UP has only 9 lakh cable links

Advertisers relying on the TRP data of the channels could be in for a surprise. According to the latest data made available by the Uttar Pradesh Entertainment Tax Department, of Uttar Pradesh's 170 million people, only 900,000 households have cable television connections. This constitutes barely 0.05 per cent of the state's population.

Talking to Business Standard, Mohan Swaroop, Commissioner, Entertainment Tax, UP said that the cable connection data available with the entertainment tax department had been recently revised after extensive door-to-door surveys conducted by the department in all 70 districts of the state, instead of mere sampling of data that was the usual practice elsewhere.

He said in Agra, there were only two cable networks functioning currently over a population of about 27 lakh people, with barely 26,000 households connected to cable television that was a very minuscule number, considering that the town was quite developed technologically and figured on the priority charts of satellite pay channels for being among the highest revenue generating areas of the state.

According to Mohan Swaroop, the department has been revising its cable subscriber data every year and this has translated accordingly in terms of increased revenue from the cable connections.

He said that in the year 2004-2005, till January 31, the department had earned Rs 15.66 crores as entertainment tax from cable television subscribers across the state while the figure had climbed to 18.73 crores on 31st January in the year 2005-2006, showing a 20 percent increase in the number of cable TV subscribers.

He said that earlier, the surveys had been made by government employees like teachers etc. but this time, the department was planning to hire the services of some private agencies to collect the most current and authentic data of cable television connections in the state.