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Purvita Chatterjee

Taking advantage of shortage of set-top boxes

Mumbai , Jan. 4

Taking advantage of the shortage of set-top boxes faced by cable users, DTH players are luring potential CAS (conditional access system) customers with fancy offers to go for their satellite brands. The CAS markets of Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai are specifically being targeted with special schemes and offers.

While Essel Group's Dish TV has announced a special pricing for the CAS cities, Tata Sky is offering six month free subscription between December 28 and January 10, timing its offering with the introduction of CAS in these cities.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Vikram Mehra, Head, Consumer Marketing, Tata Sky, said, "We have timed our offer with the CAS roll-out realising it will be impossible to meet the demand for the set-top boxes."

Customer calls

In the last few days since CAS came into being, Tata Sky claims it has been getting 25,000 customer calls at its call centres on a daily basis. "We believed we have garnered between 30 to 50 per cent of the CAS market so far," said Mr Mehra. Outlining the advantages of DTH over CAS, Tata Sky contends it does not have to import its boxes unlike the CAS set-top boxes, which are currently being imported by multi-service operators. "We realised there would be a sudden demand for the boxes and in our case we have the advantage of manufacturing the boxes at our own facilities within the country," added Mr Mehra.

Essel Group's Dish TV has also been taking advantage of the demand-supply mismatch of set-top boxes by going for a special pricing for the CAS markets. With its provision of `flexible' pricing, the DTH players are expecting the subscriber base to jump between five to ten times over the current base of 1.7 million subscribers.

Ms Anjali M. Nanda, Vice-President Marketing, Dish TV, said, "We have eased the entry cost for our services. We are targeting those consumers who have yet to covert to CAS."

Dish TV estimates having already added between 1 and 1.5 lakh subscribers. With a one-time payout offer of Rs 1,300, Dish TV has timed its scheme during the last two days of 2006, when the transition to CAS was expected. "Since the Government has made it mandatory for consumers to go digital, we see this as an opportunity for DTH players who can add a new experience to television viewing," added Ms Nanda.

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