Direct-to-home players converge digital media to lure customers.

Saif Ali Khan using his mobile handset to record his nagging on-screen wife Kareena Kapoor’s favourite TV serial in the direct-to-home (DTH) commercial of Airtel Digital TV seems to have triggered a war among other industry players. In a bid to win over customers, DTH service providers are offering features that combine digital set-top box (STB) with remote devices like mobile phones.

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Not to be thwarted, Tata Sky has announced the rollout of a remote recording feature on its STB. But, unlike Airtel, which allows remote recording command just through mobile handsets, Tata Sky Plus subscribers can record via both web and mobile devices. Although available to just 100,000 Tata Sky Plus customers (those with personal video recorder, or PVR, STBs), Vikram Mehra, chief marketing officer of Tata Sky, remains hopeful: “As of now, we are giving remote recording features for free. When we launched the ‘Plus’ STB, most of the sales for Tata Sky began to come from subscribers who wanted to upgrade.” The company also launched attractive upgrade schemes and insists that, in the last six months, it has seen an inflow of consumers. Further, Tata Sky also launched free true video-on-demand service for its Plus subscribers where, unlike traditional pay-per-view services, subscribers can start viewing content already downloaded by Tata Sky onto their PVR instantly, on demand, at any time.

According to players, convergence is the key to lure customers to upgrade or buy costlier PVR-based STBs.

A PVR-based STB costs between Rs 6,000 and Rs 6,990.

Bharti Airtel has already started work on an integrated platform where it could merge television, mobile phones and the internet to provide services across the value chain. “We think that, in the near future, it is a possibility to offer all features, experience and capability of our DTH platform on the web as well. Strategically, we can look to marry all the three screens (mobile, TV and computer) for the customer,” Ajai Puri, CEO (DTH), Bharti Airtel, said in an earlier interaction with Business Standard.

That’s not all. STBs will get features that are more intelligent, asserts Tata Sky. “Tata Sky’s intelligent systems will take care of those who have a habit of keeping their TV sets switched on. For instance, if there is no activity for two hours, the application in the STB will ask the user to confirm if they are watching. In the event of no response, the STB will switch to a stand-by mode,” explains Mehra.
 

The bouquet of features does not stop here. The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group-owned Reliance Big TV is ready to launch high-definition (HD), digital video recording (DVR)-enabled DTH services by the end of the first quarter of 2010-11. This will give direct competition to Tata Sky Plus and Airtel. New entrants like Sun Direct, too, are eyeing the HD and PVR segment, although it remains to put convergence on the back foot for now. “We are not in a hurry to add features like remote recording, but feel that HDTV and PVR are bigger bets for our subscribers,” says Tony D’Silva, COO, Sun Direct.

Meanwhile, Dish TV’s seven million subscribers can expect to see a roll out of HD content services this June.

But Umesh Rao, chief marketing officer, Reliance Big TV, is confident that HDTV experience will be its unique selling proposition, which is now not bundled with PVR services. Also, Reliance Big TV is in talks with consumer durable companies to offer their product with HD LCD television sets. “We are talking to leading television players for a potential combination offer. There is no point in having a new HD LCD television with an ordinary cable connection,” says Rao. Opting to go after the content, Reliance is reportedly in the process of acquiring rights to broadcast HD content from international broadcasters. Sources say that Big TV is in talks with Fox Star for its channels like Fox Crime, Fox Adventure and Fox Music. Big TV consumers can also look forward to content from Max Broadcasting and Warner Home Entertainment Group for channels like Comedy Central.

Big TV did not offer any comments on these developments.

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