Mudasir 4K
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Probably due to a very poor response received for its prime HD sports channels, Star Sports has slashed - by more than 50% the RIO rates for its High Definition (HD) sports channels HD-1 & HD-2.
Star Sports HD1 and Star Sports HD2 will now be sold at Rs. 50 each per month on an RIO basis.
Earlier these were priced at Rs. 110. The RIO rates of Star Sports HD3 and Star Sports HD4 have been left untouched, at Rs. 50 each per month.
A company official reportedly told the press "We have looked at market demand and thought that perhaps Rs. 50 would be the correct price point in
terms of gaining traction in the sports genre."
The current industry trend amongst both - MSOs and
DTH platforms is to unbundle channels and instead offer consumers an a-la-carte option to pick premium channels. As a result, broadcasters are rationalising their RIO (Reference Interconnect offer)
rates.
STAR SPORTS CHANNELS
In India, Star Sports operates 4 channels: Star Sports-1, Star Sports- 2, Star Sports-3, & Star
Sports-4. All 4 channels are available in both - Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) Feeds.
ARPU PUSH VIA HD
In India, 21st Century Fox sees HD as a major lever to up monthly revenues and has been on an HD channel launch spree. It launched two English entertainment HD channels - Star Movies Select HD and FX HD. It also launched the HD version of its Malayalam entertainment channel Asianet.
A total of 14 HD pay channels are currently offered, as detailed in Table-1.
VISION FOR HD
Speaking at the second Annual Moffett-Nathanson Media & Communications Summit, Star India CEO Uday Shankar had asserted that Star's HD subscriber base would increase to 25 to 40 million subscribers in the next 3 to 5 years from the current base of 3 million. With digitisation, HD channels will also see a growth since cable TV does not have bandwidth constraints unlike DTH. "Cable has not been able to push HD in a meaningful way. Some DTH operators were slow to realise the potential of DTH. Going forward, HD will be a big driver of broadcasters as well as platforms income," Shankar had said.
www.scatmag.com/article5.htm
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