India's direct-to-home TV viewer base tops 67.5MN
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Rebecca Hawkes
| 28 March 2018

Active subscribers to India's private direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV platforms now number over 67.56 million, according to the latest figures from the sector's regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The study showed an annual hike of 4.91 million subscribers across all the privately operated platforms between the end of 2016 and the end of 2017. In the fourth quarter of 2017 alone, some 570,000 subscribers took up DTH services in India.

"Since its introduction in the year 2003, Indian DTH service has displayed a phenomenal growth," said TRAI in a statement. "DTH has attained net pay active subscriber base of around 67.56 million. This is in addition to the viewership of the free DTH services of Doordarshan."

The figures pertained to six DTH services, namely Airtel Digital, Dish TV India, Reliance Big TV, Sun Direct, Tata Sky and Videocon d2h. Dish TV and Videocon d2h have now completed their long anticipated merger, leaving five private DTH platforms now operating in India.

At the end of 2017, a total of 877 private satellite TV channels were permitted to uplink and downlink by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Of these, 304 were pay-TV channels, including 88 broadcasting in high definition (HD).

TRAI's latest figures also showed an 11.69% rise in India's broadband Internet subscriber base for the final quarter of 2017, from 324.89 million at the end of September 2017 to 362.87 million at the end of December 2017.