Big TV CEO Resigns in 4 Months

Reliance ADAG is already undergoing a major change at the helm, just a month after crossing five million subscribers in short span of time.

Arun Kapoor, has quit from his position as CEO and President after being appointed in July 2008.

The reason for Kapoor's decision is not known. It comes as a surprise, considering that Kapoor had announced long-term plans for the company.

At present, Mahesh Prasad is the acting president of Reliance Big TV. Prasad, who had been with Big TV since its inception, was the President, applications, solutions and content group, Reliance Communications.

Prior to Big TV, Kapoor was the CEO with its rival Dish TV since 2006. Then he joined Reliance as COO after which he was made the CEO, and in four months he resigned to join Dish TV again. As competition is rapidly expanding in the DTH market, how will this move affect Big TV?

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Big TV Reaches 5 lakh Subscribers, Targets 5 Million

Just days after slashing prices of Big TV service, the company announced that it has touched five lakh subscribers within two months of its launch. South India has proved to be a major market for Big TV, with nearly 50% subscribers accounting from that market.

Reliance ADAG expects to touch the five million mark in the first year of its operations, and is geared to to add over 400,000 subscribers every month with an on-ground infrastructure spanning 6500 towns.

But with exceeding amount of consumer complaints which we have received on this blog, about the installation, after-sales service etc. of Big TV, we really doubt if these figures are for real or just a marketing strategy to nail the competitors.

According to Arun Kapoor, president, Reliance BIG TV, Big TV’s half-million subscriber base is equivalent to 40% of the industry’s gross additions during the last two months.

Big TV sure has big plans in the offing. It already offers the most number of channels as compared to any other DTH player, and by next year it plans to double its channels bouquet to 400. Reliance has also tied up with LG to offer its DTH service at Rs 700, instead of Rs 1490, for those customers who buy 29-inch television sets. The offer is valid till end of this month.

Also in the pipeline is Big TV's digital video recorder (DVR) by end of this year, and interactive cricket and news service within two months in association with a leading sports broadcaster and two news channels.

Read more » Big TV Reaches 5 lakh Subscribers, Targets 5 Million

Big TV Diwali Offering at Rs 1490

Reliance Big TV has announced a special offer for the coming festive season, making it the cheapest DTH service at present.

The company has slashed the rates of Big TV by over 43%, from Rs 2490 to Rs 1490 from October 17th.

The package includes 3 months of free subscription, with 64 channels available, including Star, Sony, ESPN-Star Sports, free video-on-demand service for a month, and it includes installation charges.

The offer is valid for a limited period. With five DTH players already present in the market, Reliance is doing what it does best, catering to the masses and offering its service at a less cost than its competitors.

When Big TV was launched two months ago it was priced at Rs 2490 including installation cost, and now its been brought down to a price point of Rs 2190. That includes free subscription for 12 months and video on-demand for 3 months. The channel offerings will be similar to the Rs 1490 scheme.

Currently Dish TV is available for Rs 2190, followed by Tata Sky at Rs 2400, and the newly launched Airtel Digital TV at Rs 2499.

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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.

Read more » The DTH Price Wars have Begun