DTH steals a march over CAS

It has been a year since the conditional access system was ushered in select areas of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata to provide quality cable television at low rates, but more consumers in those areas have hooked on to satellite-based direct-to-home services. What is more, DTH is still growing month-on-month, while the CAS numbers have begun to stagnate.

"CAS has become stagnant after July with virtually no addition of subscribers. DTH companies continue to grow their subscriber base in the CAS areas by 8-10 per cent per month," said a media expert who did not want to be named.

Since January 1 last year, when CAS came to these three metros, it has garnered 520,000 subscribers. In the same period, the two private DTH service providers -- Dish TV and Tata Sky -- have got 600,000 in the same areas to take the total number to 750,000.

DTH, just like CAS, uses a set-top box to decode channels, but also requires an antenna and is costlier to install.

CAS was implemented with the aim of empowering the consumer, who had to pay only Rs 5 for each pay channel. This was expected to bring down the monthly cable bill. The set-top box also improves quality.

The activation charge for CAS is only Rs 250 and one can rent the box for Rs 30 a month. Compared with this, it costs Rs 3,000 to subscribe to the DTH service.

Interestingly, most subscribers who have switched to CAS have taken only free-to-air channels. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has not pushed CAS beyond the select pockets of three metros, a move that was expected six months ago.

"Between south Delhi and south Mumbai, there are about 600,000 DTH subscribers while south Kolkata has about 100,000 DTH connections," said an industry source.

Industry experts point out that pricing is not an issue in the CAS-versus-DTH battle since CAS is confined to the affluent pockets of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. (It has been operational in Chennai for a few years, but that is not a part of this study.)

The financial muscle of the two corporate houses behind Dish TV and Tata Sky, the Zee and Tata groups, respectively, has resulted in aggressive marketing and advertising blitz -- Shah Rukh Khan is Dish's brand ambassador -- tipping the scales.

Multi-system operators (MSOs), which provide cable services, have been slow in educating subscribers about the quality of their services. There has been little in the name of marketing and advertising from them.

MSOs maintain that CAS has been a mixed bag as it has given consumers a choice of not watching pay channels. "CAS was all about giving consumers a choice. If they have chosen not to watch pay channels, CAS is effective," says a senior executive of WWIL, the cable arm of Zee.

Leading pay channel broadcasters like STAR and Zee have questioned the Rs 5-a-pay-channel price cap under CAS and its benefits to consumers.

"Cricket is so popular that even in CAS areas consumers are watching it without set-top boxes. Many cable operators indulge in piracy, thereby making a mockery of CAS," says a sales executive of a leading sports channel.

Under DTH, consumers receive television signals directly from the satellite through a set-top box.

CAS also works through a set-top box but operates on conventional cable lines and involves the intervention of the local cable operator. Consumers have to call the cable operator to activate or deactivate a pay channel.