Advanced Television

Data: India’s DTH subs fall

May 11, 2022

By Chris Forrester

India’s four giant DTH operators saw a fall in their combined subscriber numbers according to data from regulator TRAI.

Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, Dish TV and Sun Direct saw combined subscriber numbers fall slightly from 68.89 million in September 2021 to 68.52 million in December 2021.

There are more DTH viewers in the service from public broadcaster Doordarshan which broadcasts its signals free to viewers. According to data from a FICCI-EY report Doordarshan has about 40 million homes viewing its signals.

Prioritising the DTH players sees Tata Sky leading the quartet with a market share of 33.48 per cent followed by Bharti Telemedia (Airtel Digital TV) at 26.37 per cent, Dish TV at 22.04 per cent, and Sun Direct at 18.11 per cent.

TRAI reports that the country currently has 909 private satellite TV channels permitted for distribution.

Cable TV remains a powerful entity in India although the sector is made up by 1,753 registered MSOs but only twelve of them with a subs base greater than 1 million. But those twelve are significant:

· GTPL Hathway (7,906,424)
· Siti Networks (7,443,265)
· Hathway Digital (5,480,327)
· Den Networks (4,600,430)
· Thamizhaga Cable TV Comms (3,864,781)
· Kerala Communicators Cable (3,010,793)
· Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corp (2,746,828)
· NXT Digital Ltd (HITS) (2,245,427)
· KAL Cables (2,098,600)
· Fastway Transmissions (2,074,462)
· V K Digital Network (1,913,630)
· NXT Digital Ltd (Cable TV) (1,254,212)
· Asianet Digital Network (1,174,814)

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTH/Satellite, Markets, Pay TV, Research

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