Dish TV, which remains the largest pay-TV operator in a very crowded Indian DTH market, added some 829,000 net new subscribers during its Q3 trading. Churn remains stubbornly high, but this increased growth (the previous quarter’s was 477,000) suggests that Dish TV is on track to add a total 2.5 million gross additions this financial year.

However, Dish TV did not manage to convert this gain into positive territory as far as profit was concerned (in financial number to December 31st). The broadcaster posted a net loss of Rupees 448.8 million ($8.4m), down 11.3 per cent.  Expenses rose, as did production costs.

Dish TV MD Jawahar Goel said, “While the [India] distribution industry remained on tenterhooks preparing for digitization, Q3 saw the much debated compulsory switch off of analogue television signals take place in key metro markets. Although lack of execution in Chennai and Kolkata was a dampener, festival demand coupled with mandatory conversion in Delhi and Mumbai brought the DTH industry back to the 1 million plus monthly run-rate. DTH garnered around 35 per cent share of incremental additions.”

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