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DTH operators feel HITS will expand the digital market
NEW DELHI: Direct-to-home operators said they did not treat the cable operator as their competitor and felt DTH was simply one other way for the country to get digitised.
They were also unanimous that Headend-in-the-Sky (HITS) would not hit them adversely as that would also help expedite the march towards digitisation. In any case, they felt that the country was large enough to accommodate different kinds of technologies.
The operators were speaking during a session on ‘Spotlight: DTH’ on the final day at the Focus 2009, the third Global Summit on Entertainment and Media, organised by Assocham.
Airtel DTH director and CEO Ajai Puri said DTH was essentially a way of digitizing technology and making television accessible to remote corners of the country and the poorest of the poor. The principal market of the DTH operators was the non-cable and the non-TV market since many in remote areas did not buy TV sets since they did not receive signals.
But he said digitisation was not the responsibility of only the government. He also complained that the DTH segment was the highest taxed – almost 50 per cent – and this situation had to be corrected. The cost of content was also very high, he said.
Dish TV president Rajiv Khattar who chaired the session agreed that taxation was too high. He said DTH gave the consumer greater choice and has taken the cable operators out of their complacency. The important feature was that DTH did not have a rural-urban divide. He said the country was gradually moving into a scenario where the stakeholders had to contend with increasing number of TV sets rather than TV households.
He felt that HITS will only help to expand the market and give the consumer greater choice. ARPUs (average revenue per user) would increase if consumers are offered more than what cable TV does.
Baring Partners Equity media head Mohit Ralhan said even if ARPUs do not increase, the cost of content would fall. He said the on-demand market has not increased very highly all over the world, but in India it is already a billion dollar market.
He said whatever is better, faster and cheaper will succeed. At present, 60 to 65 per cent of DTH was in rural areas. But he expected DTH to break even only in about seven to eight years.
NDS India GM Alan Dishington said in reply to a question by Cable Operators Federation of India President Roop Sharma who was the moderator of the session that DVR is a new technology and will take some time to find roots in India. The fact that set top boxes were subsidized also affected the market and the pricing could not be too high.
Answering a question, Sharma said the government must find a way to give right of way to cable operators so that wires do not hang around all over the place.
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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.
