Eight media stocks rose by 0.13% to 3.56% at 13:53 IST on BSE as about 50% of Mumbai's TV households have switched to set top boxes, indicating the pace at which digitisation of cable services has picked up over the last few months.
Zee Entertainment Enterprises (up 3.56%), Sun TV Network (up 3.03%), Network18 Media & Investments (up 2.12%), TV18 Broadcast (up 1.42%) and TV Today Network (up 0.88%), edged higher.
Among cable TV stocks, Wire & Wireless India (up 1.38%) and Den Networks (up 0.13%), edged higher. Direct-to-home (DTH) service provider Dish TV India was up 1.96%.
The BSE Sensex was up 189.12 points, or 1.09% to 17,602.08.
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting last week said a review by the ministry has revealed that in Mumbai city, 50% of cable TV homes have already been installed with Set Top Boxes (STBs).
The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011 has made it mandatory for switchover of the existing analogue Cable TV networks to Digital Addressable System (DAS) by December 2014 in the entire country in four phases.
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In the first phase, four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai are to be covered by 31 October 2012. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has been constantly reviewing the preparedness of the industry for the digital switch-over.
Installation of STBs in cable TV homes is the most crucial precondition for digital switch over of cable television, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting said in a statement issued last week.
Digitisation of cable TV is expected to boost the subscription revenues for broadcasters as it will end the hefty carriage fee paid to cable TV operators. At the same time, the Government has assured the cable TV operators that digitisation would not hurt them.
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