(27 September 2007 9:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: DTH player dishtv, which pioneered the platform in India, has made the entire Sun bouquet of 15 channels available to its subscribers, in the wake of TataSky doing the same two days ago.

Company officials had in August told indiantelevision.com that dishtv had already signed an agreement with Sun for carrying their channels, but would wait for the Sun DTH platform to start operation and go on air simultaneously, as that had been the tacit understanding between the two companies.

However, dishtv had also then said that if TataSky went ahead with their airing of Sun channels before Kalanithi Maran's Sun DTH operations start, they would break with that agreement and start carrying the Sun channels.

"This is precisely what has happened, as TataSky started carrying the Sun channels two days ago, so we informed Sun and with their consent, have started carrying the Sun bouquet from yesterday," a dishtv official said on condition of anonymity.

The addition of Sun channels takes up dishtv's offering to 180 channels in 12 languages across the country.

With the addition of Sun channels, the dishtv south Indian language line-up will now have 17 Tamil, 12 Telugu, 12 Malayalam and 10 Kannada channels, including channels from other southern broadcasters.

The new channels are an interesting mix of genres across general entrainment, news and music, movie and kids, in short, catering to the entertainment needs of the entire family.

In the present day scenario of emerging India, almost 10-20 per cent of the young population is dislocated from their home states for better opportunities, the company statement added.

The inclusion of new channels will also satisfy the needs of the southern language populace residing outside their home state, dishtv officials say.

Kapoor adds that it has been dishtv's constant endeavour to incorporate tastes and preferences of our subscribers in the offerings.

"Dishtv enjoys strong support from Southern viewers and is completely in tune with their entertainment preference," he says.

By this move, dishtv now has the complete southern bouquet of channels which can cater to and will be of interest for all southern language speaking audiences.

The Sun channels will be available under four different packages, namely Dish Freedom- 100 channels @ Rs. 150, Dish Freedom plus-105 channels @ Rs. 200, Dish Welcome-130 channels @ Rs. 300 and Dish Maxi-159 channels @ 350.

Also Read:
Dish TV, Tata Sky to have Sun channels