Missing channels issue raised in Media

TOI today carried an article covering this issue... Posting it below ...

Dish menu drops favourites

Many Channels Still Missing On DTH, Subscribers Angry

New Delhi: DTH may have found wide acceptability because of the poor quality of cable services but viewers are now feeling cheated as many popular channels are still missing from the two top DTH services, Tata Sky and Dish TV.
Popular national channels like Hallmark and Zoom — which are free to air — are not available on Tata Sky. As a matter of fact, Tata Sky doesn’t carry other channels too, including some from Zee, Dilli Aaj Tak, Sahara NCR and many music channels. Asked why it doesn’t give viewers the full choice of viewing, a Tata Sky spokesman refused to comment.
Dish TV is relatively better. While it carries Zoom, it doesn’t carry Hallmark and Neo Sports, besides a few others. In short, neither DTH service provider gives the viewer the full menu — in other words, their much-touted freedom of choice. If consumers have gone to them, it’s because of CAS and the disorganised nature of the cable industry.
Said Sudha Sharma of Asiad Village, who is a Tata Sky subscriber: ‘‘I am deeply disappointed. I don’t get Zoom, Hallmark — two channels I was very fond of — as well as channels like Voyages TV and ETC Punjabi. It’s quite a few actually that I don’t get. I feel cheated when my friends who have opted for CAS get to view these channels while I can’t. I hate to miss the chat shows on Zoom.’’
Theatre personality Bubbles Sabharwal, who subscribes to Tata Sky, wondered why DTH should restrict choices when the whole idea was to provide service and choice. ‘‘As a theatre person, I miss Zoom as it has lots of programmes on creative arts,’’ she said.
The sense of disappointment among Tata Sky subscribers seemed pervasive. Repeatedly, they spoke of the lack of choice and mentioned the absence of Zoom. This isn’t surprising. According to the latest figures, almost 50% of upscale urban India watches Zoom more than 25 minutes each week. In the premium SEC A audience (15 to 44 years) it is bigger than almost all English news channels. It’s, in fact, among the top 10 channels in metros among the SEC A urban audience and among the top 5 if you exclude the general entertainment channels.
The sense of disappointment is also palpable among Dish TV subscribers. Software engineer Gaurav Babbar, for instance, spoke of the absence of Hallmark on Dish TV. (It’s not shown by Tata Sky either.) ‘‘It used to be a wonderful change from the popular movie channels but now I can’t watch it,’’ said Babbar. Music buff Varun Arora, an IIT Delhi student, was angry that many popular music channels were not being shown by Tata Sky. And housewife Vandita Bannerjee said she misses her favourite music channel B4U: ‘‘I liked it for its variety.”
As it is, DTH is not totally smooth viewing. During rains or storms, for instance, there are a lot of viewing problems, including blackouts. This is something that is there to stay as it’s a limitation with the technology. On top of this, missing popular channels is making customers feel shortchanged. Currently, Dish TV provides 171 channels, while Tata Sky transmits only 120 channels. Head of marketing, Dish TV, Anjali Malhotra says: ‘‘We do not show Dilli Aaj Tak, Hallmark and Neo Sports. We are already showing all channels which our viewers want to see. We monitor the TRPs on a weekly basis and evaluate the channels too to ensure that all popular channels are available to our subscribers.’’
This isn’t good for subscribers. Rupa Singh doesn’t hide her disappointment. ‘‘There are many channels that I would like to watch but I am not getting them. When I opted for DTH, the only reason was to shut the doors on cable operators. I didn’t mind the extra money spent — compared to CAS, DTH is costlier — but what I do mind is not being able to watch so many channels.’’

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This is good news but unless we see the effects of that in terms of poor sales and mass complaints from the customers , i can't see this having significant effect on the dth companies. DTH companies are putting up such nonsense only because of the poorly handling of the CAS implementation. If CAS had been properly handled in the selected areas and fast tracked it's implementation in other areas , we would be having an even more exciting battle between dth and cable. But it does work both ways and DTH revolution has shocked the cable operators which should have been done way back. I think the major issue here has to be the scarcity of transponders. If we had that in excess , there would have been no such thing.

They still have capacity to add 80 more channels... If one takes out space for 20 sun channels then also there is space for 60 channels... Don't know wht's stopping them ...

I hope they will read it because they people doesn't know that Zoom is more poplar than DD kashir.

Paid channels of suntv????They dont evfen show free channels of suntvi belive the abv statement should be in dishtv than Tata Sky

What about Zee Sports and neo Sports and Neo Sports + missing on Tata Sky?

The article isn't strong enough really. Specially with Tata Sky which pretends to be professional, but is really operated by a bunch of incompetent baboos.

How much strong u want it to be 😀 ... Atleast they have raised the issue... 😉

that great and good to see that this issue has been raised after seeing this i found only a few channels is missing from dish tv and major one is hallmark and i suppose very soon they will add up this channel.

If Sun is not giving their feed to Tata Sky, then let Tata Sky provide all other south channels like Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu and make a presence in the South Indian markets as well leaving aside the state of Tamil Nadu for a while until the case with Sun TV is resolved.

TSky is more interested in getting new customers. I had a good experience initially. Later i realized that Tsky / Dishtv is not all that great. Firstly they don't give any choice to customers. Secondly they have limited capacity. Other factors are rain interruptions, no control etc. I think CAS Set top box is any day better than Tsky / Dishtv in terms of above.

They have space for 200 channels and they have not used it all.

TSky is more interested in getting new customers. I had a good experience initially. Later i realized that Tsky / Dishtv is not all that great.
Firstly they don't give any choice to customers.
Secondly they have limited capacity.
Other factors are rain interruptions, no control etc.
I think CAS Set top box is any day better than Tsky / Dishtv in terms of above.
Dear Rishi,
Firstly, you cannot do any thing for rain factor as it is technology constraint and those people are already working on that for resolution and its not in india its every where.
Secondly,about capacity they will have enough capacity to show all channels and more than a cable wala or CAS (Limited to200) but on dish you can go up to 400 as idon't know about Tata Sky might they will having good capacity.
Thirdly, about choice...i agree complete choice has not been given to customer but in dish you can have maxi, welcome, freedom , freedom plus etc like 4-5 packages to choose from. tata sky will have three( correct me if i am wrong )packages.

First & foremost, dont make this platform personal just because i am using my name as my ID doesnt give you the liberty to address. We're talking about issues here. Now coming to issues. If rain interruption is technology limitation then all i am saying that you need to tell it to the customers before they buy your equipment. You cant promise 24x7 service if you have such disruptions. Number of channels is limited in DTH since they have limited capacity. There is limit to no of channels deepening on the number of transponders . Also the number cant be increased quickly as we have limited satellites.Lastly there is no choice in DTH platform in terms of choose a channel. Also you don't get FTA channels. You have to pay for them too. All in all DTH industry needs some guidelines & regulation from govt in order to provide a better customer service.