state of the art DTH
Company. It is the fastest growing DTH Company in India. It predicts to cross
2 million subscribers within this year end.

Sun Direct uses the latest MPEG-4 based technology to increase broadcast
capacity. Sun Direct confirms to provide next-generation services in fast-
growing and emerging markets quickly and efficiently. Sun Direct will be
supported by Irdeto's conditional access solution to manage content and
revenues in the satellite broadcasting venture.

Sun Direct selected Oracle based on its convergent multi-service capabilities

and proven real-time scalability allowing it to consolidate billing operations,
enables powerful new service offerings and improves visibility into customer
information across services.

Sun Direct is also ready to offer High Definition Television (HDTV) and it is
currently aggregating HDTV content. The DTH service provider hopes to
come out with HDTV over next few months.

51
Today, its time of technology and there have been so many advancements
in the fields of science and technology that have really made life worth
living. It is a unanimously agreed fact that people need some entertainment
to live their lives as there will be no motivation behind working so hard if
people will not be able to get relaxed. One of thefacets of entertainment is
television and to make things better, people can now get some of the most
sophisticated channel without much ado. In India, there are quite a few
companies who are working to provide all essential facilities in terms of
entertainment pertaining to television. DTH has really been one such
concept that has revolutionized the life of people. There is one name in this
regard that has a really good reputation is known as Sun DTH.

There are different packages that are available for people to choose from.
For instance, you can go with different packages that are named as Venus,
Venus Plus, Mercury Plus, Jupiter and many other can also be found. All these
packages are available at different rates which go from Rs.40 per month to
Rs.140 per month and that’s exclusive of different taxes. However, a
variation in these rates can always be seen as when you go for more
channels, you have to pay more. Currently, you can find more than 75
channels which are on the list of Sun DTH. Apart from some competitive
rates, you can also enjoy some terrific results in terms of reception of
channel. All in all, it can be said that Sun DTH has really become able to
make a name for it self.

52
 TATA SKY

Tata Sky is a DTH satellite television provider in India,using MPEG-2 digital

compression technology, transmitting using INSAT 4A at 83.0°E.[1]

History

It is a joint venture between the Tata Group, that owns 80% and STAR TV
that owns a 20% stake.[2] Tata Sky was incorporated in 2004 but was
launched only in 2006. It currently offers close to 140 channels and some
interactive ones.

The company uses the Sky brand owned by British Sky Broadcasting.[3]

In October 2008, Tata Sky announced launching of PVR service Tata Sky+
which allowed 45 hours of recording in a MPEG-4 compatible Set Top Box.
The remote is provided with playback control keys and is being sold with
special offers for existing suscribers.

In 2008, Singapore-based Temasek Holdings picked up 10% stake in Tata

Sky from the Tata Group. This has diluted Tata's stake in the venture to 70%.

Revolutionise television viewing

Tata Sky is set to revolutionise television viewing in India through its

superior digital quality picture and sound. The service aims to empower the

53
Indian viewer with Choice, Control and Convenience through its wide array of
programming choices and interactive features. Tata Sky offers viewers a
variety of channels ranging from entertainment, sports, movies and music to
news and documentaries in DVD quality picture and CD quality sound.

Vision

Tata Sky aims to revolutionise Indian entertainment by

offering superior DVD quality picture and CD quality sound.
Tata Sky envisions:

Connecting every television home

Empowering every television viewer
Revolutionising home entertainment

Extensive Customer Service Network

Tata Sky has established an extensive customer service

network across the country. It has engaged a field force of
approximately 3000 service engineers who are
complemented by high-end 24x7 call centres, manned by
multi-lingual customer service associates, trained to solve
all customer problems.

Tata Sky takes direct responsibility for installing and

servicing the hardware at every subscriber's home, thereby
ensuring the highest levels of customer service.

54
Tata Sky retails its hardware and prepaid recharge
vouchers through popular consumer electronic stores to
enhance customer convenience.

Offering

In addition to new channels and exciting interactive

features, Tata Sky offers all popular television channels,
thus becoming a one-stop shop for all the television
entertainment needs of customers.

Partners

Tata Sky has partnered with the global leaders in the space
of digital technology to bring a state-of-the-art satellite
television service to India.

Satellite:

Tata Sky has leased all 12 Ku-Band transponders on ISRO’s

Indian satellite, INSAT 4A, the most advanced and high-
powered KU-Band communication satellite in the region,
developed keeping in mind local requirements. The satellite
enables Tata Sky to offer superior picture and sound quality
with a wide range of channels.

Business Support Software:

55
» NDS: Tata Sky has partnered with NDS, the leading
provider of technology solutions for pay television. NDS
systems has played a key role in the end-to-end system
architecture and launching the nationwide digital service.
The NDS VideoGuard conditional access solution provides
superior broadcast security, and enables Tata Sky to offer
multiple programming and pricing packages.

» Siebel: Tata Sky has selected Siebel, leaders in Customer

Relationship Management (CRM) software, to support
operations across the areas of call centre and field service
operations, customer order management and product
configuration.

» Kenan: Comverse’s Kenan FX billing software has been

selected to support billing for all residential, institutional
and commercial customers. The Kenan software has been
enhanced specifically for Tata Sky, to support a first in
industry pre-paid billing capability which will provide
customers convenient payment options.

» SAP: SAP the leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

application suite, has been selected by Tata Sky to support
the company’s materials management, sales and
distribution, finance and control and human resources
requirements.

IT:

Sun Microsystems: Tata Sky has selected Sun Microsystems

56
to provide world-class technology infrastructure, which
helps the company to deliver high-level service standards
for its satellite television service. The servers ensure
maximum up-time, fault recovery and load management.
Sun has also provided Tata Sky with installation,
engineering expertise and support.

Digicomp:

Tata Sky has partnered with Thomson and Humax, world

leaders in digital broadcast technology for building top-of-
the line digicomps, customised specifically for the Indian
markets. The technology’s feature rich design enables Tata
Sky to deliver multiple programming, pricing packages and
interactive services to its customers.

Systems Integration:

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): TCS is a Systems

Integration partner for Tata Sky Ltd. It supports IT
operations in the areas of billing, ERP and other customer
care and employee related internal facing applications.

Service Support:

57
SerWizSol: SerWizSol provides Tata Sky with three high-end
call centres offering round-the-clock support in 11 different
languages at Pune, Hyderabad and Mohali.

Inception and Heritage

Incorporated in 2004, Tata Sky is a JV between the TATA

Group and STAR. Tata Sky endeavours to offer Indian
viewers a world-class television viewing experience through
its satellite television service.

TATA Brand

The TATA Group is one of India's largest and most

respected business conglomerates. It comprises 93
operating companies in seven business sectors:
information systems and communications, engineering,
materials, services, energy, consumer products and
chemicals. The TATA Group has operations in more than 40
countries across six continents and its companies export
products and services to 140 nations. The Group and its
enterprises have been steadfast and distinctive in their
adherence to business ethics and their commitment to
corporate social responsibility. This is a legacy that has
earned the Group the trust of many millions of stakeholders
in a measure few business houses anywhere in the world
can match.

58
SKY Brand

The SKY brand, owned by the UK-based British Sky

Broadcasting Group, brings to Tata Sky the reputation of
more than 20 years experience of satellite broadcasting.
SKY is well known for the innovative products and services
launched by BSkyB, such as DTH broadcasting in 1989,
digital satellite broadcasting in 1998, interactive television
services in 1999 and the SKY+ personal video recorder in
2001. Tata Sky joins an international group of DTH
businesses that includes platforms as far apart as the UK
and Italy in Europe, and Mexico and Brazil in Latin America.

Tata Sky

Tata Sky was incorporated in 2004. Tata Sky is a JV

between the Tata Group and STAR. TATA is one of India's
largest and most respected business conglomerates and
the SKY brand, owned by the UK-based British Sky
Broadcasting Group has over 20 years of experience in
satellite broadcasting. It launched its services pan-India in
August 2006. Within a short span of time it garnered a
subscriber base of nearly 2.5 million (Aug 2008). It has over
147 channels to choose from. Tata Sky has launched an

59
entry-level subscription plan called ‘Super Hit Pack’ at Rs.
99 per month with a bouquet of 53 channels.

Tata Sky recently launched Tata Sky Plus which uses the
personal video recording (PVR) technology that allow
consumers to record live. It is available at a price of Rs.
8999/-

Tata Sky though a late entrant created an aura of first

mover in the minds of the customers, as it was the first
DTH service to be advertised in India. In the year 2007,
Hrithik Roshan promoted Tata Sky with the tag line “Isko
laga dala toh life jinga la la”. Recently the company has
launched an ad with Aamir Khan who stands for exclusivity
and perfection. The campaign was created to establish the
pedigree of Tata Sky.

A closer look at Tata Sky

• Strongly innovative product offerings – Tata Sky has

taken the onus on itself to invest in more interactive
services to differentiate itself from others. It was the
first DTH company in the world to offer its subscribers
interactive VAS under the umbrella – Actve.

• Kick started the category advertising - Although it

was the 3rd player to enter the market it sought to
create consumer education about the category with
focused advertising. Initial campaigns featured
Hrithik Roshan who promoted multi-angle viewing of
the World Cup.

60
 • Focus on heritage – Tata Sky latest campaign
features superstar Aamir Khan. The focus of the
campaign was to establish the pedigree of Tata Sky
and inform potential customers about Sky-the leading
British Broadcasting

• Low cost packages to increase penetration - Tata Sky

has recently introduced a Rs 99-a-month low-value
pack for 53 channels to increase penetration of Tata
Sky in smaller towns of the country.

Tata Sky has also gone a step further and introduced

an electronic programme guide (EPG) in Hindi
especially for people in small towns who are more
comfortable with Hindi.

Key deliverables:

1. Tata Sky hopes to have about eight million

connections by 2012. How should Tata Sky increase
its customer base faster given that DTH is a virtually
homogenous product with very little content

61
 differentiation possible. The only differentiation is the
picture quality. Tata Sky is similar to cable however
they charge a premium because of taxes and also
because the cable operators under declare
subscribers. (Over coming barriers for growth and
becoming a leader)

2. The 3 anchors for growth that can be explored are

o Superior Picture quality
Unlike analog cable, Tata Sky subscribers can
view TV through superior digital DVD quality
picture and CD quality sound

o Wide array of interactive applications

In order to empower the Indian viewer with
choice, control and convenience Tata Sky has a
wide array of programming choices and
interactive services like Actve Cooking, Actve
Wizkids, Actve Learning, Actve Stories, Actve
Sports, Actve Games, Actve Newsroom, Actve
STAR News, Actve Astrology, Actve Darshan
and Actve Doordarshan that can be ordered
with any of the basic packages. The customer is
not going to stay forever with the package he
subscribed to initially, he should be encouraged
to subscribe to other packages and value
added services quickly to increase revenues.
These applications are expected to do well
given that in India TV viewing in India is done
as a family.

62
o Unparalleled customer service
Tata Sky has established an extensive
customer service network across the country. It
has engaged a field force of approximately
3000 service engineers who are complemented
by high-end 24x7 call centres, manned by
multi-lingual customer service associates,
trained to solve all customer problems.

Tata Sky takes direct responsibility for installing

and servicing the hardware for periodic
problems that exist at every subscriber's home,
thereby ensuring the highest levels of customer
service.

Tata Sky retails its hardware and prepaid

recharge vouchers through popular consumer
electronic stores to enhance customer
convenience

63
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DTH PLAYERS

A comparative anaysis can be made in terms of

• PRICING
• PACKAGES

• PRICING

The prices of the key brands in the category are as follows:

Tata Sky: Installation charges Rs.1000 and set top box Rs. 1499 extra
Dish TV is giving away set top box free along with its starter packs(*6)
There is a onetime installation fees of Rs. 3000 for subscription of DD Direct
Plus
 • PACKAGES

TATA SKY

It has various packages as shown in the exhibit below

Installation Charges Rs. 1000 and set top box Rs. 1499 extra
Dish TV

. Starter packs(Dish TV) :

. DD Direct Plus
* STB and installation

Sun Direct
Rs.999 for 10months subscription for North and 12 month subscription for
south (*installation & activation charges extra)

* Installation charges Rs.1000

Key Issues faced by DTH in India

 1. Low ARPUs (Average revenue Per User)
Heavy taxation (>50%) has lead to lower ARPUs (as low as Rs.
140/month) in the industry. As competition increases, falling prices will
put further pressure on ARPUs.

Sources of incremental revenue like movies on demand is minimal and

hasn’t picked up yet. Indians still prefer to watch a pirated movie on
cable or wait for its premier on TV channels.

2. High cost of acquiring subscriber

While superior technology of DTH leads to a superior viewing
experience, the high price is a prohibiting factor. Therefore, to get the
consumer hooked, companies subsidize the cost of the set-top boxes
(STBs) needed to access DTH telecasts, which according to industry
estimates is approx Rs. 4000 (including expenses for the cable, STBs
and others per connection)

The industry is at an early stage of growth and the primary focus of

DTH operators is acquiring customers. It is estimated that the major
growth could be witnessed in semi-urban areas and smaller towns and
villages where cable services is not as advanced as in the metros and
large cities

Due to huge infrastructural costs, DTH players are currently

undergoing losses. According to industry estimates, only on achieving
a subscriber base of 7-8 mn, will the private operators break-even.
However, with the advent of new competition, current operators are
reducing their prices to capture the market by offering huge discounts
thus increasing the pressure on ARPUs

DTH Analysis
Since 1959, when Indian television was first launched and the state owned
Doordarshan aired just two channels in black and white as recently as 1991;
the world of entertainment has made rapid and unusual strides.

The turning points were the 1982 Asian Games when colour television was
introduced and the 1991 liberalisation and deregulation that ushered in the
era of foreign investments and foreign channels that egged the domestic
players to jump into the foray.

From large metros, satellite TV moved to smaller towns that spurred the sale
of TV sets and brought about an upgradation from black and white television
viewing to the colour one. With time, more and more changes took place and
finally the DTH services arrived.

DTH operations in India could be enhanced if the dearth of satellite capacity

is removed by increasing the number of available Ku-band transponders that
at present is 12 on Insat 4A, which in turn would mean more channels for
viewing.

Tax burdens on DTH are another area of complaint for operators.

Around 40 per cent of revenues are siphoned off to pay taxes and license fee
and another 12 per cent for services imposed by the Central government.
Apart from this, there are entertainment taxes that differ from state to state.

Cable TV operators also give a stiff level of competition to the DTH sector by
suppressing their prices artificially by way of under-declarations.

This has pressurised the DTH operators to cut their profits to the extent of
making them unviable.

“At present, there are 80 million TV households in India, of which over seven
million are DTH ones. Since the penetration is just under nine per cent, there
is much room for a massive growth rate”, according to the Bharti Airtel’s
head of brand and media, Chandrashekhar Balakrishnan.

“This is what the company is focusing on, to enhance its subscription base to
20 per cent,” he added.

Industry analyst Siva Sundaram said that India will be the leading power in
Asia by 2010 in the field of cable market and by 2015; it will be the most
profitable in the area of pay TV market.

Interestingly, the rural rich were the first to positively respond to the advent
of DTH industry and those in the remote areas with no or unreliable access
to the cable services will be tapped in by the DTH players.

The ‘Indian Readership Survey 2008 R2’ findings have shown that the Dish
TV is the largest player with over 3.1 million subscribers, followed by DD
Direct, Tata Sky and Sun Direct, which has a predominance in the southern
zone.

The zone wise analysis puts the western zone with 2.24 million topping the
subscriber base charts and the North, South and East following the lead.

While the ‘big game’ hots up between the DTH service providers, the regular
big Indian couch potatoes may keep surfing the channels and choosing from
the burgeoning options.

FUTURE OF DTH
DTH homes are estimated to increase to 30 million by 2012, from 14 million
in 2008 according to Price Waterhouse Cooper.

Due to India’s varied geography and population distribution, C&S penetration

in remote and hilly areas is a problem. This creates a need-gap which the
DTH operators could easily tap.\ Media industry experts feel that DTH is yet
to see its full potential in terms of growth and is poised to go the way of the
mobile phone services and acquire scale.

To begin, DTH operators have started cutting prices to become more

affordable. Following the trend of mobiles which saw a boom when call rates
dropped, incoming calls became free and handsets became available at all-
time-low price points.

The cost of acquiring a DTH connection has become half of what it used to
be when the service first began in India. Dish TV is now offering a set-top
box for Rs 2,190. Sun Direct’s set-top box costs Rs 2,000. “In the South we
have also priced our connection at Rs 2,000 to compete with Sun,” says Big
TV’s Arun Kapoor

Some factors that will fuel the growth of DTH are:

• Government has made CAS (Conditional Access System) mandatory in

parts of four metros from Jan 2007.
• Digital technology used in DTH services makes viewing experience
better to the customer compared to old analog technology.
• DTH provide many value added services like Movies On Demand,
quizzes for kids, games, live telecast of rituals in famous temples etc.
for the first time in India. This could be the secret of success of the
DTH players, showing high growth rates.
• Predictions of a DTH boom are also based on the fact that more and
more people are buying television sets. India sells 12 to 14 million
 colour TVs in a year. Of these, 4-5 million are in the 29 inch-plus
category, which could be a clear target for DTH services

Despite the global financial meltdown, the future of DTH industry in India has
numerous opportunities. A 20 per cent annual growth is being witnessed in
the DTH sector and there is still scope for more.

IN THE current context of the global financial meltdown, the Direct to Home
(DTH) industry in India is in the throes of multifarious challenges and
opportunities.

The ‘big game’ is all about shaping up grandiose plans to master the winning
rules to garner as much portion of the Indian DTH pie as possible by a
handful of players.

Since the DTH space denotes ‘big value’, akin to the space occupied by
television and telephony, inter-firm rivalries have thrown up price wars,
discount schemes, procurement of transponders, ambitious targets for
improving the subscription base, popular bouquet of channels, set top boxes
with superior quality of videos, improving content, etc as a desperate means
to entice the Indian viewer.

A neat 20 per cent annual growth is being witnessed in the DTH sector in
India with over 8.5 million households having digital pay-TV.

According to Harsh Bijoor, a brand consultant, “Since Dish TV, the biggest
market player on the Indian soil, has not scraped even five per cent of the
pie, there is plenty left for other players to eat.”
In the early 2008, five major players, Zee’s Dish TV, Tata Sky, Reliance
ADAG, Sun Direct and Bharti Telemedia formed an umbrella body – DTH
Operators Association of India (DOAI).

The Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of India in its ‘2008 Pay TV
Piracy Survey’ have predicted that the Grey TV market of around USD
1.1billion will gradually be taken over by the legal DTH industry.

Marcel Fenez, chairman CASBAA, said, “Despite the global sinking of

economies, the Asia Pacific market is healthy and the decline in growth will
not derail the industry. With 1.7 million digital cable subscriptions, the digital
pay-TV market is finally taking off and this degree of penetration represents
a tipping point for our industry in Asia.”

Starting with a million strong subscriber base in August 2006, Tata Sky, a
DTH joint-venture Company between Star (owned by Rupert Murdoch) and
the Tata Group, now has more than 2.7 million connections and the forecast
for 2012 is that it will further increase to eight million.

The Indian DTH growth scenario bodes well for the advertising industry as
well with over Rs 30-40 crores being earmarked by these companies
annually for advertising revenues.

While Tata Sky has roped in Bollywood actors Amir Khan and Gul Panag for
its promotion, Shahrukh Khan endorses for the Dish TV.

MD and CEO of Tata Sky, Vikram Kaushik, recently confirmed in an interview

that the company estimates were standing at Rs 40 billion for its final
funding requirement as ‘competitive entries’, ‘explosive growth in volume’
and customer acquisition have jacked up the costs.

Tata Sky recently launched the NDS-developed XTV personal video recorder
(PVR) that enables the customers to watch a particular TV show while
recording another. It is being hailed a ‘major introduction’ in the Indian DTH
market.

Within a few days of its launch 2, 500 PVRs, priced at Rs 8, 999, were sold as
claimed by the Tata Sky MD, Kaushik.

This places Tata Sky among the top 19 ‘pay-TV operators’ around the world
with NDS solutions being a unique introduction to facilitate flexibility of PVR
to their subscribers.

A deal along similar lines was announced by Bharti Airtel, in the provision of
DTH services, dependent on NDS for its conditional access.

N Arjun, executive director Bharti Telemedia, expressed enthusiasm about

the company’s expansion plans by disclosing that his company looked
forward to providing the best of home entertainment services via Airtel
digital TV in terms of latest technology and exciting content. “Since DTH is
the future of home entertainment, with the support of our technology
partner NDS, we will render superior, state-of-the-art services to our DTH
service customers”, he said.

Sun Direct, which entered the DTH sector as a discounted brand in

opposition to Tata Sky, notched at a 30 per cent premium and supposedly
mopped up over a million subscribers within a short time span.

Tata Sky, though placed at a launch-premium of Rs 1,000, is open to

segmentations.

A demand of a tax holiday of five years from the government has been
mooted by the DOAI that should incentivise the DTH industry as its market
has reportedly surpassed the Japanese one in the last five years.The Indian
DTH industry players look forward to a seven times multiplication of its
market, about 40 million subscribers by 2015, from a total of 165 million pay
TV households.

REFERENCE LIST/BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. www.draftfcbulkacomstrat.com

2. www.financialexpress.com

3. www.thetimesofindia.com

4. www.wikipedia.com

5. www.tatasky.com

6. www.bigtv.com

7. www.bhartiairtel.com

8. www.trai.com

9. www.dishtv.com

10. www.videocon.com