MUMBAI: India has 44.21 million private DTH subscribers as of 31 December 2011, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in its quarterly report.

The total number of registered subscribers is from the six private direct-to-home operators - Dish TV, Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, Videocon D2H, Reliance Digital TV and Sun Direct.

Digital cable TV, however, is growing slowly in the Cas (conditional access system) notified areas.

Cable TV operators have marginally increased the seeding of set-top boxes (STBs) in the Cas areas of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai during this period.

According to Trai, the total number of STBs installed increased to 853,737 in the quarter ended December 2011, as compared to 819,960 STBs in the previous quarter.

Trai has also released the data on the number of TV channels in India till 31 December 2011. There are a total of 825 private satellite TV channels permitted by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, out of which 163 channels are pay, as per the sector watchdog?s report based on the data received from 25 broadcasters and distributors across the country.

The maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported multi-system operator (MSO) in digital mode is 277. In analogue form, however, the maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSOs is 100 channels.

Trai also said that the number of private FM radio stations in operation remained at 245 till the end of Dec 2011.

MUMBAI: English movie channel Movies Now, which created an impact in the genre in a short period of time celebrates its first anniversary on 19 December 2011. It is looking at increasing its distribution footprint.

Movies Now channel head Ajay Trigunayat said that the aim is to increase its reach in the one million plus towns. "These are places where products and services are seeing a lot of growth. The focus will be on making the channel available at the right price among operators."

He notes that Movies Now is the only channel in the genre that reports for eight Metros which gives advertisers a homogeneous picture. Some of the other players he says are still not present in cities like Chennai and Ahmedabad.

The channel has now done deals with all the DTH operators - Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV, Videocon D2H, Reliance Digital TV, and Sun Direct. The question though is what impact cable digitisation will have in terms of distribution costs.

Times Television Network MD, CEO Sunil Lulla notes as per the experience in other markets globally digitisation will result in as re-caliberation of carriage costs. "It is important that you are a strong brand that is present in consumers homes. The Times Television Network owns and operates strong brands. Movies Now, if I may say so, has been a super smash hit. We are a daily habit. Consumers come to see the movie of their choice," Lulla added.

One challenge is that of viewer fatigue with franchises like Rocky and Bond revolving among channels. Trigunayat notes that Movies Now gives at least a two month break to a film. The other challenge is increasing content costs which Trigunayat says have doubled in the past couple of years. This is affecting the period for which a channel holds the rights to a film. "For instance, if earlier you held the rights for three years, today if you want to pay the same price then you will only be able to hold it for a year and a half to two years. It has become a sellers market. Earlier when there were fewer players it was a buyers market."

He adds that when Movies Now launched it challenged the status quo. He adds that most viewership in this genre comes from library content. Action and comedy work the best. "Our philosophy is that if 60 million people watch this genre each week then it cannot be considered as niche. Right from the start we provided the necessary value with HD."

He adds that GRPs for the genre have risen despite the large amount of cricket being played. Also now more library content for film is being exploited with more players coming in. Earlier only 60 per cent of the available content was being used. Now this has gone up and popular films from previous decades air. Movies Now has around 500 films in its library and this will not grow. The only thing is that some films will go out and others will come in.

He adds that the broadcaster has made strides in social media. On Facebook it has half a million fans.

NEW DELHI: The Government has cleared a proposal by Big Showbiz Broadcast for induction of foreign equity of up to Rs 791.4 million.

Big Showbiz Broadcast was also allowed to convert the operating firm into an operating-cum-investing company to invest, from time to time, in other companies engaged in, or proposing to engage in, up-linking and down-linking of non-news and non-current affairs television channel and/or related activities.

The Finance Ministry, on the recommendation of the Foreign Investments Promotion Board (FIPB), also gave approval to a proposal of B4U Television Network for induction of foreign equity. The company had sought permission to get a foreign direct investment of Rs 360 million from an erstwhile OCB, in order to carry out the business of up-linking a non-news and current affairs TV channel.

The Finance Ministry also cleared a proposal by InMobiTechnologies for transfer of shares by way of share swap to carry out the business of developing software and licensing it to advertising network related business. It will not imply any physical inflow.

Meanwhile, Orissa-based MSO Ortel Communications got the nod to issue equity shares to NR to the extent that the foreign shareholding in the company post the issue shall remain within the ceiling of 49 per cent of its paid equity share capital.

Ortel is engaged in the business of building hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) communications network to provide a range of telecom value added services such as high speed Internet access, cable television and basic telephony, e-commerce, and video conferencing.

Also, the proposal by G+J International Magazines GmbH, Germany, to increase foreign equity percentage to carry out the business of publication and sale of specialty and life style magazines was permitted with an FDI of Rs 215.4 million.

However, Dish TV‘s proposal was deferred. The DTH firm had asked permission for transfer of shares from NR to NR to carry out the business of telecommunication equipment and provide management and marketing of ‘agrani‘ services in the area of mobile satellite communications. 

Walt Disney Company‘s proposal to undertake the additional activity of broadcasting and downlinking was also deferred.

Proposals by UT Starcom India Telecom to undertake additional activity relating to Telecom/I&B sector; Financial Planning Corporation to undertake the additional activity of publishing specialty journal/magazines pertaining to various aspects of financial planning; and Fine Publishing India for induction of foreign equity to carry out the business of publishing specialty technical magazines covering the subject of wine and champagne were also deferred.

A proposal by IPFonline, for induction of foreign equity by way of downstream investment to carry out the business of publishing/printing of technical magazines/ periodicals/journals was also deferred.