The
Indian Television Sector
The Indian television market consists of terrestrial
broadcasting which is provided solely by the state-owned
broadcaster, Doordarshan, and cable and satellite
broadcasting, which is provided by Doordarshan
as well as other Indian and foreign broadcasters.
The Indian television market had more than 119
million television households at the end of fiscal
2004, making it the third largest television market
in the world after the United States and China.
Of these, about 50 million households were cable
television households, which represent a penetration
rate of approximately 42% of the total television
households and approximately 25% of the total
households in India. The percentage of households
with televisions was approximately 60% in fiscal
2004. An estimated nine million television sets
were sold in India in 2004. Of the 25 million
households that bought television sets over the
three fiscal years ended March 31, 2004, 19 million,
or 77% were rural households.
(Source: CII-KPMG Report)
Structure
of the Indian Television Broadcasting Industry
The Indian television broadcasting industry can
be divided into two categories:
Terrestrial
broadcasting
This is broadcast through transmitters and received
by households through antennas. Prasar Bharati
(Broadcasting Corporation of India) is the only
terrestrial broadcaster in India and is owned
by the Government of India. It operates several
channels under the umbrella brand “Doordarshan”.
As the terrestrial broadcaster, all television
households can potentially access Doordarshan.
In addition to its national channels in Hindi
and English, Doordarshan broadcasts several regional
language channels that are broadcast in particular
regions of the country.
Cable
and satellite broadcasting
This is broadcast by uplink of the channel to
a satellite, which then provides the downlink
signal to a wide region. Ground-based cable distributors
through dish antennas, amplifiers and decoders
receive the downlink signal. The distribution
of cable and satellite channels to households
is then carried out by cable, and has been characterized
by complexity and fragmentation. There are a large
number of operators in India, consisting of MSOs,
as well as LCOs who provide the “last mile”
connection. In most areas, there is only one provider
of the last mile connection.
DTH
DTH is currently offered in India by DishTV, which
is a part of the Zee TV Group and DD Direct Plus,
which is a part of Doordarshan. Recent press reports
indicate that there will be other entrants into
the DTH business in the near future, including
a joint venture between the TATA group and Star
TV.
Revenue
Streams
The revenues of cable and satellite broadcasters
generally consist of the following sources:
• Advertising;
• Subscription,
including from international arrangements; and
• Content syndication
Advertising
Broadcasters earn revenues from advertising by
selling time spots that are interspersed in the
channel’s regular programmes, sponsorships
(including title sponsorships) and banners/crawlers
that are displayed on a part of the television
screen while regular programmes are broadcast.
The television advertising market has grown over
the last several years, particularly as the share
of advertising on television relative to all media
has grown. Revenues from Indian television advertising
were about Rs. 49.00 billion in fiscal year 2005,
which represented 47% of the total revenues from
advertising on all kinds of media in India in
that year of approximately Rs. 139.0 billion.
The following chart shows the share of television
advertising as compared to other forms of media
advertising in India in fiscal 2004 |
