NEW DELHI: The six private direct-to-home (DTH) operators paid Rs 2.22 billion as licence fee to the government for the year 2011-12, compared to Rs 1.78 billion in 2010-11 and Rs 1.26 billion in 2009-10.

Interestingly, Tata Sky paid licence fee of Rs 793 million in 2011-12 as against Airtel Digital TV Rs 618.7 million and Dish TV’s Rs 300 million. Sun Direct paid Rs 360 million, Reliance Big TV paid Rs 95 million, and Videocon d2h paid Rs 50 million.

The revenue in 2008-09 was Rs 893 million from four operators, since both Airtel Digital TV (Bharti Telemedia Ltd.) as well as Videocon d2h (Bharat Business Channel Ltd.) had not commenced services.

The other DTH players are Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct TV, and Reliance Big TV.

DTH services are governed by the DTH Guidelines and terms and conditions issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on 15 March 2001 and amended from time to time.

The seven DTH players in the country including Doordarshan’s free-to-air DD Direct Plus cover around 35 million TV homes.