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As India’s top four metros go digital next month, it is the differentiated content offering that would separate the men from the boys.
The content battle would thus see operators slug it out on key content elements like capacity, availability of HD channels, depth of the offering featuring channels across genres, and delivering on the promise of value for money, primarily on the customised package quotient.
Salil Kapoor, chief operating officer (COO), Dish TV, Asia’s largest DTH operator, said: “Operators will have to carry wide variety of content across various languages and genres, and a good depth within these which basically means more number of channels.”
Dish TV, currently with over 400 channels, is offering the largest bouquet of standard and high definition (SD/ HD) channels and is the market leader in this area, he added. The average content width of other platforms was 300 to 360 channels, Kapoor asserted.
DTH operators argue that India had diverse need of content consumption which also varied from locations, cultures, SECs. “So while a LCO / MSO could bring in local content to their subscribers they can’t offer the diversity that DTH can and this is an area where DTH services score highly over digital cable,” argued a senior resource at a DTH operator.
DTH brings to your home, entertainment in around 25 genres and 18 languages engulfing the heterogeneous needs across locations. TAM report suggests that specific high interest genres like sports, lifestyle, infotainment, kids and movies are highly in demand on digital platform, a welcome change for a cable consumer deprived of these services.
Ramesh Shah, managing director, Sony Mony Electronics, a leading Mumbai electronics retailer, said: “Another major digital advantage is watching sporting events like cricket on the high definition (HD) set top box (STB) offered by leading branded players like Dish TV and Tata Sky.”
Endorsing the DTH content edge, Shashi Arora, CEO (Media), Bharti Airtel DTH, said: “Digital cable has very limited capacity in terms of offering HD channels to their subscribers. Except for some parts of Mumbai and Delhi, availability of HD channels on cable platform is negligible in the rest of the country. The reason being, cable operators do not have the required HD infrastructure.”
DTH operators claimed that their HD offering was pretty impressive. Most of the players today offer anywhere between 10 and 20 HD channels each wherein Dish TV claimed to offer as many as 40 HD channels and services.
Consumer would need to make the right choice when it comes to maximising the returns on their investment.
Arora brought in the critical price perspective. “While digital cable will bring uniformity in pricing irrespective of the social status, it may not have price and channel flexibility.”
Kapoor outlined the broad contours of his offerings thus: “Dish TV across tiers offer best value packs i.e. maximum number of channels for that price point. This applies to all the three price tiers starting from Rs180, going up to Rs250+ and Rs350+.
Contrary to popular belief, the cost per channel on a DTH is actually far lower than that of cable at 90 paiseto Rs1.25 per channel per month.”
Can entertainment get any cheaper?
Source
The content battle would thus see operators slug it out on key content elements like capacity, availability of HD channels, depth of the offering featuring channels across genres, and delivering on the promise of value for money, primarily on the customised package quotient.
Salil Kapoor, chief operating officer (COO), Dish TV, Asia’s largest DTH operator, said: “Operators will have to carry wide variety of content across various languages and genres, and a good depth within these which basically means more number of channels.”
Dish TV, currently with over 400 channels, is offering the largest bouquet of standard and high definition (SD/ HD) channels and is the market leader in this area, he added. The average content width of other platforms was 300 to 360 channels, Kapoor asserted.
DTH operators argue that India had diverse need of content consumption which also varied from locations, cultures, SECs. “So while a LCO / MSO could bring in local content to their subscribers they can’t offer the diversity that DTH can and this is an area where DTH services score highly over digital cable,” argued a senior resource at a DTH operator.
DTH brings to your home, entertainment in around 25 genres and 18 languages engulfing the heterogeneous needs across locations. TAM report suggests that specific high interest genres like sports, lifestyle, infotainment, kids and movies are highly in demand on digital platform, a welcome change for a cable consumer deprived of these services.
Ramesh Shah, managing director, Sony Mony Electronics, a leading Mumbai electronics retailer, said: “Another major digital advantage is watching sporting events like cricket on the high definition (HD) set top box (STB) offered by leading branded players like Dish TV and Tata Sky.”
Endorsing the DTH content edge, Shashi Arora, CEO (Media), Bharti Airtel DTH, said: “Digital cable has very limited capacity in terms of offering HD channels to their subscribers. Except for some parts of Mumbai and Delhi, availability of HD channels on cable platform is negligible in the rest of the country. The reason being, cable operators do not have the required HD infrastructure.”
DTH operators claimed that their HD offering was pretty impressive. Most of the players today offer anywhere between 10 and 20 HD channels each wherein Dish TV claimed to offer as many as 40 HD channels and services.
Consumer would need to make the right choice when it comes to maximising the returns on their investment.
Arora brought in the critical price perspective. “While digital cable will bring uniformity in pricing irrespective of the social status, it may not have price and channel flexibility.”
Kapoor outlined the broad contours of his offerings thus: “Dish TV across tiers offer best value packs i.e. maximum number of channels for that price point. This applies to all the three price tiers starting from Rs180, going up to Rs250+ and Rs350+.
Contrary to popular belief, the cost per channel on a DTH is actually far lower than that of cable at 90 paiseto Rs1.25 per channel per month.”
Can entertainment get any cheaper?
Source
