'India needs $12-15 bn for digital cable'

Taking a critical view of the current regulatory scenario governing the cable and broadband sector, the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has said that its pay television market has underperformed.

According to the estimates prepared by CASBAA, India will require about $12-15 billion investments to upgrade its analogue cable set to digital.

CASBAA is an industry-based advocacy group representing 128 Asia-based media corporations, which in turn serve more than three billion people.

Currently, there are about 71 million cable homes in the country out of a total of about 130 million television homes. But only about 6 per cent cable homes are digital, CASBAA said.

The report states that India, Taiwan, China, Korea and the Philippines have under 20 per cent digital cable TV penetration as opposed to the US, the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong where the digital cable TV penetration is over 70 per cent.

With only 3 per cent broadband penetration, India ranks very low in comparison to countries like Brazil, China, Thailand and the Philippines, the CASBAA report added.

Releasing the report called "Digital Vision: India in 2012", CASBAA's chief executive Simon Twiston Davies said: "With 71 million homes wired, digital television and broadband networks will play a vital role in India's economic development. However, this depends on a non-restrictive regulatory regime that does not exist as of now in the country."

The advocacy group pointed out that with the current cable infrastructure in place, Indian economy has the ability to raise big private capital.

"We are in constant talks with the government and the broadcast regulator. Leave aside the foreign investors eyeing the Indian cable market, even the domestic investments planned by companies like Reliance Communications, Bharti, Zee, Star and others is very big. For digitalisation to happen, the environment has to be right," Davies added.