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DTH firms need 10 mn subs to cash break even
MUMBAI: Indian direct-to-home (DTH) operators have a long road to travel before they can start counting their profits.
Dish TV and Tata Sky, the two leading companies, expect to achieve a full cash flow break even once they achieve 10 million subscribers.
Dish TV hopes to reach that milestone by 2012 as it targets to add 2.5 million subscribers this fiscal, capitalising from a sports-heavy year that has the soccer and cricket World Cups.
In FY’10, Dish TV mopped up 1.8 million subscribers amid price war and stiff competition from players like Sun Direct, Airtel Digital TV and Tata Sky.
Tata Sky, which acquired 1.4 million new subscribers in FY’10, hopes to post a speedier growth this year. The entire DTH sector, in fact, expects 10-11 million subscriber addition on the back of sports events in the year.
“The break even will come only after a DTH operator crosses a subscriber base of 10 million despite low ARPUs (average revenue per user). At least, that looks like the case with Dish TV and Tata Sky,” says a media analyst who closely tracks the sector.
Airtel Digital TV believes the economic viability and profitability of the DTH industry rests on three pillars. “The speed of acquisition is important. The content cost, at 50 per cent of cable TV pricing, is also on the higher side. DTH companies also have a tax liability of over 35 per. If these things get corrected, we will have a profitable industry,” says Bharti Airtel director & CEO – DTH Ajai Puri.
Airtel Digital TV has the fastest growth among all the DTH operators, pocketing 27 per cent of the incremental subscribers. “If you take out the southern region, we will be having an incremental share of 33 per cent,” says Puri.
The DTH sector is stung by low ARPUs, higher content cost (despite moving to a fixed rate model with broadcasters) and an advertising spend that is estimated at Rs 6 billion a year.
Videocon, however, believes it can be ebitda positive sooner than the older players. “We expect to be ebitda positive after reaching 4-5 million subscribers. The industry has got a lot more regularised and this is apparent even on the content side. The prices of set-top boxes (STBs) have fallen and customer acquisition is happening a lot more faster. As for us, we have the advantage of a backward integration model,” says Videocon d2h chief executive officer Anil Khera.
DTH companies are waiting for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to come out with its recommendations on tariff by the month-end. They expect the sector regulator to fix a policy that will have similar pricing for DTH and cable for addressable digitisation.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
