Sanjeev
Contributor
- Joined
- 12 Apr 2012
- Messages
- 3,735
- Reaction score
- 665
TataSky will start selling a next generation set top box Monday, but Managing Director Harit Nagpal says he expects initially only a handful of users and sports buffs to upgrade to the broadcast resolution that is higher than high definition. Speaking to ET, Nagpal says the direct-to-home company is contending with low margins and after nine years of operations, is still in investment phase.
How are the sales of 4K and highdefinition products shaping up?
I see a repeat of what happened with HD with 4K. Initially we expect only a few thousands of customers on 4K. When we launched HD, there was no content, it took too much space to broadcast the HD channel. Today almost every channel has an HD equivalent. Some people have already invested in 4K televisions which is what had happened with HD; even before the broadcast existed, a chunk of the TVs were HD-enabled. As the screen size gets larger, the density of pixels also needs to increase.
What is the proportion of HD users? Today nearly 25-30% of our base is on HD
Today nearly 25-30% of our base is on HD and 50% of the new customers are coming on HD. That makes for around 2.5 million HD users. The Everywhere TV (broadcast over Internet) is in the hundreds of thousand users, but fast growing.
What is the bread-and-butter business for TataSky?
That will remain linear channels, because that is where the volume will remain. Our broadband infrastructure is much weaker than the developed world. So, on-demand TV is still some time away. To be able to watch, you and I will not set it for download and watch the next day. Users today want to press a button and start it off. For that you need a consistent network that will deliver speed of well over 2 Mbps. So a linear channel will still be the bulk of the business for some time.
What do margins look like for a broadcaster?
A third we give to content producers, because no matter how good your broadcast is, if the content on it isn't good then consumption will reflect on it. Another third gets skimmed off in taxes. In fact, we are one of the only industries that is not banned, such as cigarettes or alcohol, that gets taxed as highly.
Broadcasters have also struggled with spectrum issues with allocation of airwaves from the satellite. What's your opinion?
That we have generally found ways around. Compression technology is evolving every day. The waves required to broadcast a 4K signal have already halved since we first tried it. Right now an HD channel takes about three times the bandwidth of an SD channel and a 4K channel is about three times HD. But the fact is for every new channel you won't take an old one off, so the compression has to be proportionate.
We expect fewer 4k customers initially, says Tata Sky MD Harit Nagpal - Economic Times
How are the sales of 4K and highdefinition products shaping up?
I see a repeat of what happened with HD with 4K. Initially we expect only a few thousands of customers on 4K. When we launched HD, there was no content, it took too much space to broadcast the HD channel. Today almost every channel has an HD equivalent. Some people have already invested in 4K televisions which is what had happened with HD; even before the broadcast existed, a chunk of the TVs were HD-enabled. As the screen size gets larger, the density of pixels also needs to increase.
What is the proportion of HD users? Today nearly 25-30% of our base is on HD
Today nearly 25-30% of our base is on HD and 50% of the new customers are coming on HD. That makes for around 2.5 million HD users. The Everywhere TV (broadcast over Internet) is in the hundreds of thousand users, but fast growing.
What is the bread-and-butter business for TataSky?
That will remain linear channels, because that is where the volume will remain. Our broadband infrastructure is much weaker than the developed world. So, on-demand TV is still some time away. To be able to watch, you and I will not set it for download and watch the next day. Users today want to press a button and start it off. For that you need a consistent network that will deliver speed of well over 2 Mbps. So a linear channel will still be the bulk of the business for some time.
What do margins look like for a broadcaster?
A third we give to content producers, because no matter how good your broadcast is, if the content on it isn't good then consumption will reflect on it. Another third gets skimmed off in taxes. In fact, we are one of the only industries that is not banned, such as cigarettes or alcohol, that gets taxed as highly.
Broadcasters have also struggled with spectrum issues with allocation of airwaves from the satellite. What's your opinion?
That we have generally found ways around. Compression technology is evolving every day. The waves required to broadcast a 4K signal have already halved since we first tried it. Right now an HD channel takes about three times the bandwidth of an SD channel and a 4K channel is about three times HD. But the fact is for every new channel you won't take an old one off, so the compression has to be proportionate.
We expect fewer 4k customers initially, says Tata Sky MD Harit Nagpal - Economic Times
