DTH operator Independent TV whose signals were cut by Antrix in June due to non-payment of dues is all set to relaunch its DTH services which will be known as ITV 2.0. According to a channel communication dated 23rd July Independent TV’s Director & CEO Vivek Prakash has said that the company’s management in the past few weeks had held meetings with ZDs and SSDs at many places and on their suggestion readied a blueprint for the relaunch.
The new beginning depends upon the important work of the SSDs in which the biggest challenge is to give the right direction to the service engineers and their supervisors. The first thing will be the training of ZD engineers. The SSDs will be given the same training by the ZD engineers in the first week of August. Every SSD is to repair the existing malfunctioning set-top boxes which have been given back by the customer and will start replacing the STBs at the house of the consumers.
Re-transmission of channels is scheduled for mid-August. The company informed its SSD partners that repairing and replacement of STBs is to be done by 31st October 2019 following which the remaining STBs will be permanently deleted from its system. In short, ITV 2.0 will launch for channels partners in the first week of August followed by its launch for customers in the second week of August. All STBs which are not powering on are to send to the ZDs following which money will be credited in the ledger.
ITV 2.0 in September 2019 with a renewed effort restart the sale of new connections so that the existing stock of STBs and recharge stock will finish. A new mobile application is to be launched through which existing customers will be able to update their address, mobile number and request to replace their existing STB with a new STB. The company has promised to provide all the channels that were running till the night of 12th June. Apart from that, the remaining balance will be the same as it was on the night of 12th June.
The new connections will be sold on the basis of “GSK”, “FRC” and “channels” and not on the basis of the old way which will help reduce the investment. The company has invited select ZDs to work with the management to take part in important works which have been started with the Halchal Project.
On an ending note, Vivek Prakash said that he was fortunate to have the channel partners as a part of the ITV family and thanked them for their confidence in him. He hoped that they would with a renewed effort help the company relaunch as ITV 2.0.
The announcement came a day before the TRAI show caused Independent TV and directed it to comply with new tariff order rules. Questions remain on the promise of ITV to provide all the channels that it was airing on 12 June before the disconnection of its signals. Greycells18 Media recently demanded more than 30 lakhs from ITV along with India cast suing it for recovery. The company has other recovery cases as well.Â
As of 31 March the company had around a million customers. Whether the company has signed an agreement for signals with Antrix is yet to be revealed. The company had only recently been granted the required license by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on certain conditions and the license is valid till 31st December 2019 in its own name.
