Sector Update -Cable & Satellite Industry:
C o u n t d o w n t o s u n s e t d a t e f o r P h a s e I …
As the digitisation deadline of June 30, 2012 for Phase I approaches,
differences exist among the various parties involved in extending or
persisting with the same deadline. While the broadcasters have been
lobbying the government to stick to the existing deadline, some of the
MSOs (barring the large ones like Hathway Cable and Den Networks)
and LCOs have asked for an extension of two or three months as they
are finding it hard to seed set top boxes in all their households due to
late announcement of the revenue share model by Trai, unavailability
of set top boxes and lack of consumer awareness. MSO’s problems
could be a blessing for DTH operators who are gearing up to speed up
their subscriber addition. However, Hathway is best placed among
MSOs, having already seeded 40% or ~1 million of its ~2.3 million
subscribers in the metros and having an inventory of ~ 0.7 million
STBs. Nonetheless, we expect at least a three month delay in
implementation of digitisation even if the deadline is not extended.
The final call will be taken by the ministry of Information &
Broadcasting on June 25, 2012.
