India’s inactive DTH TV subscriptions near 50% of total base


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 26 November 2015




The number of inactive subscribers of India’s six private direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV services has reached 49.54% of the total registered base of 78.74 million, the sector’s regulator has said.



Between them, DTH operators Dish TV, Tata Sky, Videocon d2h, Airtel Digital TV, Sun Direct and Reliance Digital TV had 39.74 million active subscribers as of 30 June 2015, according to data submitted to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The preceding quarter saw active DTH subscriptions of 41.15 million out of a total registered subscriber base of 76.05 million for the private operators – not including Doordarshan’s free DTH service Freedish.

As of the end of June, there were a total of 826 private satellite TV channels available in India, of which 252 were subscription-based. Four new pay-TV channels (Sony KIX, AXN HD, ETV News Odia and Star Movies Select HD) were launched, but the quarter also saw the discontinuation of four pay-TV channels – namely Fox Crime, 9X and Zee Premier.

The TRIA data also shows that India had a total of 211 multisystem operators (MSOs) licensed to provide cable TV services through digital addressable system for ten-year terms.

Leading MSO Hathway carried the highest number of free-to-air channels (179), pay-TV channels (214) and local channels (24), as of 30 June 2015, said TRAI.