TRAI reminds cable, DTH companies to remove multiple listing of channels

Even as the fight between sections of news channels restarts over the resumption of BARC television ratings, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has shot off a directive to cable and DTH operators to ensure that TV channels are listed only once, and only under one ‘genre’, on their set-top-boxes. The directive comes in the […]

BSNL starts distributing live TV via IPTV in Kerala

The Kerala circle has become the first in India to support BSNL’s commercial IPTV services, and both direct and indirect customers of BSNL can avail of the service. IPTV refers to the distribution of television content via IP or internet protocol, instead of traditional broadcasting protocols like DVB. BSNL had been testing IPTV for several […]

Dish TV to hold AGM this month as YES Bank fight lingers

In an unexpected announcement, Dish TV India Ltd, one of India’s largest TV channel distribution platforms, said its board of directors have called the company’s annual general meeting on the last day of this month. The announcement is unexpected given that the board had, a week ago, decided to seek government approval to postpone the […]

Dish TV seeks to postpone AGM, says directors can’t be removed without nod

Dish TV India, one of the largest direct-to-home satellite broadcasters in the world, said a shareholder resolution calling for the removal of its chairman and certain directors as proposed by YES Bank cannot be implemented without the approval of the government and lenders, and therefore, the DTH company has sought permission to postpone the annual […]

Broadcasting sector declines as broadband gains ground in India

The latest industry numbers for the broadband and broadcasting industries seem to confirm what many industry watchers have been warning for years — the rising penetration of affordable and high-speed wired internet will displace cable and DTH services in India. While this has always been seen as a theoretical possibility or hypothesis, new data from […]

Hinduja’s NXTDigital signs up 3 MSOs for infra-sharing

NXTDigital, the television channel aggregator, said it has signed on three MSOs in the India for its infrastructure sharing scheme, and expects the government to start approving these deals as early as this month. “There are three partner clients,” said CEO Vynsley Fernandes, speaking to investors, promising to disclose the names once the ministry permissions […]

Zee Entertainment reports mixed Q4 results

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, the country’s largest home-grown television and broadcasting company, reported a modest year-on-year improvement in its advertising and subscription revenue, but also saw the usual sequential decline when compared to the preceding, holiday quarter. The company’s results have become more difficult to compare due to the fact that the seasonally strong third […]

Nothing illegal in non-DD Free Dish channels being viewed by FD subs: Govt

Government of India has indicated that it found nothing illegal in channels from other DTH platforms being available for viewing by audiences of Prasar Bharati’s DD Free Dish service. There have been allegations by a section of the broadcasting industry that the availability of channels from other DTH platforms to users of DD Free Dish […]

After poor take-up, govt rethinks radio digitization strategy

Government of India seems to have had a change of heart as far as its digitization strategy for radio is concerned, particularly on the choice of technology for the future. The first phase of India’s radio digitization — which has the potential to deliver CD-quality sound on radio receivers — was started around 11 years […]

TV18 Broadcast profit up 84% on lower costs, recovery

TV18 Broadcast, one of India’s top TV broadcasting companies, reported a whopping 84% jump in its net profit for the December quarter. The numbers were boosted by a sharp fall in operating and tax expenses, as well as by a steady recovery in revenue aided by festival spending. The company’s consolidated net profit for the […]

ICRA says TV broadcasters improving faster than expected

Credit rating agency ICRA has revised its revenue target for the TV broadcasting sector in India due to a faster than expected bounce-back in advertisement revenue and strong growth in subscription incomes. The ratings company, however, kept its forecast for the print industry unchanged, predicting a decline of 30% for the ongoing financial year. BROADCAST […]

Sun NXT to abandon ad-based strategy?

The management of Chennai-based Sun TV Network seems to have abandoned the earlier ‘hybrid strategy’ for its digital platform and come to the conclusion that an advertising-led model will likely not work in the video-on-demand universe in the longer term. The company’s Sun NXT app has been by far the most aggressive player as far […]

Airtel’s cable operator tie-up expands to 48 cities

Bharti Airtel said it has expanded its broadband offering under tie-ups with local cable operators to 48 cities as of the end of September, up from 18 cities three months earlier, and will scale it up even faster in coming days. It said it took seven eight months to get the model right, but the […]

GTPL not overly worried about Airtel’s LCO broadband scheme

GTPL Hathway, one of India’s top cable TV and cable internet providers, indicated it was not overly worried about telecom players like Bharti Airtel luring away its local cable operator partners under their new LCO partnership strategy. Bharti Airtel had announced some weeks ago that it plans to authorize local cable operators (LCOs) to resell […]

Work from home boosts TV viewership in India

Even as evening TV viewership has fallen back to its pre-COVID levels after the COVID-19 lockdown, overall TV viewership continues to remain elevated due to higher levels of daytime consumption in the era of work-from-home. According to numbers disclosed by Sunil Lulla, CEO of TV viewership measurement agency BARC, TV viewership in India has gone […]

Republic to enter regional languages this year – Arnab Goswami

News broadcaster Republic plans to expand its digital offering to six languages by March, and has also had discussions on taking over news channels in non-Hindi, non-English languages in India, founder Arnab Goswami said in an interview today. “I had thought that by the end of this financial year, we would do ten languages on […]

COVID-19 lockdown proves a blessing for DTH providers

The Direct to Home (DTH) satellite broadcasting service has emerged as perhaps the only segment that has seen a clear benefit from the COVID-19 lock-down, with all three listed players seeing an increase in their customer revenue during the lock-down. The biggest jump in revenue was reported by Airtel Digital, which saw its revenue jump […]