I still feel our whole exercise of digitalising the cable TV networks is out of focus. Right from drafting the amended law to making various regulations and then implementing them, Government is only concerned that all pay channels must reach viewers and be paid by the subscribers whether they like or not. Once the process started, stringent deadlines, tougher than anywhere in the world were announced. Now ministry's objective seems to be to show complete success in their exercise in the first phase, come what may. It reduced the base line of Cable TV households than what it had been considering since January this year to show higher percentage of STB penetration. Not only this, they have reduced the number of analog TV households by DTH homes in the metros so that number of yet to be digitized cable homes becomes low.
So now with the new figures, supposed to be based on Census 2011, Mumbai has achieved 95%, Chennai 49%, Kolkata 67% and Delhi lags behind with 53% STB penetration. These are quite impressive figures considering that USA and UK took 10 years to achieve this penetration. If we believe these figures then the LCOs must get the complete credit because it is they who do the job of convincing the subscribers to spend money on STB and then pay much more to the pay channels. It is sad that they get the minimum revenue for this.
