Big TV Pulls a Spoof on Airtel Digital TV

Even before Bharti Airtel's Digital TV is launched in the market, slated on October 9th, Big TV has gone one up in this DTH rivalry. Airtel Digital TV has been running a teaser ad campaign prior to its launch for the past week.

The 12-second commercial shows animated characters dancing around and suddenly a sofa appears and the characters end with the punchline, "See you at home." It doesn't say anything else or indicate that its Airtel Digital TV ad. But Big TV guessed it right, and spoofed the ad.

Reliance ADAG used the same set up and punchline "See you at home," the only difference being that the ad showed Big TV logo and its features of 32 cinemas and 200+ channels. The viewers thought that this ad belonged to Big TV. You can watch the Airtel Digital TV teaser ad.

Big TV also noted that Airtel had no copyright claims since the teaser ads ran with no brand logo or name. Clearly the marketing war has begun. With Reliance aiming to capture 40% of the market share, don't be surprised to see few more spoofs.

India has an estimated seven million paying DTH customers and this is expected to grow to 25 million by 2012, as per estimates by FICCI.

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Big TV to Increase Number of Channels

Citing fierce competition, Reliance Big TV, which offers more channels than any other DTH operator at present, is planning on increasing its bouquet of channels from 200 to 400 soon.

Currently, other DTH operators are offering about 175 channels to their subscribers, and with one more player, Bharti Airtel launching its services this month, DTH market is certainly gaining momentum.

Anil Ambani, chairman, Reliance ADAG, said the company will also offer IPTV services in major cities. Reliance has entered into an exclusive technology tie up with Microsoft for this purpose.

Ambani also explained the changing scenario in India, which is touted to be the largest and fastest growing markets for pay television in the world. India's viewership is already the second largest in the world at 13 crore.

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Sanjay Puthli Joins Big Broadcast

Sanjay Puthli, who was working for UTV's new media division the youth channel Bindass as the business head, has been recruited by Reliance ADAG’s TV venture Big Broadcasting as its network sales head.

Sanjay was in charge of the sales revenues for all Bindass channels while he worked under the CEO. Puthli's new boss is Tarun Katial, COO, Big FM, who also looks after Reliance's broadcasting venture.

Prior to working for Bindass, Puthli was the senior vice-president with MTV Networks India, bringing with him over 18 years of experience, out of which the last 15 were in media.

Big Broadcasting plans to roll out more movie channels in Indian languages as well as English with a special program for children and three-four music channels are their future road map.

Sanjay Puthli joins Big Broadcasting as network sales head

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The DTH Price Wars have Begun

The increasing amount of DTH providers in the country and with new ones coming in, each one of them is trying to woo a customer data base, what better way to win over a customer by providing a cheap service.

Low price services are the mantra with Dish TV, Big TV and Tata Sky, lets take a look at what value these DTH players are offering you for your money. But are these offers good enough to lure you from your local cable operators lets take a look and see.

A few months ago and the average monthly outgoing was around Rs 280 to 300 that included the cost of the required hardware and a monthly subscription fee. But today the average a customer shells out is lesser by 30 - 40% where you can pay anywhere between Rs 182 - 249, which equals to less than the Rs. 300 you are paying to your cable operator

Tata sky started a Rs.99 entry level subscription that got the largest DTH player in the market Dish TV to offer 125 channels for Rs. 100 in a month, but the cause for these operators to lower their prices is due to the launch of Reliance ADAG's DTH serivce, BIG TV at a price of Rs 100 with 44 free to air channels.

But now Tata Sky is taking it a notch further with its aim to enter a larger section of the Hindi spolen markets with its Rs.99 per month super hit pack. As their chief marketing officer puts it, "Tata Sky stands for a premium DTH service. Perhaps, because of this impression, a number of potential subscribers were finding us a little expensive. Now the Rs 99 super hit pack will help us get these very subscribers."

So if you want to go DTH, Dish TV's DTH connection will cost Rs 2,190 one time an average of Rs 182 per month and receive 12 months of subscription of 125 channels that include entertainment channels, movie channels, sports channels and others. A Tata Sky connection, a consumer needs to pay Rs 2,999 an average of Rs 249 and for 12 months, for 53 channels including pay channels like Star Plus, Sony TV and active services.

Big TV is also offering entry-level subscriptions at Rs 2,490 that includes various channel packages, to get a clearer understanding between these competitors take a look at a comparison of Tata Sky, Dish TV and Big TV.

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Big TV to Get Digital Video Recording STBs

Offering as a variant to its set-top boxes, Reliance Big TV will be launching its digital video recorder (DVR) in the Indian market by mid-October, according to a financial newspaper.

The company has ordered 2.5-lakh DVR-enabled set top boxes from Korean manufacturers, including Hyundai. The first batch of 25,000 set top boxes will be received by September-end and will be rolled out soon after.

The DVR will give the viewers the opportunity to record multiple programmes from different TV channels in their absence or while other content is being viewed and it will cost between Rs 7000 to Rs 9000. Reliance is considering having a limited-period offer for booking on a first-cum-first serve basis.

Inevitably, Big TV's competitors - Dish TV and Tata Sky - are also expected to roll out their DVRs soon.

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Reliance and Thomson Tie-up for 300 HD Channels

Reliance Big TV has tied up with Thomson, a provider of video solutions, to launch 300 high-definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) channels and 30 radio channels in India later this year.

Big Tv will use the complete head end system from Thomson to launch the HD service and manage a hybrid distribution network of satellite direct to home (DTH) and IPTV over broadband.

With this, Reliance is expected to optimize its distribution network to launch a large number of channels, ensure excellent quality of service, and reach more viewers. Thomson head end will manage both DTH and IPTV platforms simultaneously and transparently.

Arun Kapoor, chief executive officer, Reliance BIG TV, said, "This is an ambitious project and launching such a large bouquet of channels, including HD channels, over a dual-distribution network is a challenging proposition which Reliance Big TV is uniquely qualified to meet. Viewer quality expectations are high and satellite bandwidth over India is limited."

Thomson has supplied Reliance with a complete video headend for hybrid networks, including its compression solutions - Thomson ViBE Multi-channel MPEG-4 SD encoders, ViBE Premium MPEG-4 encoders for HD video, XMS monitoring equipment, and NetProcessor repurposing and multiplexing solutions.

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Can I Use One Dish for Many TVs?

Well in short the answer is yes, although there is a limit of four TV's per connection, I will explain in short how it works to help you understand better. So lets say you have two televisions at home you do not need to get two separate connections, BIG TV provides a 50% off on installation of 2nd, 3rd and 4th connection.

The way it works is quite simple, you will have one dish that connects to a dual Low Noise Block (LNB) converter. The LNB then has two cables running to two different set top boxes (STB), each connected to your televisions. Each STB will have a different viewing card, which is like a SIM card that we have in mobile phones.
You cannot interchange the viewing cards of the STBs, it is also possible for the company to provide you with two separate dish antennae if the dual LNB is not available.

If you are taking a multiple Big TV connection you can get a 50% discount by informing the Big TV Customer Care Executive when you place an installation request.

I have Multiple TVs what will be the Monthly Subscription charge?
You will have to pay the normal subscription cost on the first television, if you have two, three or four TVs you would pay 50% or Rs.125 depending on which is higher, per extra TV.

Although if you choose any other add on packs for the second, third or fourth TV you will be charged at a standard price. If you have more than four televisions the 5th TV will require a new connection registered and will cost you the full amount.

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