200 Free TV channels – The game changer

DTH television service is spreading like fire in the country. Cable TV is vanishing in thin air. People today want the quality along with quantity. Yes! DTH is providing them all that they want. We have a good number of DTH service providers today - Dish TV, TataSky, Airtel and lots more. I don't think I need to name them, we all are aware of them. I talked about them in my previous posts too. So what is it that we are here to talk about? Its DD Direct Plus.

Well DD Direct Plus or lets say DoorDarshan Direct Plus is the country's only Free To Air (FTA) direct to home (DTH) service run by Prasar Bharati that provides satellite channels and audio programming. They are currently providing only 59 FTA channels, most of which are DoorDarshan's own. Also the All India Radio channels are included in the package. At present DD Direct reaches 6 million homes, while private DTH operators cater to 14-16 million homes. Officials expect its reach to expand to 30 million homes within months of launching the new product. What is it that will give it a 30 million home connection? Its the new package. Wondering what this new package got? Its the upcoming Free 200 channels that DD Direct is planning to launch in the end of this year. The idea behind this initiative is to make the DTH service more viewer friendly and adequate dose of popular entertainment channels will make it more attractive.

The recent news about this service really brought a shock to most private DTH Service providers. Paying a huge amount of security and other charges along with daily monthly rent for getting more than 100 digital channels looks costly when you have such a great offer, where you pay only for the set top box (STB).Obviously you will opt for the free one. India is a place where a simple "SALE" tag attracts a lot of audience and when you get something for FREE then you can imagine what an amount of customers DD Direct will get. [POLL] Would you continue paying private DTH for the same channels that you are getting for free?

Well looking at the other side of the coin, the question that arises is that will the payed channels let their channels be telecasted for free? Will they agree with Doordarshan? DD Direct must be having a plan for making these paid channels go with them. I guess yes! I read HT report on this, saying :

The moot question is whether some pay channels will be willing to turn free to take advantage of the huge viewership DD Direct expects to offer, making up in advertising rates what they lose from subscriptions. Officials said they offered another incentive: the carriage fee — annual price of beaming a channel — Doordarshan charges is lower than private operators. "If DD Direct can put together a good combination, it will have a good market," said Uday Shankar, CEO Star India. "But I doubt pay channels will shift."

Some other things that DD Direct need to have in order to attract its customers are a good collection of applications. With Tatasky, dish TV etc having gaming applications and lot more to offer , DD Direct too need to get solution or lets say some good applications.

Don't know whether it will be possible or not for DD to bring 200 Free channels. All we can do is wait for the year to end and check it out what happens. Keeping my fingers crossed and waiting for this Game changer.

Your Favorite TV Service Providers Reaching Public

Advertising is something helping huge as well as small brands reach public. Brands come with unique & attractive ideas in the industry and promote their products through advertisements. They try to cover everything their product has, in a single Ad and thus expect more customers. You can see the two different brands of same product type, competing with each other in the Ad world. When everyone is gaining something or other through the advertisements then why would TV Service providers stay behind. Specially today when the TV service providers are spreading like fire. We have cable operators providing TV services, then there are DTH / Digital / Satellite Televisions and IPTV. Different brands use these technologies & thus providing the TV service. The DTH technology, has a good number of brands : Airtel, Tatasky, Dish TV, Sun Direct, Big TV and D2H Videocon TV.

Dish TV is one DTH service provider that I feel updates its image very often in order to reach people. It signed a big star as its brand ambassador – Shah Rukh Khan, with a slogan: Wish Karo Dish Karo. It was quite attractive tag line and when king khan himself says them with his star style, people simply love it. After the success of Wish Karo Dish Karo, Dish TV switched over to Sabse Zyada Wish Karo. Currently they are bringing the happiness at homes by saying Ghar Aayi Zindagi. The sweet advertisement having adorable baby girl, SRK and Tisca.
TataSky also promoted itself with a big star – Amir Khan. Amir who is known for his quality of work created magic for tatasky too. People came to know about tatasky broadly. Not only the actor but its slogan was also catchy – Tatasky : Isko Laga Dala Toh Life Jhinga Lala. The latest tatasky ads have a puppet explaining all its applications in a nice way. And when talking about catchy slogans Sun Direct : Ghar Ghar mein Sun Tan tana tan is also a good slogan.
Videocon d2h is the new kid in the DTH market, its providing d2h DTH service. The more focus of d2h is on static media promotions i.e. Banners, Hording, posters etc. You can find d2h hording in almost every busy street of Delhi.

The IPTV market too is in the advertisement world to popularise itself. With iControl taking the initiative of promoting IPTV through advertisements. You can watch the iControl promo on channels like NDTV imagine, IBN 7, UTV Movies etc. When talking about the IPTV industry iControl plays a major role. iControl is in 22 cities of India which is the highest number of cities any IPTV service provider is available at, in India. MyWay is another IPTV service provider, but its doing much to reach the mass as much as iControl is. In fact big names like Airtel and Reliance are also jumping into the IPTV industry. The big brands have not yet reached the media to promote them, nor they are trying to reach public at a large scale. iControl wins the race in case of IPTVs. It is not only showing Ad with slogan : Taki Rishton mein pause na aaye but its getting itself in to the public with the help of social media. You can find iControl reaching public through twitter, facebook and orkut. Even Dish TV, Tatasky and SUN Direct too are using social media for promoting their products. The social media is becoming a good source of reaching the public. iControl recently had seminars and press conferences in order to reach people and get a good amount of customers. So the brands are not leaving any source behind for the promotions and thus reach the people.

DTH - Making Indian TV Viewing Better

DTH is becoming prime mode of entertainment nowadays. Its bringing a revolution in TV viewing. The quality of picture got improved. We are now moving towards the digital picture quality. No VCD and DVD collections required if you are a DTH user. DTH has a collection of movies, its video on demand provides a good collection of movies. In fact now the multiplexes are scared of DTH, since DTH is show casing latest movies.

Some of the attractive features and applications of DTH, making it popular among the people are : Pause-Play Live TV (no Rewind Live TV), Save TV programmes on STB for Later viewing, interactive games and applications like (telephonic) shopping etc. I even read an article or rather say a blog saying DTH now reaches 18 million homes, it is the 13 percent of 134 million TV homes in India. It is getting Rs 3000 odd crore. For more Read : http://www.indiandth.com/2009/11/dth-industry-glimpse-of-profits-at-last.html

DTH for sure is better than Local Cable Operator. Though a new user switching from local cable to DTH faces the common adjustment problems. But once you are familiar with it, you find it easy to use. With additional options of shortcut keys, list of your favorite shows and storage of shows for later viewing, DTH is able to attract its customers.

Now the challenge for DTH is not only to attract Local cable users, but also to compete with its competitors. We got many options for the DTH services: Dish TV, Tatasky, Airtel, Sun Direct, Reliance Big TV and Videocon d2h etc. The competition is tough, each is trying to lower the price in order to attract customers. Though the price is more or less same, but what customer wants is a complete package of entertainment.What I found after researching on internet is that today Dish TV is leading and Tatasky is next to Dish TV. In my words Shahrukh (Dish TV) beats Aamir (Tatasky) and wins the top title. The competition is even going one step ahead, DTH Vs Multiplexes. On one hand I buy a ticket of Rs100 – Rs 150 from multiplex to watch a movie, plus other expenses. While on the other hand I am watching a movie for Rs75 – Rs 100, without spending on expenses. Not only this, you can watch it with your whole family and friends at one person's ticket money.

The future of DTH is bright, but with lots of competition. Because IPTV is also emerging in India, which I already talked about in my previous posts ( IPTV - big leap in Television viewing and WHY IPTV ). And not only this DTH till now is investing more than its gaining. The investment in each new movie telecast is really a challenge for DTH. Unlike multiplexes its not getting paid per head, its getting paid per home. Even the content cost is more than 50 percent for DTH services. Well every new technology faces competition but lets see how DTH beats the competition and gets customers.