Date:09/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/08/09/stories/2007080951300500.htm

Back Tata Sky investing Rs 2,000 cr more

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Aug. 8 DTH service provider Tata Sky today said it had touched a subscriber base of one million and was confident of servicing 8 million subscribers in the next five years.

Declining to divulge revenues, Mr Vikram Kaushik, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Sky, said the company had invested Rs 1,000 crore in the last one year and would be investing another Rs 2,000 crore in a medium period (over the next three to five years) to acquire new audiences. “This is the fastest ever subscriber ramp-up ever achieved by any DTH service provider,” said Mr Kaushik. The service provider is launching its new campaign and is offering customers who sign up before September 23, a million minutes of its services free.

Mr Kaushik asked the Government to allow exclusive carriage of content and said that there was no need to regulate cable prices which would be taken care of by market forces. “The level of taxes for the service is more than 30 per cent, including the revenue charged. The taxes on the set-top box are more than 30 per cent. For a new category, that is developing in order to clean-up the cable system, this is punitive,” said Mr Kaushik. The service provider is promising to offer more channels in a segmental approach — that is more niche channels for ‘discerning viewers’ and language channels for regional audiences, amongst others.