Tata Sky game for 'TV on mobile'

Direct to Home (DTH) operator Tata Sky is counting big on its ‘TV on mobile’ service as a major revenue stream in future.

The service, which was recently launched by the company, is already nearing one lakh subscriber mark and growing.

“We have got tremendous response to this service even from smaller towns, such as Kota which has a large outstation students’ community preparing for higher education and professional examinations,” Tata Sky chief commercial officer Vikram Mehra told Business Standard.

Tata Sky subscribers can avail of ‘TV on mobile’ by paying an additional fee of Rs 60 per month. Currently, it is available on iphone and ipad. “By November end, the service would be available on android devices as well. By February 2014, it would be available on laptops too,” he informed.

Meanwhile, Tata Sky is focusing on the High Definition (HD) DTH platform believing it would be the industry standard in the next 3 years. “According to a news report, almost 50% of domestic TV sales are of flat screens, which support HD. Taking a clue, we have already slashed the price of our HD set top box to Standard Definition (SD) box level to make it affordable,” Mehra said.

There are almost 140 million TV households in India, of which 45 million are on DTH platform. The rest are accounted to by cable TV network, both digital and analogue.

However, analogue cable subscribers are slowly migrating to digital platform following mandatory digitisation of Indian TV in phases. India’s DTH space consists of several national level operators vying for their pie, including Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel etc.