The new regulatory regime introduced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has brought a lot of changes in the broadcasting and DTH industry. It changed the facet of the industry, how the channels were priced, how the subscriptions of the channels worked and even how the consumers were billed. This introduction by Trai set in motion a chain of events which led to the DTH industry becoming more and more competitive. As a result of this, the subscribers were offered attractive prices, new services and more, and there were ample of options to choose from, for the customers. Now, while the subscribers were mostly looking at things like quality, pricing, service and other parameters, some customers also looked at the number of channels which a certain DTH provider was offering. In case you are one of such customer, then you should definitely read this piece all the way through.
Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV Competing Head-on for Channel Numbers
When we last reported about the channel count in the industry, there were only 95 channels available to the subscribers in total. However, now given the rise of the industry and the affinity of the people, the number of HD channels has risen up to 100. Also, while during the start of the year, Tata Sky was only offering 92 of these channels, the popular DTH service provider is now offering 91 HD channel options to its subscribers.
Out of the total 100 HD channels available in the industry, 40 of them are General Entertainment (GEC) channels, 3 of them are News channels, 10 of them are Sports channels, and 11 are Infotainment channels. The next big DTH service provider, which is offering the most number of HD channels is Airtel Digital TV. The DTH platform currently offers 84 HD channels to the customers. It is also the platform will all the 15 Hindi HD channels, as Tata Sky misses out on Jeet HD channel. South India based other DTH provider, Sun Direct in this regard offers a total of 65 HD channels to its customers.
More Affordable Channel Packs Might Not See Light of the Day
During the early implementation of the Trai tariff regime, there were speculations about the unbundling of the channels to bring down the prices. As currently, the broadcasters are offering discounts on the bundle of channels which come with a large number of channels. However, there don’t seem to be new channel packs which come with a lesser number of channels and are more cost-effective for the subscribers. It can be said that the competitiveness of the DTH industry has seen a little slump as the prices have now normalised and almost all the subscribers have made their choices about the channels.