Big TV Aims 3 Million, DTH Sector to Rise

With the DTH subscribers in India expected to more than double from the current 16 million to over 32 million in two years, Reliance Big TV has set its sights firm on capturing a bigger share of the growth.

Big TV's major marketing initiative with allocation of over Rs 100 crore to improve brand visibility, special incentive programmes for the retail channel partners and improved ARPU (average revenue per user) is aimed at crossing three million subscribers by March 2010 from the current two million.

Umesh Rao, senior vice-president, Reliance BIG TV, said, "We are focusing on competitive advantages in sales and marketing campaigns and we aim to target profitable growth in the DTH business."

BIG TV currently showcases 237 national and regional channels, of which 21 are dedicated to movie on demand content. The company has also witnessed a surge in demand on the PPV platform, and that has prompted to tap non-movie content and new releases, with focus on sports, international and national music content.

The tremendous growth in the DTH industry by 2011 will be driven by increase in number of LCD and LED TV sets in households as the prices are expected to drop. With cable operator services still being largely analog-based, consumers will shift to DTH services offering better viewing experience and a variety of content options.

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Big TV's Joy of Ownership Campaign

To solidify its foothold in the Indian market, Reliance Big TV recently unveiled its brand campaign based on the concept of 'Joy of Ownership'.

The Rs 50 crore campaign focuses on customer testimonials, where users speak about their viewing experience, freedom from the cable operators, wider choice of channels and upgrading their standard of living.

The 360 degree campaign will spread across, print, radio, online, Out-of-Home, television and BTL. More than 100 publications, 50 radio stations and 1000 websites are being targeted for the campaign.

You can watch one of the commercial of Big TV's new campaign in the video below.

While other DTH players have been using celebrities to endorse their product, Big TV has resorted to a different route to woo consumers. Umesh Rao, senior vice-president, Reliance Big TV, said, "Keeping up with the trend of not involving a celeb brand ambassador, the new TV commercial is structured on customer advocacy designed to promote a sense of 'joy of ownership'."

Reaching out to online audiences, BIG TV has planned a day-long online roadblock for websites such as Yahoo!, Rediff, MSN and Sify. On those days only the campaigns of BIG TV will run across these sites.

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Big TV Adds 14 Regional Channels for South

Stepping up it focus in the South India market, Big TV has added 13 new regional channels to its bouquet. Subscribers in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu can view eight Tamil channels namely Jaya Plus, Makkal TV, Mega TV, Zee Tamizh, Aditya TV, Seithigal, Sripoli and Vasant TV and five Telugu channels like Sri Venkateshwara Bhakti, Bhakti TV, Sakshi TV, TV5 Telugu News and GCV.

Reliance Big TV CEO, Sanjay Behl, said, "Our latest offer gives more choice of channels to Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh customers, especially the locally popular channels. This is a part of Reliance Big TV's commitment to continuously enhance customer experience."

BIG TV has also introduced a new package for South market priced at Rs 2590 with 120 channels including 15 Sun channels and more South regional channels. The South Bronze pack is priced at Rs 127 per month which subscribers can now avail for ten months and get two months free view.

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Big TV Introduces Special Onam Offer for Kerala

Reliance BIG TV has introduced a special offer in Kerala for Onam festival. The new Smart South 2590 offer comes with a Get Starter Kit priced at Rs 1490 and recharge voucher worth Rs 1100, inclusive of all charges.

Subscribers in Kerala are in for a treat as the offer comes with total of 83 channels, including 15 Sun Network channels and more South regional language channels. So customers will get to watch at least 11 Malayalam channels.

Smart South 2590 offer also comes with 12-months free subscription of South Starter Lite Pack plus 8 channels, one free regional pack, an interactive service application and 10 audio channels.

This offer is available till September 9th. Customers will also be able to watch ESPN, Star Sports, Star Cricket, NDTV India, NDTV 24X7, NDTV Profit, and Animax, Discovery, Discovery Travel and Living and Nick.

Competition is rapidly increasing in the DTH market with new entrant Airtel Digital TV claiming to have surpassed the one million mark after launching its services nine months ago. Following the steps of Big TV, its rival Dish TV is planning to raise Rs 1,000 crore from foreign markets by the end of this quarter.

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Big TV Launches Offer for Ganesh Chaturthi

In a bid to expand its customer base Big TV owned by Reliance ADAG has launched a Ganesh Chaturthi festival offer for new customers.

The offer states that a new customer can get a Big TV DTH connection for Rs 1,590 and this includes all the installation and hardware charges.

To make it even more enticing the company has offered its starter pack two for two monts at no charge.

The starte pack two has 95 channels and is available at price of Rs 185 + taxes.

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DTH Market to See Growth, but Profits Uncertain

The DTH market is expected to grow 57% by December this year as opposed to the same period last year, according to the latest projections made by Media Partners Asia (MPA), the international media research agency.

The five DTH operators, Big TV, Airtel Digital, Dish TV, Tata Sky and Sun Direct are expected to add six million new subscribers by the end of December, to take the overall subscriber base to over 17 million. But the report also pointed out that the DTH operators will face rising economic challenges.

Although one-third of the subscribers of DTH service in Asia will come from India alone by end of the year, the five DTH operators will still have only around 30% market share by 2013, as compared to 70% for the cable operators. Vivek Couto, executive director, MPA, said, "The economics of the DTH industry are risky, as both subscriber acquisition costs and other key operating expenses, including content, will continue to outweigh revenues for another five years for most players."

While some DTH service providers are optimistic about their growth. Reliance BIG TV said it will cross the three million subscriber mark by the end of the current financial year. Mahesh Prasad, President, Reliance Communications, for BIG TV, explained, "Currently, Reliance BIG TV has a subscriber base of 1.8 million and is aiming at a 40% share of the incremental subscriber base in the Indian DTH Sector."

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Big TV Slated to Launch New Channels

In a bid to give their subscribers more variety and channels Big Tv is in talks with international music labels like Sony, BMG and Universal according to industry sources. Reliance ADAG is supposedly preparing to start broadcasting a lifestyle channel focused on fitness as well as an English music channel.

Recently the company sold telecast rights of 25 Hindi Movies to UTV Movies, hence a Hindi movie channel is not their foremost priority. Some sources claim that Reliance has had talks with Sahara One Media & Entertainment Ltd. to acquire, Filmy, its Hindi movie channel, but they could not agree on the cost.

It seems impossible for the company to launch a Hindi Channel with the lack of content in the market. According to sources, the companies only option is to acquire a movie channel or start syndicating content. Although the possibilities of running a big movie channel on syndicated content is rare.

Though the company has stated producing regional content through Big Productions and has applied to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for 20 non-news channels, including regional and channels targeting children.

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