MUMBAI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has entrusted Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL) to carry out an audit of direct-to-home (DTH) and cable operators to ensure their compliance with the new tariff order.

“BECIL will conduct the audit on behalf of TRAI, to ensure compliance with the new regulatory framework. We request all distribution platform operators (DPOs) to ensure compliance with the new regulatory framework in letter and spirit,” TRAI secretary SK Gupta told news agency PTI.

MUMBAI: Cable TV service providers are envisioning a future where broadband plays a major role and GTPL Hathway is also one of them. After a mild setback received from the new TRAI tariff order (NTO) implementation, the company is back on track to focus on the broadband sector in FY20. GTPL Hathway is working towards creating more home passes and better infrastructure based on a target of achieving 20-25 per cent increase in subscriber base.

“From the last six months, as the NTO implementation was going on, the focus was not totally on broadband. We still added a good number of customers and reached 325K. We are back on our strategy now and our focus is full on broadband, CAPEX side, infrastructure building, customer acquisition and geography and we are expecting that whatever we were not able to achieve in last 6 months, which we had planned, we are going to achieve that,” GTPL Hathway business head Piyush Pankaj said in an earnings 

BestMediaInfo Bureau  Mumbai, May 06, 2019
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Ever since BARC India started publishing television data after the implementation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) new tariff regime, the ratings for Hind GECs didn’t witness much change. For Week 17, the hierarchy for Urban+Rural and Rural chart remained the same while there were fluctuations in the Impressions.

Consecutively for the fifth week, Dangal continued leading the Hindi GEC Urban+Rural and Rural chart while Star Plus maintained its top spot in the Urban market. The Urban market witnessed Zee TV moving up to second position while Sony Entertainment Television and Colors dropped to the third and fourth spot, respectively.

General elections 2019 will enter the fifth phase on Monday and Hindi news channels are already raking in a lot of moolah. The ad rates per second for the genre have seen a huge spike. But it’s not just the Hindi news channels that are reaping the benefits of the elections. English news channels have also seen an upsurge of viewership and have strategic plans in place to make maximum gains from the elections.

Speaking to exchange4media, Vikas Khanchandani, CEO, Republic TV, says, “Sponsorships are a combination of multiple assets. You have core programming that are dedicated to election coverage, analysis and many programmes thereof. Like, we have a special bus that is covering the length and breadth of the country, taking viewers to some of the biggest names in any state. In addition to that, there are polling day, counting day and government formation day assets. And then there are also non-election based opportunities. Counting day obviously is a critical asset because viewership peaks on that day. Most of the leading channels would have rates over Rs 1.2-1.5 lakh/10 seconds on the counting day, both Hindi and the top ones in the English space. As far as frill levels are concerned, we are almost at 85% for these days.”

MUMBAI: Cable TV and broadband player GTPL Hathway will shift its focus to the broadband business now that the implementation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) new tariff order (NTO) is behind it.

In FY19, GTPL Hathway added 1.1 million new Home Pass to take the total Home Pass to 2.42 million. It also increased its net subscriber base by 45,000 to end the fiscal with 0.33 million subscribers.

“For the last 6 months as the NTO implementation was going on, the focus was not totally on the broadband business. We are back on our strategy now and our focus is now fully on broadband on Capex side, on infrastructure building, on customer acquisition and geography and we are expecting that whatever we were not able to planned to achieve in last 6 months we are going to achieve that,” GTPL Hathway head- video business and chief strategy office Piyush Pankaj told analysts during Q4 earnings call conference.

MUMBAI: Video on demand (VoD) SonyLIV is planning to take live TV channel count to 120+ in the near future. The platform has added 50+ live TV channels in the last three months across genres.

“We would be having approx 70 channels and hope to take this to 120+ in the near future. In the last three months, we have added 50+ live TV channels across news, regional, lifestyle, special interest, and niche genres,” SPNI business head digital Uday Sodhi told TelevisionPost.com.

MUMBAI: No changes were observed in the Bengali, Bhojpuri, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu segment in BARC data week 17. In the Malayalam market, Kochu TV emerged as the new player by replacing Asianet Movies as compared to the previous week. Fakt Marathi and Zee Marathi interchanged their first and second positions respectively, in the Marathi space.

Bangla

No changes were observed in this segment. Zee Bangla, Star Jalsha and Jalsha Movies retained their first, second and third positions respectively. Sony Aath and Aakash Aath swapped their fourth and fifth positions respectively as compared to the previous week.

MUMBAI: Within a few months of its launch, the newest OTT player of India MXPlayer has gained high traction. It witnesses over 1.2 million new installs every day while it is already installed on over 600 million devices globally. Moreover, it is also present in over half of all Indian smartphones.

“MXPlayer is the most ambitious bet we’ve ever made. After investing over $150 million to acquire a majority stake, we pivoted the business. For the uninitiated, MXPlayer is the world’s largest local video playback app, used primarily to play the video files people keep on their phones,” Times Internet chairman Satyam Gajwani said.

TRAI had previously found several other MSOs and DTH operators not complying.

MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has directed five distribution platform operators (DPOs) to comply with all provisions of its new tariff order for the broadcast and cable services sectors within five days. The DPOs named are Multi Reach Media, GTPL Kolkata Cable & Broadband Pariseva, Digicablecomm Services, Barasat Cable TV Network and Bhorer Alo Cable & Broadband.

“Report compliance as per the new regulatory framework within 5 days from the date of issue of this direction,” ordered the regulator after it found the DPOs in violation of several rules of the new tariff order.

MUMBAI: Cable TV and broadband player Fastway Transmissions has elevated Prem Ojha as the Group CEO. Ojha was previously CEO of Netplus Broadband, the broadband arm of Fastway.

Ojha replaces Peeush Mahajan who will remain with the company as a consultant. Mahajan had joined Fastway in August 2010 as the CEO.

Ojha has over 27 years of experience in the telecom, broadband, IT, and office automation industries. He has led the evolution & growth of broadband services in North India for the last 20 years.

Speaking about his elevation, Ojha said, “This fiscal will be the year of exponential growth for all of us. We have ambitious objectives for all our businesses. We are poised to deliver converged services that include hi-speed broadband, smart voice, and OTT & IPTV services.”