According to new research from Screen Digest, all sectors of the Indian TV market are expected to show growth until 2013 with pay-TV operators coming to the fore as the recession eases.
The Indian economy is forecast to grow 4.3% in 2009 and 6.5% in 2010 which is lower than in past years but TV markets are also set to grow according to the Screen Digest report. TV households are expected to rise from 133 million last year to 191 million by 2013, outstripping increases in the population and households in the same period.
Analogue cable TV accounted for 89% of all pay-TV homes in 2008 with the conversion to digital proceeding at a slow pace. However, Screen Digest expects pay-TV will increase its subscriber base from 80m to 113m by 2013.
Since it reaches an affluent middle-class audience, Satellite TV is assessed as showing good growth prospects, not just for operators like Dish TV, Sun Direct TV, Big TV, Airtel Digital TV and Tata Sky, but also for the wider media industry.
Aravind Venugopal, Screen Digest’s Research Analyst for Television said: “The sudden drop in advertising revenue brought about by the recession has been a wake up call for the Indian media industry which has until date seen tremendous growth.
“A welcome respite will be the easing of foreign ownership regulations. If the regulations are eased as planned, India can expect to see a strong inflow of foreign funding, followed by a round of consolidation especially in the cable and satellite pay TV sectors. This inflow of funds will also be crucial to the digitization of the nation’s analogue cable TV networks, necessary not just for the cable operators themselves to be able to compete with satellite, but for the entire TV value chain.”
With broadband penetration of TV households expected to increase from the current 4.2% to 13.4% in 2013, IPTV services are also set to expand.
