First On Net: Dish TV comes out with carriage rate card for first time
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18-11-2013, 10:08 AM
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Dish TV comes out with carriage rate card for first time
MUMBAI: Dish TV has trained its sights on carriage fees as a mainstream revenue source. In a significant move, India’s largest direct-to-home (DTH) operator by subscriber numbers has come out with a carriage rate card for the first time as it seeks to collect fees from weaker television channels.
Dish TV has fixed its base carriage fee at Rs. 20 lakh ( Rs. 2 million) for free to air (FTA) encrypted and pay channels in standard definition (SD) as well as high definition (HD). The base carriage includes transponder cost, turnaround, processing, recording and encryption/subscriber management system (SMS) fee. Dish TV has circulated a rate card of carriage services to all broadcasters, a copy of which is with TelevisionPost.com. Other DTH operators with large subscriber base could follow suit. The first to be targeted is IndiaCast UTV, the joint venture company between TV18, Viacom18 and Disney which distributes channels such as Colors, MTV, Vh1, Nick, and Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Hungama TV, Bindass, UTV Movies and UTV Stars. Sources say Dish TV’s content deal with IndiaCast falls for renewal in January. Dish TV will seek to get carriage fees from the weaker channels of IndiaCast or do net deals where its content cost per subscriber falls. The deal with Media Pro, which distributes the Star, Zee and Turner group of channels, also expires next year. In addition to the base carriage fee, Dish TV is asking broadcasters to shell out Rs. 750,000 as carriage fee for North BO-BSTI Mini pack, Rs. 500,000 for North Super Family pack, Rs. 400,000 for North Super Gold pack, and Rs. 300,000 for North Super Platinum pack for SD pay channels. For South packages, broadcasters will have to pay Rs. 500,000 for South BO-BST/ Mini pack, Rs. 250,000 for South Silver Saver pack, Rs. 200,000 for South Family pack and Rs. 150,000 for South Platinum pack for SD pay channels. The North plus South basic pack is available for Rs. 1.21 million.Broadcasters who avail of any combo of North and South will get five per cent discount. For HD channels, broadcasters will have to pay Rs. 250,000 as carriage fee for North Super Family and South Silver Saver pack. They can avail a discount of five per cent on taking a combo package of North and South. Broadcasters will also have to fork out 1.25 million for premium Logical Channel Numbering (LCN) and another Rs. 500,000 for ordinary LCN. For having an EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) listing, the broadcasters will have to pay another Rs. 150,000. All the rates are on a monthly basis. The DTH operator said that it reserves the rights to change the rate grid at their sole discretion. All rates are subject to the channel executing 12 months contract. The renewal process is three months in advance of expiry of term of deal. Meanwhile, Dish TV has launched a new service for its consumers that will provide complete flexibility and savings by offering channels on ‘request only basis’. Dish TV proposes to classify most channels as ‘on request’ channels, which will be available to subscribers on a request only basis. The first to be classified as ‘on request only basis channels’ will be the ones distributed by IndiaCast UTV. However, officials at IndiaCast UTV feigned ignorance when reached out for comments. “I am not aware of any such development. We share a great relationship with Dish TV,” said IndiaCast UTV COO Gaurav Gandhi. Sufficient time will be given to subscribers (several weeks) to place the request, Dish TV said in a statement. At the end of the period subscribers who have chosen not to request for a channel or channels will not receive those channels from the cutoff date, it added. These subscribers will be given 100 bonus points (worth Rs. 100/-) per unrequested channel which they can use to purchase movies on demand and selected a la carte channels of their choice. Dish TV CEO R.C Venkateish says, “The current trend from media aggregators is to force-bundle all kinds of unwanted channels into packages and the customer is forced to receive numerous channels that he/she may never watch or appreciate. The idea is to have viewers watch and opt for channels or content that they like and our new offers them just that and savings too.” Over a period of time, Dish TV expects content costs to come down significantly as each subscriber is only served the channels that they want to watch and such benefits will be passed down to the consumers. Channels which still wish to reach to all subscribers despite being unrequested will need to pay a carriage fee to compensate for the extra bandwidth consumption. Dish TV earned Rs. 35 crore ( Rs. 350 million) as carriage income in FY13 and is targeting Rs. 50 ( Rs. 500 million) this fiscal. As first reported in TelevisionPost.com, Dish TV is in talks with Airtel Digital TV and Videocon d2h to form a joint venture company for carriage and content. Read more at: http://www.televisionpost.com/dth/dish-t...irst-time/ | TelevisionPost.com |
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