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Direct-to-Home (DTH) television is a method of receiving
satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...
by means of signals transmitted from
direct-broadcast satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...
s. The
Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...
(GoI) permitted the reception and distribution of satellite television signals in November 2000. The first DTH service in the country was launched by
Dish TV Dish, dishes or DISH may refer to: Culinary * Dish (food), something prepared to be eaten * Dishware, plates and bowls for eating, cutting boards, silverware Communications * Dish antenna a type of antenna * Dish Network, a satellite televisio ...
on 2 October 2003.
DD Free Dish DD Free Dish (previously known as DD Direct Plus) is an Indian free-to-air satellite television provider. DD Free Dish DTH service is owned and operated by Public Service Broadcaster Prasar Bharati. It was launched in December, 2004. In March 2 ...
, the first free DTH service in India, was launched by public broadcaster
Prasar Bharati Prasar Bharati (abbreviated as PB; Hindi: ''Praśar Bharati'', lit. Indian Broadcaster) is India's State media, state-owned public broadcaster, headquartered in New Delhi. It is a Statutory corporation, statutory autonomous body set up by an A ...
in December 2004. India is the largest DTH market in the world by number of subscribers. As on 31 December 2019, there were 69.98 million active pay DTH subscribers in the country. These figures do not include subscribers of free DTH services. As of 31 March 2021, the Indian market is serviced by 4 paid DTH providers and one free DTH provider.


History


Background

DTH services were first proposed in India in 1996. The proposal was not approved due to concerns over national security and negative cultural influence. In 1997, the
Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...
banned DTH services when
Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
-owned Indian Sky Broadcasting (ISkyB) was about to launch its DTH services in the country. After deliberations among groups of ministers, DTH services were permitted by the NDA government in November 2000. The ministers made four key recommendations to governing DTH services: no single entity, either private or state-owned, should be permitted a
monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
in DTH services; the
vertical integration In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the suppl ...
of DTH and
cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...
services should be monitored in order to prevent the formation of a monopoly in television distribution; the vertical integration of DTH operators and television channels should be avoided in order to ensure fair competition among TV channels. The new policy announced in November 2000 required all DTH operators to set up earth stations in India within 12 months of receiving a license. DTH licenses were priced at $2.14 million with a validity of 10 years. The limit for foreign direct investment in the DTH sector was capped at 49%, and a company operating the services was required to be headed by an Indian citizen.


Early years

The first DTH service was launched in India on 2 October 2003 by
Dish TV Dish, dishes or DISH may refer to: Culinary * Dish (food), something prepared to be eaten * Dishware, plates and bowls for eating, cutting boards, silverware Communications * Dish antenna a type of antenna * Dish Network, a satellite televisio ...
owned by Zee. The company decided not to compete against entrenched cable operators in metros and urban areas, and instead focused on providing services to rural areas and regions not serviced by cable television. Dish TV acquired 350,000 subscribers within 2 years of the launch. Public broadcaster
Prasar Bharati Prasar Bharati (abbreviated as PB; Hindi: ''Praśar Bharati'', lit. Indian Broadcaster) is India's State media, state-owned public broadcaster, headquartered in New Delhi. It is a Statutory corporation, statutory autonomous body set up by an A ...
launched DD Direct Plus (now
DD Free Dish DD Free Dish (previously known as DD Direct Plus) is an Indian free-to-air satellite television provider. DD Free Dish DTH service is owned and operated by Public Service Broadcaster Prasar Bharati. It was launched in December, 2004. In March 2 ...
) in December 2004. The service is free and offers only
free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the FTA Receiver, appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring ...
channels.
Tata Sky Tata Play (stylised as TΛTΛ PLΛY, formerly TΛTΛ , sky) is an Indian direct broadcast satellite (DTH) service provider using MPEG-4 digital compression technology, transmitting using INSAT-4A and GSAT-10 satellite. Incorporated in 2005; it ...
was incorporated in 2004 as a joint venture between the
Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continents ...
and Star India's parent company. Tata Sky launched DTH services in August 2006. Unlike Dish TV, Tata Sky focused on metros and large cities hoping to attract customers away from cable by offering better picture and audio quality and wider selection of channels. Following legal proceedings between
STAR A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...
and Zee, in 2007, the two companies called a truce and began offering their channels on each other's services. This decision and Dish TV's acquisition of more transponders enabled them to offer 150 channels on their service, more than any other DTH service in India at the time. Sun Direct and
Airtel digital TV Bharti Telemedia Limited, doing business as Airtel Digital TV, is an Indian direct-broadcast satellite service provider owned and operated by Bharti Airtel. Its satellite service, launched in October 2008, transmits digital satellite televisi ...
launched services in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Reliance Big TV (now Independent TV) was launched in August 2008. The service acquired 1 million subscribers within 90 days of launch, the fastest ramp-up ever achieved by any DTH operator in the world.
Videocon d2h Videocon Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Mumbai. The group had 17 manufacturing sites in India and plants in Mainland China, Poland, Italy and Mexico. It was the third largest picture tube manufactu ...
launched its services in June 2009. The total number of DTH subscribers in India rose from 1.5 million in 2005 to 23 million in 2010. Sun Direct became the first DTH provider to offer high-definition (HD) channels in early 2010. Tata Sky began offering HD channels later that year. Other DTH providers subsequently began carrying HD channels.


A la carte

On 3 September 2007, the
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is a regulatory body set up by the Government of India under section 3 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. It is the regulator of the telecommunications sector in India. ...
(TRAI) issued the ''Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Fourth Amendment) Regulation 2007'', which went into law on December 1; the rules require all broadcasters to offer channels on an
a la carte A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...
basis. The regulation states, "All broadcasters will compulsorily offer all their channels on a la carte basis to DTH operators. Additionally, they may also offer bouquets, but they will not compel any DTH operator to include the entire bouquet in any package being offered by DTH operators to their subscribers". Prior to the regulation, only customers in areas covered by the
conditional access Conditional access (CA) is a term commonly used in relation to software and to digital television systems. Conditional access is that ‘just-in-time’ evaluation to ensure the person who is seeking access to content is authorized to access the c ...
system (CAS), and cable systems providing the services, had the option of choosing to buy only the channels they were interested in. TRAI intervened after DTH operators complained that broadcasters were forcing them to carry channels that they did not want. Several broadcasters, such as STAR India, Zee Turner Limited, Set Discovery and Sun TV, challenged TRAI's order in the
Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal The Telecommunications Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) was established to adjudicate disputes and dispose of appeals with a view to protect the interests of service providers and consumers of the Indian telecommunications sec ...
(TDSAT). On 15 January 2008, TDSAT refused to grant a stay on the appeal challenging TRAI's directive; TDSAT overruled the broadcasters' objections. The agency later set aside TRAI's December 2007 tariff regime. TRAI challenged TDSAT's order in the Supreme Court, and stated in proceedings on 22 July 2010 that "in the
analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
, non-addressable environment, the authority is of the view that a la carte should not be made mandatory at the wholesale level as technological constraints in any case make it impossible for the benefits of a la carte provisioning to be passed on to subscribers". TRAI ordered that pay television customers in India must be given a free choice of channels rather than be forced to choose package deals, enforcing a January 2011 deadline to implement the changes. The order stated, "Every service provider providing broadcasting services or cable services to its subscribers using an addressable system shall offer all pay channels to its subscribers on a la carte basis and shall specify the maximum retail price for each pay channel". Tata Sky, Airtel digital TV, Videocon d2h, and Reliance Digital TV launched A la carte options in January 2011.


2010s

The price of
set top boxes A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...
(STB) in India plummeted in the decade since DTH services were launched. A standard STB was priced at 3999 in 2003, but dropped to 500 by 2014. In the same year, a DVR box capable of recording television programmes was priced at 2500. In September 2012, the Union Government raised the cap for foreign direct investment in the DTH sector from 49% to 74%. The government permitted 100% foreign direct investment in the DTH industry in November 2015, with 49% through the automatic route and higher investments subject to government approval. Videocon d2h began offering a preview of 4K
Ultra HD Ultra-high-definition television (also known as Ultra HD television, Ultra HD, UHDTV, UHD and Super Hi-Vision) today includes 4K UHD and 8K UHD, which are two digital video formats with an aspect ratio of 16:9. These were first proposed b ...
content on its DTH service in July 2014, and launched India's first 4K Ultra HD channel on 26 January 2015. The channel is not dedicated to single genre and instead broadcasts
video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...
(VOD), lifestyle and travel content, sports, infotainment, concerts and
Hollywood films The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of Ame ...
. The channel also telecasts 4K content created by international broadcasters. The first programs telecast on the channel were live broadcasts of select matches from the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup. Tata Sky also offered live broadcasts of select matches in 4K. Reliance Big TV was sold to Pantel Technologies and Veecon Media and Television in 2018. It was rebranded and relaunched as Independent TV. On 22 March 2018,
Dish TV Dish, dishes or DISH may refer to: Culinary * Dish (food), something prepared to be eaten * Dishware, plates and bowls for eating, cutting boards, silverware Communications * Dish antenna a type of antenna * Dish Network, a satellite televisio ...
merged with
Videocon d2h Videocon Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Mumbai. The group had 17 manufacturing sites in India and plants in Mainland China, Poland, Italy and Mexico. It was the third largest picture tube manufactu ...
, creating the largest DTH provider in India. As of Sept 2019,
Independent TV (India) Independent TV, formerly Reliance Big TV, was an Indian direct to home (DTH) television operator. It was a subsidiary of Reliance Communications till 2018 and later became part of Pantel Technologies & Veecon Media. History Independent TV ori ...
has ceased to exist.


List of DTH providers


Satellites

The Department of Space (DoS) requires all DTH operators in India to only use satellites commissioned by the Indian Space Research Organisation (
ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...
). DTH operators may use capacity leased by ISRO from foreign satellites only if sufficient capacity is not available on ISRO satellites. The following 8 satellites are currently in use by Indian DTH service providers:


Compression standards

All DTH services in India currently use the MPEG-4 standard of
signal compression Signal compression is the use of various techniques to increase the quality or quantity of signal parameters transmitted through a given telecommunications channel. Types of signal compression include: * Bandwidth compression *Data compression *Dy ...
. MPEG-2 permitted each transponder to carry approximately 20 SD channels (fewer, in case of HD channels), while MPEG-4 enables each transponder to carry approximately 50 SD channels (again, fewer in case of HD channels). The bandwidth required to carry a single HD channel is approximately equivalent to the bandwidth required to carry 4 SD channels.


See also

* Digital television transition in India


References

{{Telecommunication companies of India DTH Direct broadcast satellite services