Big
TV DTH has appointed Arun Kumar Kapoor as its chief operating officer. He will be responsible for overall
business strategy and operations of Reliance Communications DTH venture.
A management graduate from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute Mumbai, Kapoor joins the company from Dish TV, where he was CEO, before he quit in April end. During his brief stint at Dish TV, he was instrumental in strengthening the company's position as India's largest DTH service provider.
Before joining Dish TV, Kapoor was with Hutchison Essar South Ltd, where he was CEO for the Punjab circle. He has over 24 years experience in various companies, which includes a vast repertoire in the mobile telephony business, notably with Airtel, Spice Cell and Hutch (now Vodafone).
Big TV would face tough competition from three other operational private DTH players - Dish TV, with 3.2 million users;
Tata Sky, which has a subscription of 2 million; and the regional player Sun Direct, whose subscriber base is less than 1 million.
Big TV is believed to have selected more than 1.25 lakh retail outlets across 4,500 towns across India to give a push to its new venture. More than 700 distributors have already been signed.
Televisionpoint.com has earlier reported that the company had started its test launch in January with around 60 channels. It has now increased its offering to over 190 channels and 20 radio channels. It plans to offer over 250 channels on the Big TV platform within a month of the commercial launch, including pay-per-view channels.
The company has set up a redundant uplinking site at Bangalore in addition to the main site at Navi Mumbai. The infrastructure set up at Bangalore would enable the viewers to enjoy a superior viewing experience irrespective of weather conditions.
Big TV has also placed an order for 5 million set-top boxes, which would be delivered in the next 16-18 months. It is betting big on the MPEG4 platform, which offers a fully digital feed and allows access to more than 250 channels as compared with 160 channels MPEG2 platform offers.
According to the 2008 Ficci-PwC report on Indian entertainment and media industry, DTH households are expected to grow from 4 million in 2007 to 25 million by 2012.
Televisionpoint.com
Reliance’s Big TV appoints Arun Kapoor as president
MUMBAI: Reliance ADAG's upcoming direct-to-home (DTH) service Big TV has appointed Arun Kumar Kapoor as its president.
Kapoor comes in from Zee's DTH company Dish TV where he was working as the CEO, before he resigned in April-end. Interestingly, Reliance had earlier tapped Sunil Khanna who was also the chief executive of Dish TV.
Before joining Dish TV, Kapoor was in Hutchison Essar South Limited, where he was functioning as CEO for the Punjab Circle.
The DTH market is going to hot up in India. Currently, there are three private and one public DTH service providers. But Reliance, Bharti and Videocon are the other players who are preparing for the launch of their service.
Big TV DTH Service is powered by MPEG–4 technology and is expected to launch by September-October.
Indiantelevision.com's Digital Edge
