Tamil Nadu   

DTH to bridge digital divide

Driven by market dynamics and digital picture quality, the Direct to Home (DTH) concept will soon become part of every Indian drawing room, Sunil Gupta, Managing Director of Dish TV, tells V. S. Palaniappan.

A COUNTRY where 70 per cent of the population lives in rural areas, India has 45 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) coming from these areas and the reach of print media to these places largely depends on factors like demographic profile and literacy. Hence, Direct To Home has become an ideal vehicle to reach out to the larger sections of people in rural areas, says Sunil Gupta.

In a chat with The Hindu during his trip to Coimbatore to explore the market potential, Mr. Gupta said that DTH would be an ideal way to break the digital divide that exists on the basis of socio, economic and demographic factors.

The conventional cable broadcasting has all the infrastructure hitches like running lines and unviable areas thus denying the right to information to a large section. Accessibility will never be a constraint with DTH, since a small dish antenna costing around Rs. 2,700 brings the world into the drawing room. The DTH platform besides ensuring right to information also provides entertainment, information, news, education and sports for the adults and cartoon for children.

In addition, DTH will give information relating to disaster warnings, management and mitigation to people. Unlike the cable broadcast, these DTH platforms ensure digital picture clarity with stereophonic audio and the viewer can have the pleasure of watching prime band channels, he says. As against the estimated 102 million TV users in the country, Dish TV has a viewer ship of close to 3 million. The number of subscribers is swelling at the rate of close to 5,000 per day across the country, he said. Every ten seconds, a new subscriber was getting onto the DTH platform, Mr. Gupta said.

On non-availability of the most sought after regional channels on DTH platforms in a most conservative South Indian market, Mr. Sunil Gupta said that the growth of DTH both in terms of the number of channels available and the subscriber base would be dictated by market dynamics especially in an open economy.

It is mandatory that all channels should be offered on a DTH platform (both Free To Air and Pay-channels) under the policy of mutual sharing.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which governed the DTH trade, would step in to ensure the rules are observed, he added.

Much more than broadcast of channels Dish TV has value addition for money in terms of near video on demand showing movies of your choice at your convenient time.

The Dish TV has a wider marketing network of distributors and dealers and is available at the toll-free number 10901-180-3474 or could visit www.dishtvindia.com, he added.

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