The Hindu Business Line : Chennai cable operators feel DTH is no threat

THE direct-to-home (DTH) market is all set to see more action with the entry of Doordarshan's DD Direct service, but cable operators in the city seem convinced that it won't pose a threat to their business.

During a seminar organised by the Broadcast Engineering Society (India) in the city, Mr P. Sakilan, State President of Tamizhaga Cable TV Operators' General Welfare Association, said that with all top channel bouquets not available under a single service offering, DTH operators would find it hard to attract customers.

At least, the presence of a top channel such as Sun TV in any of the DTH bouquets could prop up demand for the service in the city but that does not seem to be taking place, he added.

Doordarshan has begun test transmission of its DTH service and, it is learnt, will launch it officially in mid-August, thereby joining Zee TV's Dish TV in a market that is now being solely serviced by the latter.

Dish TV kicked off operations in October 2003 and has till now enlisted about 1.6 lakh subscribers all over the country. But demand in Tamil Nadu has been lukewarm, and, according to an informed source, the number of subscribers in the State is less than 2,000.

The primary reason for the low level of interest, says the source, is the lack of Tamil content in Dish's service. Save for Raj TV's multilingual music channel Raj Musix, there is not much in terms of local content, especially considering that Tamil channels account for over three-fourths of the television viewership share in the State.

Mr Rajeev Nambiar, Raj TV's CEO, told Business Line that the rest of the channels from the media house — Raj TV, Raj Digital Plus — will be part of Dish TV's offering in about a week.

Setting up the equipment for DTH costs a little over Rs 7,000 and monthly subscriptions are either Rs 100 or Rs 200 depending on whether one opts for a basic or premium tier of channels. But DD is proposing to launch a free-to-air service, with equipment likely to be available off the shelves for over Rs 3,000.

DD will initially offer 30 channels, 17 of which will be from its own stable. For the rest, it is said to be in talks with private media groups.

Mr Kayal R. S. Elavarasu, an official of another cable operators' association here, said DTH players would find it difficult to compete against the cable stream in a price-sensitive market.

According to him, even if all the players come together under a common service platform, the monthly bill will be quite steep for most viewers to afford. Also, he said, even in an advanced market like the US, where DTH has been around for a while, the percentage of subscribers has been hardly 10-15 per cent; the Indian experience, with its nascent DTH market, won't be any different.

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