Advanced Television

Intelsat wins India’s Jain ‘HITS’ service

March 22, 2012

By Chris Forrester

India’s Jain TV has signed with Intelsat to carry Jain’s planned ‘Headend in the Sky’, or HITS platform, which helps support India’s national goal of completing the transition to digital broadcast television signals by 2014.

Jain TV Group’s Noida Software Technology Park Limited (NSTPL) signed a multi-year, multi-transponder agreement for C-band capacity on Intelsat 902 at 62° East. The company will use the capacity to create a white label, turnkey channel package that can be received and distributed by multiple system and local cable operators throughout the region.

“NSTPL is proud of its association with Intelsat and excited that our HITS platform will facilitate a pan-India service beginning this September, signifying an important step in the transition to India’s national goal of full digitalization of television signals by 2014. The platform will launch with more than 200 digital television channels and will expand to 350 by 2013,” said Dr. J.K. Jain, chairman of NSTPL and Jain TV Group.

NSTPL also announced that Shri Pradip Baijal, former chairman of regulator TRAI, shall be the mentor for the NSTPL’s HITS project, and will provide leadership “on a full-time basis”. NSTPL’s offerings will be white label and will not compete with those of any other providers; rather the company will provide solutions directly to cable operators, said a statement.

“India has a burgeoning cable distribution market with more than 80 million homes receiving television programming via cable,” said Terry Bleakley, Intelsat’s regional VP/Asia-Pacific sales. “Intelsat’s satellites and video neighbourhoods allow for new and innovative platforms that reach an increasingly greater number of consumers in one of the world’s fastest growing economies.”

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