Dish TV's Free STB Might Trigger Price War

Dish TV has broken their silence, after reliance launched its underground marketing ploys to multiply its customer base Dish TV decided to stop waiting for the official launch of Big TV to begin their aggressive marketing techniques.

Anjali Malhotra Nanda, vice president, marketing, Dish TV, said, “We have designed a high decibel campaign, starring brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan, to support the company’s new marketing initiative. Under the offer, a 12-month maxi package, for example, will now cost Dish’s consumers Rs 3,990 which is inclusive of subscription and 67 movies.”

Although we currently believe that Big TV's advertisment campaign will be much bigger than Dish TV's boring stunt with Shahrukh Khan, it just speaks about the lack of innovation on Dish TV's marketing theme, get a celebrity to market a product.

Dish TV announced it will offer set-top boxes free of cost to its subscribers. The set-top box plan will be bundled with movies-on-demand worth Rs.2,490 to Rs.3,990 depending on the package that a subscriber opts for.

Jawahar Goel, managing director, Dish TV, said, “By waiving the set-top box cost, the company has been able to remove the entry barrier to DTH. The company hopes to double its monthly addition of subscribers to 180,000.” Its current subscriber base is 3.1 million.

Until now a Dish TV subscriber paid a one-time cost of Rs 2,500 for the set-top box and its installation along with a monthly subscription fee between Rs 100 and Rs 300 depending on the channels opted for, there was an additional cost of Rs 55 to Rs 75 per film for the movies on demand.

There are two plans now available,

• The Maxi Plan

With this new plan a subscriber pays Rs.3,990 for 12 months with 151 channels and 67 movies on demand free which costs the same as the amount paid.


• The Freedom Plus Plan

With this new plan a subscriber pays Rs.3,990 for 18 months with 98 channels and 67 movies on demand free which costs the same as the amount paid.

With Dish TV breaking the cost barrier to go DTH bill Big TV be able to ignore this offer by Dish TV? We do not know as yet but this move by Dish TV is most likely to start off a price war among the existing players and force Reliance ADAG to reconsider its pricing strategies.

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