Saturday 22 December 2012

Three DTH players pull plug on ESPN HD, Star Cricket HD

The country's top direct-to-home (DTH) players Airtel Digital, Sun TV and Dish TV have pulled the plug on ESPN HD and Star Cricket HD just before the start of the much-anticipated India-Pakistan series due to a sudden hike in tariffs by the broadcaster. There are almost a million high-definition (HD) subscribers on DTH in India out of a total market of 50 million.
ESPN HD, which used to cost Rs 40 per month, is now being priced at Rs 142 monthly, while customers who earlier paid Rs 40 for Star Cricket HD will now have to pay Rs 120 monthly. This hike they said is too steep for them to pass on to their subscribers. However, Tata Sky, Videocon D2H and Reliance Big TV will continue telecasting the HD versions of the sports channels. The India-Pakistan series starts on December 25 and has attracted huge advertiser interest with ESPN expected to rake in around Rs 120 crore.

Salil Kapoor, Dish TV CEO, said, "This sort of increase before the start of such a series is not justified and we have decided to not carry these channels on the HD platform. Broadcasters need to be more sensitive about pricing although we are still hoping some sort of a solution can be achieved before the series starts." He added the adoption and growth of HD in India will be impacted with this kind of insensitive pricing by broadcasters.
Dish TV has the highest number of DTH subscribers in India at around 14 million, while Airtel DTH has 7.5 million registered users. HD has been a growing segment for all DTH operators. A spokesperson for Airtel DTH also confirmed that they will not be telecasting the HD version of ESPN and Star Cricket.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/dth-news/item/413-three-dth-players-pull-plug-on-espn-hd-star-cricket-hd.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/dth-news/item/413-three-dth-players-pull-plug-on-espn-hd-star-cricket-hd.html

No comments:

Post a Comment

Aadhaar leak: EPFO discontinues services provided through Common Service Centre

Following fear of Aadhaar data leak, the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on May 2 said it has discontinued services provided t...