J&K falls for DTH

With cable television failing to meet expectations, direct-to-home satellite television is making inroads in the Kashmir region. With 60 per cent of customers in the Valley alone, the key operators, DishTV and TataSky, are close to getting 100,000 customers in Jammu & Kashmir.

Dish TV, with its phenomenal growth, has sold and installed nearly 75,000 units in Jammu & Kashmir in the past five years of its operations. TataSky, considered the younger competitor here, has crossed the 15,000 mark in one and a half years.

Irfan Ahmed, head of Dish TV's Kashmir franchise, says the monthly demand for DTH units is 1,000-1,100 in J&K. This is in addition to 500-600 being sold by TataSky operators here. The competition between DishTV, a Zee Network Enterprise with 2.3 million customers, and Tata Sky, a Tata group enterprise with one million customers,has brought cheer to TV viewers in the Valley.

When DishTV pioneered the revolutionary television networking system of the direct to home facility five years ago, its complete household unit sold at Rs 7,500. It provided 80-odd satellite satellite television channels, including 20 national, regional and language channels of Doordarshan.

At present a DishTV unit sells at Rs 3,990 with a rebate package of Rs 1,500 for every new customer. Even as the subscription fee is uniform at national level. The company is now providing the facility of watching 170 digital channels in addition to giving access to over a dozen of FM radio channels.

In order to achieve a substantial customer base, DishTV has lately introduced a bumper prize scheme , called "Ab Sab Sikander" . On every Tuesday till September 25, a lucky draw would pick up five of the luckiest customers a Rs 2.40 lakh Alto car each besides motorcycles to 15 winners. Company has already marked 30 Alto cars and 90 motorcycles for six lucky draws on national basis, Irfan added.

Ms Sonal of DishTV's Corporate Communication and Public Relations said that her company's R&D unit had developed and introduced at least five software versions for the set top boxes in the last six years.

The company which was transforming rural India on a revolutionary base had already spent Rs 800 cr for its DTH operations alone and Rs 850 cr were being invested in the next three years.

In addition to 70 digital TV channels and over a dozen FM Radio channels including GM Gold, FM Rainbow and AIR Urdu , Dish TV is planning to introduce more special packages like the popular movie on demand and games, she maintained.