Tata Sky, Sun Direct, and Reliance Digital TV stood at the same market share at 25 per cent, 11 per cent, and one per cent respectively. (Representative image) (David Brossard via Wikimedia commons)
Tata Sky, Sun Direct, and Reliance Digital TV stood at the same market share at 25 per cent, 11 per cent, and one per cent respectively. (Representative image) (David Brossard via Wikimedia commons) 
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Broadband Effect? DTH Service Providers Added Only 80,000 Net Pay Active Subscribers In Q2 FY19, Says TRAI Report

BySwarajya Staff

The latest Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) performance indicator report for Q2 FY19 reveals that the five Direct to home (DTH) service providers were only able to add 80,000 net pay active subscribers between July to September against 1.84 million in April-June quarter, the Television Post reports.

Until 20 September, the five service providers attracted net pay active subscriber base of 69.45 million against 69.37 million in the previous quarter. The five DTH operators, together, brought in a total of 1.84 million net active pay subscribers in the April to June quarter of 2018.

Dish TV and Airtel Digital TV were able to add 200,000 and 130,000 net subscribers each in Q2 FY2019. While Airtel Digital TV’s market share increased by one per cent to reach 22 per cent from the previous quarter, Dish TV India’s market share fell by the same rate to 41 per cent.

The other three DTH service providers- Tata Sky, Sun Direct, and Reliance Digital TV stood at the same market share at 25 per cent, 11 per cent, and one per cent respectively. Additionally, government's own Doordarshan also operates a free DTH service known as DD Free Dish and has estimated 30 million customers.

The report also says that the number of paid channels increased from 309 from the last quarter to 313 from 49 broadcasters with 216 SD and 97 HD channels. Among the four new paid channels, one channel-NDTV India was converted from a free channel to a paid channel.

The report also includes the private FM radio industry and their advertisement revenue. The report reveals that there are 350 operational private FM radio stations across 95 cities compared to 328 stations in 86 cities in the last quarter. The report tells that the ad revenue earned by these stations in this quarter is Rs 546.83 crore compared to Rs. 509.33 crore in the previous quarter.