Anil.HD
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Cable TV has its roots in the late seventies. Indian television viewers were looking for entertainment options, apart from what state-owned broadcaster DD was offering. That came their way with the import and manufacture of video cassette recorders permitted domestically. There was a veritable boom in video cassette recorder sales during this period. Enterprising individuals in apartment blocks placed a video in their homes or their garages and started offering a cable TV service to people who opted for it. The fare available was Hindi and English movies and pirated western comedies, music and game shows. At this stage, cable TV was restricted to the major metros and towns and the upper crust of society.
The impetus for its spread came in 1990 with the advent of the Gulf war. Ted Turner's CNN started beaming news reports of the bombing of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein and sparked off a demand for satellite dishes. Only the affluent could afford them. Some cable operators who had been running their Hindi and English movie channels added dishes and started relaying CNN into homes. This spurred demand for cable TV, making it a lucrative business and it attracted more individuals to the industry.
The launch of Star TV and ZeeTV further fuelled the spread of cable TV. In the first half of 1992, almost 4,500 households were being cabled up daily. That figure increased to 9,450 homes daily in the second half of the year, according to a study conducted by market research firm - Frank Small for Star TV: on how many homes could receive its service. (If one considers that almost all Indian cable homes can receive Star TV because it shares the same platform as Zee TV then the numbers would be a fair representation of the total number of C&S homes at that time because Zee TV has almost 100% penetration in cable homes.) From a mere 412,000 urban households in January 1992, the number of cable homes went up to 1.2 million by November 1992. The number of homes estimated in 1993 was 3.3 million according to the Frank Small study. This is estimated to have gone up to 7.3 million by January 1994, according to one estimate. Frank Small once again surveyed the market in end-1994 and the firm placed the number of cable & satellite homes at 11.8 million out of a total of 32.4 million TV owning homes.
Subsequently, no extensive research was conducted by the industry which went by guesstimates until two readership surveys were conducted in 1995. The two national readership surveys: the Indian Readership Survey and the National Readership Survey pegged the penetration of C&S at below 10 million in 1995 whereas industry estimates placed it at least 14 million. The NRS said that 9.3 million homes in urban India were cabled while the IRS said that the numbers for urban and rural India were 8.4 million and 3.4 million respectively. No further updates have been done because of the magnitude of the research covering a population of almost 70 million TV homes today. Nevertheless, the satellite TV industry has upped its estimate for C&S homes to about 22 million now attributing the increase to the spread of the cable TV networks in smaller towns, villages and untapped developing areas on the outskirts of major metros, where cable TV is being installed in housing at the time of construction itself.
The impetus for its spread came in 1990 with the advent of the Gulf war. Ted Turner's CNN started beaming news reports of the bombing of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein and sparked off a demand for satellite dishes. Only the affluent could afford them. Some cable operators who had been running their Hindi and English movie channels added dishes and started relaying CNN into homes. This spurred demand for cable TV, making it a lucrative business and it attracted more individuals to the industry.
The launch of Star TV and ZeeTV further fuelled the spread of cable TV. In the first half of 1992, almost 4,500 households were being cabled up daily. That figure increased to 9,450 homes daily in the second half of the year, according to a study conducted by market research firm - Frank Small for Star TV: on how many homes could receive its service. (If one considers that almost all Indian cable homes can receive Star TV because it shares the same platform as Zee TV then the numbers would be a fair representation of the total number of C&S homes at that time because Zee TV has almost 100% penetration in cable homes.) From a mere 412,000 urban households in January 1992, the number of cable homes went up to 1.2 million by November 1992. The number of homes estimated in 1993 was 3.3 million according to the Frank Small study. This is estimated to have gone up to 7.3 million by January 1994, according to one estimate. Frank Small once again surveyed the market in end-1994 and the firm placed the number of cable & satellite homes at 11.8 million out of a total of 32.4 million TV owning homes.
Subsequently, no extensive research was conducted by the industry which went by guesstimates until two readership surveys were conducted in 1995. The two national readership surveys: the Indian Readership Survey and the National Readership Survey pegged the penetration of C&S at below 10 million in 1995 whereas industry estimates placed it at least 14 million. The NRS said that 9.3 million homes in urban India were cabled while the IRS said that the numbers for urban and rural India were 8.4 million and 3.4 million respectively. No further updates have been done because of the magnitude of the research covering a population of almost 70 million TV homes today. Nevertheless, the satellite TV industry has upped its estimate for C&S homes to about 22 million now attributing the increase to the spread of the cable TV networks in smaller towns, villages and untapped developing areas on the outskirts of major metros, where cable TV is being installed in housing at the time of construction itself.
