Thakur
Banned
- Joined
- 30 Aug 2013
- Messages
- 14,856
- Reaction score
- 8,575
A packed sports calendar for India, leading up
from the Indian Premier League (IPL),
progressing to the Wimbledon and the
Football World Cup (FIFA) and going all the
way up to the India-England cricket series, F1
German Grand Prix, and Commonwealth
Games is bringing in new customers for
Direct-to-home (DTH) companies. Most report
15-20% rise in subscribers in the last few
months leading from the IPL to the FIFA
World Cup. India has over 55 million direct to
home subscribers, growing at healthy double
digits. Globally, plum sports properties are a
lucrative source of revenue for pay television
platforms, who often bid and counter bid
each other for the rights.
At the forefront of the sports celebration
party is pay television company Tata Sky
which is a joint venture between Tata group
and Star India. The firm says that it has seen
an increase in demand for Tata Sky HDits high
definition service, and its HD PVRits personal
video recorder set top boxes during the
Indian Premier League (IPL) and the FIFA Cup.
The DTH operator claims to have seen
significant subscriber additions in areas such
as the North East and South India. It has also
launched its 'Everywhere TV' application on
personal computers along with the
smartphones and tablets that it was already
catering to. Vikram Mehra, chief commercial
officer at Tata Sky said that the overall ramp-
up in subscribers was "substantial".
"Subscription for Sony Six has naturally gone
up," he says, "But what is more interesting
that we have seen a windfall in the sale of
high definition boxes. In fact, 70-75% of our
sales in recent months are on high definition
boxes alone. Earlier the demand for high
definition content mainly came from the
bigger towns. Today, it is the small towns that
are specifically seeking high definition
connections. There is a disproportionate
swing in favour of high definition content and
this swing can be attributed to premium
sports properties," he said. He also said that
the sale of recorder boxes or PVR as Tata Sky
calls them has increased visibly. "In the top
20-30 towns, the sale of PVR boxes has more
than doubled since many of the matches run
well into the night." Anticipating that more
people will sample television on the go, Tata
Sky also introduced this application on laptop,
anticipating the demand from kids and
teenagers. Mehra is also looking closely at the
number of professional leagues that are
springing up in the country in areas such as
hockey, kabbadi, football, etc. Domestic clubs
and leagues may grow the business of sports
still further, remarks Mehra and this could
only mean good news for DTH companies.
Airtel DTH claims to be one of the two DTH
companies offering all four high definition
sports channelsStar Sports 1, Star Sports 2,
Ten and Sony Six. For the FIFA season, Airtel
DTH says that it introduced a special offer
where customers buying a new Airtel digital
television connection during FIFA were
offered Sony Six channel free for the entire
duration until the finale. Airtel also�launched
pocket TV service this year�which enables
subscribers to watch over150 Live TV
channels, over 10,000 hours of video content
on�their mobile screens. Pocket TV was
launched with the IPL and the French Open
matches in mind, said an Airtel official. Scoring new goals - Financial Express Mobile
from the Indian Premier League (IPL),
progressing to the Wimbledon and the
Football World Cup (FIFA) and going all the
way up to the India-England cricket series, F1
German Grand Prix, and Commonwealth
Games is bringing in new customers for
Direct-to-home (DTH) companies. Most report
15-20% rise in subscribers in the last few
months leading from the IPL to the FIFA
World Cup. India has over 55 million direct to
home subscribers, growing at healthy double
digits. Globally, plum sports properties are a
lucrative source of revenue for pay television
platforms, who often bid and counter bid
each other for the rights.
At the forefront of the sports celebration
party is pay television company Tata Sky
which is a joint venture between Tata group
and Star India. The firm says that it has seen
an increase in demand for Tata Sky HDits high
definition service, and its HD PVRits personal
video recorder set top boxes during the
Indian Premier League (IPL) and the FIFA Cup.
The DTH operator claims to have seen
significant subscriber additions in areas such
as the North East and South India. It has also
launched its 'Everywhere TV' application on
personal computers along with the
smartphones and tablets that it was already
catering to. Vikram Mehra, chief commercial
officer at Tata Sky said that the overall ramp-
up in subscribers was "substantial".
"Subscription for Sony Six has naturally gone
up," he says, "But what is more interesting
that we have seen a windfall in the sale of
high definition boxes. In fact, 70-75% of our
sales in recent months are on high definition
boxes alone. Earlier the demand for high
definition content mainly came from the
bigger towns. Today, it is the small towns that
are specifically seeking high definition
connections. There is a disproportionate
swing in favour of high definition content and
this swing can be attributed to premium
sports properties," he said. He also said that
the sale of recorder boxes or PVR as Tata Sky
calls them has increased visibly. "In the top
20-30 towns, the sale of PVR boxes has more
than doubled since many of the matches run
well into the night." Anticipating that more
people will sample television on the go, Tata
Sky also introduced this application on laptop,
anticipating the demand from kids and
teenagers. Mehra is also looking closely at the
number of professional leagues that are
springing up in the country in areas such as
hockey, kabbadi, football, etc. Domestic clubs
and leagues may grow the business of sports
still further, remarks Mehra and this could
only mean good news for DTH companies.
Airtel DTH claims to be one of the two DTH
companies offering all four high definition
sports channelsStar Sports 1, Star Sports 2,
Ten and Sony Six. For the FIFA season, Airtel
DTH says that it introduced a special offer
where customers buying a new Airtel digital
television connection during FIFA were
offered Sony Six channel free for the entire
duration until the finale. Airtel also�launched
pocket TV service this year�which enables
subscribers to watch over150 Live TV
channels, over 10,000 hours of video content
on�their mobile screens. Pocket TV was
launched with the IPL and the French Open
matches in mind, said an Airtel official. Scoring new goals - Financial Express Mobile
