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Bharti launches Indian DTH today |
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| Rose Major and Chris Forrester, on 08-10-2008 |
 A fifth pay-TV DTH platform will launch in India today, October 9. Operated by telco Bharti Airtel, Airtel Digital TV further ramps up competition not just in the DTH arena, but across the media and telco sector as a whole.
Manoj Kohli, CEO of Bharti Airtel, characterised the launch as “the
culmination of our three screens strategy, which is to be present
across mobile phone, computer and TV screens.” As such, its closest
rival could be more Reliance Group’s Big TV than existing platforms
TataSky, Dish TV or Sun Direct, as Reliance is the only other company
operating telco as well as DTH businesses.
The “mother ship” Airtel cellular brand is being used because Kohli
says there is higher stickiness, lower churn and significantly higher
retention for high value consumers who are offered more than two to
three products under the same brand.
Similarly to Big TV, Airtel Digital TV has also gone for MPEG4
transmission, with DVB S2 technology. There will be 175 channels at
launch (though none in high definition despite the platform being HD
Ready), protected by NDS’ Videoguard and the service will be available
in 62 cities in its “first phase” roll-out.
The platform is also claiming a number of “firsts”, including a
universal remote for set-top and TV and the highest set-top box memory
enabling more interactive applications. These include city information,
Widgets for stock news, an eight-screen new service and shopping. The
company’s press release also mentions exclusive content from Worldspace
Radio.
One plus for the platform is that the 20% larger dish antenna installed
on subscriber homes “offers better performance during rain” – important
in monsoonal-affected areas.
Bharti said investments for its proposed pan-India DTH presence are
covered under the parent company’s $2.5-billion capital expenditure
plans.
© Rapid TV News 2008
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