The rise of video and decline of cable

The decline in cable owes as much to a greedy ecosystem where no one invested in the technology as it does to a regulator that believes that price control is the only lever to use

Will the decline of cable TV help catalyse the video ecosystem in India?

Going by Broadcast Audience Research Council data, in 2016, India had 183 million TV homes. This rose to 210 million homes in 2020. Much of this growth, however, has gone to other distribution technologies — DTH, DD Freedish or to broadband providers such as Airtel and Jio. The number of cable homes fell from 115 million to under 100 million; the figure is closer to 70 million, say analysts. Its share in overall revenue has fallen by half, even as the TV business grew from Rs 29,700