India's leading DTH operator Tata Sky has suspended its recording feature on Sony's sports channels while citing restrictions imposed by the broadcaster, Dream DTH has reported.
"Dear Subscriber,as per broadcaster mandate, recording of India tour of Australia on all SD and HD versions of Sony Six, Ten 1, Ten 3 will be restricted till 19 Jan 2021", Tata Sky said in a tweet.As per the Tata Sky statement, it has received a mandate from Sony, directing DTH operators to restrict the recording feature on their platforms. This feature is available on Tata Sky HD+ Set Top box.
The report adds that while the mandate to pause recordings on Sony Sports channels appears to be an universal one, subscribers of other DTH operators are yet to report the same. This restriction will thus prevent DTH subscribers from using the record and rewind features in case they fail to watch the live telecast of the matches.
It should be noted that Sony also prevent viewers from pausing the live broadcast on OTT platforms like Sony Liv and Jio TV.
Even as other sectors shrunk, DTH has seen strong growth
The Direct to Home (DTH) satellite broadcasting service has emerged as perhaps the only segment that has seen a clear benefit from the COVID-19 lock-down, with all three listed players seeing an increase in their customer revenue during the lock-down.
The biggest jump in revenue was reported by Airtel Digital, which saw its revenue jump by a whopping 23.4% during the April-June period compared to the immediately preceding period of January to March. In actual terms, revenue rose from Rs 603.5 cr to to 744.8 cr during this period.
Sun Direct, a prominent DTH service in South India and a part of Sun TV Network, also saw its revenue rise 5.4% during this period — from Rs 205 cr in Jan-Mar to Rs 216 cr in Apr-Jun.
The third listed player, Dish TV, too saw an increase in its service revenue by 1.9% to Rs 791.5 cr from Rs 776.6 cr in the preceding quarter.
This has marked out DTH as perhaps the only sector in which all the players have reported revenue growth during the lock-down. In contrast, in many sectors such as hospitality (hotels) and garment retail, the Apr-Jun period has seen a decline of 70-90% in revenue compared to the Jan-Mar period.
Speaking in late June, Sun TV’s managing director, R Maheshkumar had clearly pointed to the lock-down having a salubrious impact on Sun Direct’s subscription revenue.
The rise in consumption is directly attributed to people activating more channels or moving to more premium packages or activating previously inactive connections to get over the boredom of staying at home for months on end and to keep themselves abreast of the latest news on Coronavirus.
VARYING FORTUNES
At the same time, the benefits of the growth has hardly been uniform.
Two players — Airtel Digital and Tata Sky — who have the highest number of premium channels in India — are reported to have benefited the most during the last four months, while the benefits for other two have been more modest.
One of the key reasons for the sudden rise in Tata Sky and Airtel Digital’s numbers may be a new TRAI rule that caps the rentals on additional connections at 40% of the primary connection.
This is reported to have led many subscribers to consolidate their multiple connections on a single platform. Since TRAI’s 2019 regulations already brought in uniformity of channels and packages between all DTH players, the latest cut in rentals for the secondary connections further removed any pricing advantage that Dish TV and Sun Direct used to enjoy.
With pricing no longer being a differentiator, it is likely that more and more new or consolidating customers have been gravitating towards DTH players who offer the highest number of premium and HD channels.
Nevertheless, the fact that even Dish TV, which has been struggling to get back its earlier growth trajectory, was able to report a sequential increase in its subscription revenue during a period of widespread economic upheaval points to the strong demand for home-based informational and entertainment services during the lock-down.
TELECOM
Many analysts had also expected a similar and sharp increase in revenues for another sector — telecom.
However, analysts were underwhelmed by the growth trends posted by the telecom industry during the COVID-19 lockdown.
While the expectation was of growth of around 20%, what has been reported so far has been considerably lower than that.
In fact, Bharti Airtel, which reported a 23.4% sequential jump in its DTH revenues, reported a 0.6% decline in its mobile revenue during the period of April-June compared to the preceding three months (January-March).
Market leader Reliance Jio, however, was able to report a growth of 11.8% in its revenue and 10.6% in its data sales.
The third player, Vodafone Idea, is yet to release its numbers for the lock-down period.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or TRAI is indeed concerned about consumers, and this latest directive clearly proves that.
TRAI has ordered all DTH or Direct to Home providers that they cannot charge more than Rs 500 for DTH activation and installation.
How will this benefit the consumers?
TRAI Order: Rs 500 Maximum Charge For DTH Activation, Installation
TRAI’s new rules for Cable TV and DTH will be effective from December 29th, and will roll out pan-India starting January 1st, 2019.
A new rule pertaining to DTH activation and installation has been added by TRAI, which states that DTH providers in India cannot charge more than Rs 500 for the same.
While Rs 350 can be charged maximum for installation, Rs 150 for activation is the cap.
TRAI’s new order said, “A Distributor of television channels or its linked local cable operator, as the case may be, may charge an amount not exceeding rupees three hundred and fifty as a one-time installation charge.. [and] an amount not exceeding rupees one hundred as a one-time activation charge for activating the broadcasting services related to television.”
How Will This Benefit Consumers?
Currently, Rs 1200`is the normal installation and activation charges for DTH services. This is not refundable and doesn’t include any additional features or plans.
This cost includes charges for installing new wires and activating the service.
Hence, the cost for the same has now been slashed by 58%, which will directly benefit those consumers who are installing new DTH service.
However, those who have existing DTH services won’t be impacted by this new rule.
Besides, TRAI has also ruled that DTH companies cannot charge more than Rs 250 for sending technicians to solve any issue related to DTH connections.
Cost Of New Equipment – How Will DTH Firms Manage It?
Normally, the new equipment for a new DTH price costs Rs 2200 for SD connection, and Rs 2500 for HD connection. As of now, DTH companies compensate by charging Rs 1200, which is half of the amount from the customers, and the rest they pay.
But now, with TRAI forcing them to charge Rs 500 max, the issue of new equipment for DTH customers can be an issue.
There are some theories going around on this development.
Maybe, DTH providers like Airtel, Tata Sky etc can charge a security deposit of Rs 700 to Rs 1000, which means that overall, the new customer will need to pay Rs 1200 to Rs 1500, which is the norm as of now.
However, once the DTH connection is terminated, the DTH will need to return the security deposit.
We will keep you updated, as more details come in.
DD Free Dish provides free DTH service all over India by Doordarshan. It has limited number of channels and can be received through DTH dish antenna and any Free-To-Air-Set-Top Box. The users having Free-To-Air Set-Top Box which supports MPEG-2, DVB-S, QPSK will only receive the below mentioned TV channels or you need to upgrade your DTH dish that supports DD channels.
