Page 16 - The Channel Issue 2 2010

HD channels. Perhaps for the Commonwealth Games taking place in Delhi this October HD transmission will be seen. People used to buy a TV set of 19 or 21 inches, today the most sold size is 32". As panel sizes increase we are exposed to the deficiencies of SD. Yes, the business is there, people are working on it, at the same time there is pressure from the customers to view more HD at home, not just HD DVDs or Blue-rays. The only concern is the lack of region-specific content - that is still holding back HD in India and this will continue to be an issue for some time.

First, our target is to cover most of India and become a reliable hub for India. We launched our Southern teleport in Cochin in June, and we also acquired the land for a teleport in Mumbai to cater for our entertainment customers, that should be available next year. For anybody looking at transiting India or looking at transmission to or from India we are well placed with three major teleports and world class facilities. To increase our global footprint we are looking at other markets like Europe, US and Africa.

Yes, we are aware of the competition that is coming but there is enough market here. The total number of TV channels today is 350 plus. India has more than 1bn people and about 28 different dialect regions. If one premium channel starts translating into 28 different dialects, that is a huge business potential.

I think we are in a very interesting phase. Radio is at the stage where we just had the last auction of frequencies for 100 cities. Radio is one thing which you can still depend upon while you are working and doing monotonous work – it is still very popular. So I think radio is going to stay, we still

have a lot of uncovered area, we do not have FM in 600 cities/towns. Radio used to be a luxury not so long ago, but today each mobile phone has a radio receiver. We have a huge penetration now of mobile telephony. There are close to a million phones being sold every month but this does not necessarily mean that there are a million new subscribers – every 6-12 months people buy a new phone. People are more aware of things, they talk and say "Hey, did you listen to this?" In India the penetration of high quality Internet will take another five to six years. TV is going to be there for the next five to six years unless something drastic happens with Internet distribution. And you know, even if we have 4G licences, watching TV is an entirely different experience than watching something on the mobile phone. So I think the future for radio and TV in India is extremely good - a huge number still have no access to digital TV. Internet usage today is basically for email and social networking. I don't see a great possibility of browsing and important information out of that unless 3G/4G comes and we do have a great supporting infrastructure for the Internet.

our company will keep growing in the next couple of years/decades. On the satellite front, SD channels are going to increase and many of the established SD channels are going to be converted into HD – this will help us grow. Once we have HD it requires more bandwidth. We can have an MCPC platform with HD, to boost our revenues. We keep on providing more services and we are quite hopeful that yes, there are going to be good times ahead. We are also looking into diversifying into related and adjacent unrelated areas. Even if the economic conditions remain static or if there is a slump, what will happen to us is that we'll be stagnant for a while but we will not go down. That’s for certain. Last year was a pretty bad year for everybody across the world, but our profits increased.

My personal wish is that Essel Shyam should be a good big global brand and provide services for all parts of the world, especially in areas where things are not happening, like Africa. Even in India there are many places that are not yet connected. In this industry the team, the people behind the brand, are the most important. We are really lucky that we are a great team.