Direct-to-home television service provider Dish TV will focus more on enhancing subscriber revenue than expanding its viewer base. Salil Kapoor, Chief Operating Officer of Dish TV, said though there has been a growth in subscriber base (which is currently at 15 million) in the last quarter, the average revenue per user (ARPU) remained flat. The Zee Group company posted an ARPU of ₹166 during the quarter against an industry average of ₹ 160.

DTH players’ revenues usually come from subscription, advertising and carriage fee. The company will, in the next couple of weeks, launch a new service - Dish Box Office. It will offer half a dozen movies through the day instead of just one movie on demand - “may be for less than a rupee a day”. It will open up the space for advertisers to increase revenue.

“As the reach of this offering is comparable to any movie channel, we hope to reach at least 50 per cent of our active subscriber base,” he said.

Mobile messages

It also plans to draw advertisements to go with mobile messages it sends to its subscribers. For example, after a rechargesubscribers gets a push-back message, “we can tag a sentence saying ‘brought to you by’ and mention the brand name.”

Dish also plans to introduce newer platforms. Besides distributing TV content through online and mobile phones, it will soon introduce Car TV, offering live TV on vehicles. Though it earlier launched a similar service, it did not pick up well due to high cost of ₹2.5 lakh and bulky equipment. “We have simplified the technology now. Just a small screen in the car would do. The tracking device and other hardware will be installed at our end to track the car and beam the channels,” Kapoor said. This service will cost about ₹25,000 including a TV screen.

Dish TV is likely to get additional transponder capacity from a foreign satellite. It can then accommodate at least 100 more standard definition channelsto increase revenue from the carriage fee, he said.

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