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DTH AND THE RAIN FADE
FACTOR: THE SHINAWATRA PERSPECTIVE
A lot of skepticism has arisen
about the feasibility of direct to home TV in India. But
the fact of the matter is that none of the wannabe DTH-ers
is letting that come in their way. Thai communications conglomerate
Shinwatra, US satellite operator Panamsat, US-based DirectTV
operator Hughes Communications, Rupert Murdoch, the Thai-based
Manager Media group, Aerospatiale and Lalit Modi are some
of the aspirants determined to make a success of their plans.
Some new players are also making forays: last month, US
communications hardware company Echostar's direct broadcast
satellite was successfully launched. As was the Malaysian
satellite Measat last week. DD is a partner in the service
that is to be India focused.
TV experts have cautioned
that DTH would come a cropper in countries in Asia which
are deluged with rain. This apart, the high equipment price
and subscriber fee may make the service unviable. In Thailand,
while for instance rain interference could cause loss of
the broadcast signal during the long and heavy monsoons
in India. And monthly subscriber fees of 800 baht for eight
channels have meant that hardly 10,000 integrated receivers
and decoders have been sold. Contrast this with DirectTV
in the more affluent US market which has more than a million
subs at around the same prices.
Bangkok-based Shinawatra Satellite marketing & sales manager
Yongsit Rojsrivichaikul however isn't perturbed by the mass
of naysayings. Yongsit, who's in charge of development of
the India DTH project says that Shinwatra is extremely confident
of its success. "Signal losses due to rain may be less than
15 minutes a day, even less than that."
"We are looking at a startup subscriber base of 100,000-200,000
for India. It's going to climb after that. We will become
popular thanks to our good quality programming channels;
the signal, the audio will be good, of hi-fi, stereo, CD
quality. Finally, our sub base should touch 2 million,"
he says.
Shinawatra is currently in conversation with several TV
programmers, and hardware makers. And Yongsit says that
there are several indicators favouring DTH's success. "The
economics is going up; India is liberalising -- these are
the positive factors. The obstacles are pricing, and coming
up with a product offering variety. But the most important
problem is how to educate people about DTH -- a new product;
it requires extensive marketing.We are open to strategic
alliances for this. We know what we are doing. We want to
be DTH experts."
Shinawatra has time to find
out whether it has the wherewithal to become that. The service
will launch only in 1997 with its Thaicom 3 satellite being
put into orbit in end 1996.
Article
appeared in a local newspaper in mid-January, 1996
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