If DTH players in India are to compete with the fragmented cable operators in the country, then successful digitisation is the key. Harit Nagpal, the CEO of Tata Sky, of the six DTH services available in the country said at the recent IBC conference that with the onset of digitisation, both DTH and cable will have a chance to head to head with competitive packaging and pricing.
Harit Nagpal said, “Prices have been kept low by analogue cable which does not allow tiered packages so premium offers that are priced higher for the discerning customer are not possible. No one has ever sold caviar in a buffet.” India is in the midst of cable digitisation with the government stating that all regions in the country will be digitised by end of 2014 and as of right now the DTH market has about 56.5 million subscribers.
Tata Sky is already trying to woo more subscribers away from the cable sector by slashing the cost of STBs by 18%. The SD STB now costs approximately USD 28. In order to woo the premium subscribers, the player has also started upgrading its technology wherein it’s spending USD 142 million to switch from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 formats.
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