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As television consumers move away from ‘appointment viewing’ (setting time aside to watch programmes), direct-to-home (DTH) service provider Dish TV on Tuesday launched its push video-on-demand (VOD) service, offering a feast of films that can be viewed without ad breaks.
Priced at ₹5,990, the DishFlix Box can be plugged into a Dish TV set-top box. Consumers can access Dish TV’s movie library, pre-loaded with 50 films. Out of these, 15 movies will be refreshed every month on a first-in-first-out basis and the viewable movie library will be regularly updated.
The company believes consumers will have access to about 230 movies a year. The subscription for the service will be about ₹100 a month. Consumers can pause, play, fast forward and rewind movies at their own convenience.
“This device hands over control to the consumer, who can pick and choose, as a movie library is available to them anytime. The movie content will be pushed to the customer’s STB using satellite technology and consumers will not incur the costs associated with the internet,” said RC Venkateish, CEO of Dish TV. He said the company will look at consumer feedback on the movies they want to watch and push other premium services through DishFlix in due course of time.
Jawahar Goel, MD, Dish TV, said: “This is a highly differentiated and consumer-friendly move for movie buffs who want to watch films at their own pace, without advertisements, and is a safe alternative for pirated internet downloads.” He added that the universe of consumers who pay for premium DTH tier services in the country is fairly large and pegged at about 10 million, which is the company’s target audience.
The company believes the move fits in well for consumers in cities as well as smaller towns who do not have access to quality internet connection.
When asked about the overall content cost, Goel said for movie makers this is an additional revenue stream and they are willing to provide the VOD rights at service provider-friendly prices.
Dish TV’s push VOD service comes at a time when media and entertainment companies are looking at ways to offer on-the-go content. The companies are looking to offer content that can be streamed across devices.
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