Dish TV subs up 12%
January 24, 2014
By Chris Forrester
India’s largest DTH player, Dish TV, is enjoying subscriptions success. Subs revenues rose 11.9 per cent in Q3 (y-o-y).
Subhash Chandra, chairman, Dish TV India, said the Indian television distribution sector is not completely out of the woods yet. “With more than 14 months passed post the roll-out of Phase I of mandatory digitisation, billing and other critical requirements have not yet been fully put in place by majority of the multi-system operators (MSOs). Though far too delayed, we remain optimistic about the completion of digitisation in its true sense,” he said.
Jawahar Goel, managing director, Dish TV, said, it was an eventful quarter for Dish TV with roll-out of its ‘On Request Ala-carte’ (ORA) scheme. “While a reasonable content cost payout is well adopted, an unjustified increase in payment for content can jeopardise the existence of DTH. With DTH continuing to contribute the ulk of the subscription revenue to broadcasters, it is high time they get started on collecting their share of revenue from close to 5,000 cable companies apart from rationalisation of carriage fee payout,” he said.
“Dish TV added 220,000 net subscribers in the quarter and continued to maintain its leadership share. Notwithstanding the festival period, the overall additions for the industry remained muted largely due to the sluggishness in the economy as compared to the corresponding period last fiscal,” said Goel. Total subscribers now stand at 11.2 million.