Expecting a positive revenue impact from the Trai's proposed regulations, South India's leading broadcaster Sun TV Network Ltd was on expansion mode investing Rs 300 crore in 2-3 years foraying into channels beyond south Indian languages. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in its new directive proposed to be rolled out February 1, wants the customers to pay only for channels they would want to view. "We have to wait and see how it pans out. I think it will have a positive impact on subscription revenue," Sun TV president R Mahesh Kumar said to reporters of PTI.
There will be a major impact on the distribution landscape in the south, he said, without elaborating. "Analog connection in Tamil Nadu, one of our major market, is still at 35-40%," he said at the launch of the Sun Bangla, a general entertainment channel, in the city.
Sun Bangla is the first non-south Indian language channel of the Sun TV Networks."Sun Bangla will start airing from February 3 and we hope to garner sizeable market in the Rs 1200 crore Bengali general entertainment category channels," Sun Group CFO S L Narayanan said adding, "We also propose to launch a Marathi channel a year later."
Narayanan said they would invest Rs 150 crore in a year and another similar amount would be pumped for the Marathi GEC that is proposed a year later. "We hope to break even in two years of operations," he said. In other news, Sun TV Network already rolled out new channel prices based on Trai's new framework.
