Cable TV viewers in urban areas across the country will now need set top boxes (STBs) to watch their favourite programmes as the deadline to install the equipment ended today with the last day of the government's digitisation drive.
The phase three of cable TV digitisation drive was underway for remaining urban areas in the country after the completion of first two phases, which covered four metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai) and 38 cities having population more than 10 lakh each.
A senior Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry official said that it was decided that there will be no extension for the Phase III date.
When asked if there would be a large number of TV screens that would go blank, an official source said that a healthy percentage of people had already installed set top boxes and it is expected that the few who had not done it, will soon follow suit.
"It had been decided in a recent meeting that there would be no extension and a serious effort has been on to ensure maximum installation of set top boxes," the source added.
The I&B ministry had taken several steps, including setting up of a toll free telephone number and running an awareness drive, to ensure seamless transition to digitisation.
Times Network managing director M K Anand said
digitisation has increased the viewership of English content.
"In 2003-2004, we had 6.5 crore English content viewers, which thanks to digitisation is 20 crore now," he said, expressing hope that English market (news plus entertainment) will cross 30 crore over the next decade.
On the over-the-top platforms, he said they will not make linear TV meaningless as each serves a different purpose. "I think newspapers are not going to die in the next 50-100 years as there is a certain utility for newspapers. Similarly, linear television has a different utility.
"Video on demand requires me to think of what I want to watch, while linear television offers the bliss of stumbled upon content. I feel that linear broadcasting will probably grow bigger," he said.
