The Hindu Business Line : I&B Ministry moots five-year tax break for digital TV services

via The Hindu Business Line : I&B Ministry moots five-year tax break for digital TV services on June 19, 2009

Our Bureau

New Delhi, June 18 The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has suggested a five-year tax holiday for those offering digital television services.

The Minister, Ms Ambika Soni, met the Minister of Finance, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, with the I&B’s budget proposals.

The Ministry is suggesting the tax holiday for digital cable, direct to home, satellite-based cable Headend in the Sky (HITS) and similar service providers distributing digital content. They could be taxed for 30 per cent of their profits for the following five assessment years in a block of 15 years, suggest the Ministry.

The Ministry has also asked for the fringe benefit tax (FBT), currently at 20 per cent, to be reduced to five per cent for both print and electronic media, and an exemption from FBT for the film industry.

Service tax of around, 12 per cent, applicable on advertising revenue of television broadcasters should also be exempt,

Ms Soni told Mr Mukherjee, bringing them at par with the print media which enjoys this exemption.

For newspapers, the I&B Ministry would like the government to waive the levy of service tax on road and rail haulage for imported newsprint.

Ms Soni has also asked service tax, entertainment tax and value added tax to be replaced by unified single Goods and Servi

Bharti rules out foreign investment in DTH biz

18 Jun 2009, 0124 hrs IST, Rashmi Pratap, ET Bureau

MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom operator, said that its direct-to-home (DTH) venture, Bharti Telemedia does not require the approval of the Foreign Investment Board (FIPB), as the investment has come from Bharti Airtel’s internal accruals.

Responding to questions raised by FIPB regarding foreign investments in Bharti Telemedia, the company said there is no cash flow or investment from any foreign entity into Telemedia either directly or through Airtel.

In a letter to FIPB, Telemedia said FDI investment into Airtel has been in accordance with the norms and cap in the telecom sector and duly approved by FIPB. “Further, there is no FDI investor who has invested in Airtel specifically for downstream investment in the DTH sector. Accordingly, Bharti Telemedia did not apply for FIPB approval as it was not seeking fresh FDI or overseas investment,” it added.

This communication has come in response to a query from FIPB, which said approval for Bharti’s DTH services was “subject to compounding” (confirmation) by the Reserve Bank of India. Bharti said that “compounding” was not applicable in this case as only Indian money has been invested in Telemedia and no foreign money was routed to the company.

The government had earlier said the shareholding structure provided by Bharti Telemedia did not have FIPB approval and this was not in accordance with existing FDI policy. Last year, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry had also raised questions about Bharti Telemedia not having FIPB approval for foreign investments coming into it on a pro-rata basis through investing firms, including Airtel.

According to the FDI guidelines for DTH, total foreign equity holding in a company should not exceed 49% and the FDI component within the foreign equity should not exceed 20%. Airtel has 40% stake in Bharti Telemedia, while the remaining is held by an “Indian company of the Bharti group”, a Bharti spokesperson said.

Bharti also pointed out to FIPB that under the revised FDI policy, as per Press Notes 2 and 4, announced in February this year, Airtel qualifies as a company “owned and controlled” by resident Indians and there is no indirect FDI into Telemedia through Airtel.

Under the revised Press Notes, a company is considered Indian if Indian promoters have a stake of at least 51%. Moreover, the investments made by such companies in any joint venture or downstream venture will be treated as Indian. Since a major part of SingTel’s 31% stake and Vodafone’s over 4% share in Airtel is routed through majority-owned Indian companies, Airtel is owned and controlled by Indians.

Airtel launched its DTH services in October last year. It competes with Tata Sky, Reliance Communications’ Big TV, Zee’s Dish TV and Sun Direct in this segment. The company hasn’t yet started disclosing revenues from DTH services separately. “We will start disclosing the operational and financial performance of DTH operations next year, once they become material,” Airtel CEO and joint MD Manoj Kohli said recently.

BenQ Offers Free DTH Connection With LCD Monitor TV

via BenQ Offers Free DTH Connection With LCD Monitor TV on http://www.efytimes.com

Wednesday, June 17, 2009: BenQ has launched its 22-inch LCD monitor TV, SE2231, targeting high-density urban markets. BenQ has also announced an introductory offer of free DTH connection, installation and six months subscription with every purchase of LCD Monitor TV SE2231.

The newly launched LCD monitor TV displays all TV contents such as high definition broadcasts, blu-ray movies, camcorder videos, console games and PC applications like documents, games, Web browsing and picture viewing. The LCD monitor TV comes equipped with 10,000:1 Auto Contrast Enhancement (ACE), 5ms rapid response time and HDTV 1080p compatibility.

Ideal for all TV and PC applications, BenQ LCD monitor TV SE2231 immaculately renders native 1920 X 1080 resolutions which enhance visuals to 1080p/24Hz, while increasing PC productivity and TV entertainment.

The Auto Contrast Enhancement optimises contrast levels through automatic adjustment of the display backlight for original black levels. Such contrast accurately amplifies dark detail definition to reveal never-noticed elements in the dark visual of games or movies.

BenQ’s Senseye Human Vision Technology, which is an image enhancement engine, produces exquisite life-like clarity and vibrancy for human eye. Four Senseye preset modes (cinema, dynamic, standard and custom) offer one-touch fine-tuning for both PC and TV content. Digital sound emitting from dual 3-watt speakers can be adjusted to classic, pop, rock and jazz with preset audio modes.

Available in two stylish high-gloss colours, ebony and black, BenQ SE2231 is toned with a silver polish frame. The back side of LCD monitor TV offers a curved form in mirror black.

BenQ LCD Monitor TV SE2231 MRP (maximum retail price) with the free DTH connection offer is Rs 16,999 and is available through all BenQ dealers. This offer is valid till stocks last.

BIG TV to kick start advertising campaign

From www.ciol.com on June 15, 2009

MUMBAI, INDIA: Big TV, Reliance Communication’s DTH service, is all set to kick start a two month long advertising 360 degree integrated campaign. The new campaign will deliver the value benefits a customer can derive through Reliance BIG TV and its entertainment niche, focusing on the brand’s larger than life canvas.

For the campaign, Big TV has engaged Corcoise Production which is headed by Prasoon Pandey while TVCs will be directed by Prashant Issar. A team from Leo Burnett led by Nilesh Tivary and KV Shridhar will lead the multi-crore campaign, which will be launched across the country covering electronic media, print, over 30 FM radio channels, OOH media, over 800 online portals and a host of social media. The advertising campaign will cover all the genres on a pan-India level with 1500 GRPs and over 10,000 radio spots.

RComm, Kribhco JV eyes rural cell market

From Hindustan Times on June 9, 2009

Kribhco and Reliance Communications Ltd (RComm) on Tuesday formed a joint venture — KRIBHCO Reliance Kisan Limited (KRKL) — to distribute RComm’s services through its network of more than 25,000 cooperatives throughout the country.

KRIBHCO will hold 60 per cent equity in the joint venture company with the balance 40 per cent held by Reliance ADAG group.

“The JV will market telecom products of RComm — both GSM and CDMA,” said SP Shukla, president, wireless, Reliance Communications.

“Later, KRKL will also distribute products and services of other business enterprises of Reliance ADAG including Reliance Capital, Reliance Entertainment and BIG TV DTH,” he said.

This is the second such marketing tie up to reach out to the rural area. Earlier, Bharti airtel did a similar tie up with IFFCO.

Related stories at

• http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/rcom-kribhco-to-form-jv/360632/
• http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/06/11/stories/2009061150960400.htm
• http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/RCOM-ties-up-with-Krishak-Bharati-to-capture-rural-India/articleshow/4640234.cms

Videocon eyes 1.5 mn subscribers for DTH: Official

Source Reuters on Hindustan Times on June 8, 2009

Videocon Industries Ltd is targetting 1.5 million subscribers for its direct-to-home (DTH) service, riding on its large network of consumer appliance dealers, its top official said.

The company has developed new liquid crystalline design televisions that can directly receive DTH signals and is aiming for a June 20 launch, Chairman Venugopal Dhoot told television channel NDTV Profit on Monday.

“No set-top box is required,” Dhoot said. “We are also giving this (technology) through different models.”

“We have already invested around 500-600 crores (5-6 billion rupees) and further investments will be made as required,” he added.

The electronics and appliance maker also plans to rope in foreign investors once the service acquires a sizeable customer base, he said.

Videocon will be entering a market that already has large competitors including Sun Direct, Tata Sky, Dish TV, majority owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, and Reliance Communications Ltd’s BIG TV.

At 2.57 pm, shares of the company were down 3.89 per cent at 176.5 rupees in a weak Mumbai market.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Sunil Nair)

Dishtv Partners With atom

From www.efytimes.com

Saturday, June 06, 2009:  India’s atom technologies, a provider of mobile/IVR payment solutions, has partnered with Dishtv to offer phone/mobile payment solutions to over five million Dishtv subscribers across India. This service offers the convenience to the Dishtv subscribers to recharge their accounts instantly through the phone over the atom platform using their credit cards/debit cards, anytime, anywhere.

atom platform provides a secure and automated environment to end customers and they need not worry about getting their credit card details exposed to any human being, explained the company.

“To provide more convenient and risk free payment options to our rapidly increasing subscriber base, we have put into service the atom platform, which will encourage more customers to pay using their phones,” said Salil Kapoor, chief executive officer, Dishtv. “Our subscribers can now enjoy best deals in an automated and secure environment. Our association with atom Technologies for using the innovative Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology will offer more convenience to our subscribers by providing them with additional option of making payments.”

“We are confident that our solutions will help Dishtv in serving their subscribers better, ease their recharge collection process and reduce their cost overheads as cost per transaction will come down for them. The solution will also enable Dishtv to process multiple transactions concurrently thus saving the subscriber’s time,” said, Dewang Neralla, director, atom technologies.

Related stories at

• http://www.ciol.com/technology/mobility/news-reports/dishtv-ties-up-with-atom-for-m-payment/8609120648/0/

RCom may rope in Hrithik as brand ambassador

From Financial Express on May 29, 2009 at 1734 hrs IST

New Delhi: Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications is planning to launch a Rs 150-crore advertising campaign for its nation-wide GSM services and is believed to be on the verge of signing Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan as its brand ambassador.

According to sources, Reliance Communications is planning a Rs 150-crore media campaign for its GSM services featuring its new brand ambassador, Hrithik Roshan.

Sources said the company is in the final stages of signing an endorsement deal with Hrithik, who would be the official face for the company’s mobile, data and DTH businesses.

When contacted, the company spokesperson declined to comment.

The three-year deal with Hrithik is believed to be worth over Rs five crore annually and excludes the fees payable for appearances and events, sources said adding the overall deal could touch Rs 10 crore annually. The new campaign is expected to be on air in the first week of June.

This is Reliance Communications’ first advertising campaign for its GSM service, which was launched on commercial basis in January 2009 and has since then added over 13 million subscribers.

HFCL unit to invest Rs 800 cr in IPTV

Saurabh Turakhia, Hindustan Times on 22 May 2009

Smart Digivision Pvt Ltd, a company promoted by Mahendra Nahata, promoter of Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd providing IPTV solutions under the brand name ‘Myway IPTV’, will invest Rs 700 crore to Rs 800 crore over the next five years. IPTV uses Internet-based technology and offers programmes through broadband networks.

Smart Digivision, which plans to be an alternative to direct-to-home (DTH) satellite-based distributions like Tata Sky and Dish TV, aims to get 3.5 million subscribers of the estimated 50 million Indian digital homes by 2014.

The company has tied up with state-run MTNL and BSNL to provide co-branded IPTV services to the consumers. MTNL and BSNL have an all India subscription base of 34 million subscribers.
Speaking to Hindustan Times, Kapil Dev Kumar, chief operating officer, Smart Digivision Pvt Ltd said, “Our positioning directly conveys that we are better in comparison to DTH.” He referred to features such as anytime video-on-demand, anytime music, internet applications and SMS facilities among others to make his point.

The promoters have already invested Rs 60 crore for the project till now. It has 110 people on its payrolls. The company will break-even after three to four years, said Kumar. Apart from Myway, other players such as Aksh Optifibre and Airtel also provide IPTV services.

Excerpt from interview with Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director, Hewlett-Packard India

On www.business-standard.com/india on 19 May 2009

What about telecom? It appears that IBM is a clear leader in this space…

When Indian telecom companies went for outsourcing services, the deals went to IBM. It has a model which we could never match but we have products in both hardware and software that are used internally for billing purposes. These are solutions that HP has continued to sell in the country and that’s helping us grow. Now that the government has announced licences for five new operators, we are very excited. They will need infrastructure. And we have developed new ways of designing data centres with cooling and power efficiency. Take, for instance, our dynamic smart cooling solutions. Data centres must have air-conditioning which costs a bomb. Dynamic cooling reduces costs by sensing hot spots and cooling them rather than cooling the entire data centre. This reduces air-conditioning costs by 40-45 per cent. Some telecom companies have already given us orders which we executed in December, March and April.

But you appear to have woken up late when it comes to low-cost netbooks and the mobile space which is booming…

To think that PCs will be the device that will be used to access information is erroneous. Mobile is surely the way to go. However, our focus is not to make a mobile device. Rather, our focus is on how the mobile device can become the centre of computing. Whether you want to access your bank or make a secure payment, security is a big issue. Consider a streaming video-on-demand or direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast or any Visa/Mastercard transaction — all these applications link back to storage or server applications. The question, however, is how do you enable all this in a secure environment? So our focus is on secure transactions using the phone.

Every time you see a reality show where you need to SMS a number, there is a server doing the backend work — and 90 per cent of those servers are from HP. I have 130 organisations that do value-added services for telecom service providers using our product.I must now come to netbooks. Let me tell you that we launched netbooks in February. A little late though, we launched consumer and commercial netbooks. We also got the consumer netbooks designed and offered them in different colours. They also have a slot for a 3G simcard. Netbooks are doing well for us. February was a record month for us.

Excerpt from interview with Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director, Hewlett-Packard India

On www.business-standard.com/india on 19 May 2009

What about telecom? It appears that IBM is a clear leader in this space…

When Indian telecom companies went for outsourcing services, the deals went to IBM. It has a model which we could never match but we have products in both hardware and software that are used internally for billing purposes. These are solutions that HP has continued to sell in the country and that’s helping us grow. Now that the government has announced licences for five new operators, we are very excited. They will need infrastructure. And we have developed new ways of designing data centres with cooling and power efficiency. Take, for instance, our dynamic smart cooling solutions. Data centres must have air-conditioning which costs a bomb. Dynamic cooling reduces costs by sensing hot spots and cooling them rather than cooling the entire data centre. This reduces air-conditioning costs by 40-45 per cent. Some telecom companies have already given us orders which we executed in December, March and April.

But you appear to have woken up late when it comes to low-cost netbooks and the mobile space which is booming…

To think that PCs will be the device that will be used to access information is erroneous. Mobile is surely the way to go. However, our focus is not to make a mobile device. Rather, our focus is on how the mobile device can become the centre of computing. Whether you want to access your bank or make a secure payment, security is a big issue. Consider a streaming video-on-demand or direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast or any Visa/Mastercard transaction — all these applications link back to storage or server applications. The question, however, is how do you enable all this in a secure environment? So our focus is on secure transactions using the phone.

Every time you see a reality show where you need to SMS a number, there is a server doing the backend work — and 90 per cent of those servers are from HP. I have 130 organisations that do value-added services for telecom service providers using our product.I must now come to netbooks.

Let me tell you that we launched netbooks in February. A little late though, we launched consumer and commercial netbooks. We also got the consumer netbooks designed and offered them in different colours. They also have a slot for a 3G simcard. Netbooks are doing well for us. February was a record month for us.

Price guidelines for DTH operators

13 Mar, 2009, 1120 hrs IST,TNN

NEW DELHI: Direct-to-home (DTH) service providers have to give prior notice to their subscribers before making any changes in price or composition of the consumer’s subscription package.

This is part of the amended Quality of Services (QoS) norms and redressal of grievances regulations for DTH, announced by telecom and broadcast regulator Trai.

As per the new regulations, DTH operators cannot charge any fee for repair and maintenance of equipment which has been purchased by a consumer, during the period of warranty. This rule does not apply if the consumer has rented the equipment from the service provider on a nominal monthly fee.

“The service provider also cannot remove a channel in DTH viewers’ subscription packages during the first six months of enrolment or during the period of validity of a prepaid subscription package, whichever is longer,” the regulator said in a statement.

If a DTH player does remove a channel from an existing package it will have to proportionately reduce the monthly subscription fee charged to the consumer. Alternatively, the service provider can also offer another channel of the same genre or language as a replacement for the channel that has been removed from the package.

But the regulator pointed that the option of choosing the package with reduced charges or with a replacement channel lies with the consumer and not the DTH company.

Most DTH service providers have been in a tiff with one or more broadcaster over the price at which the channels are offered to them. Sometimes channels are removed from the DTH bouquet without any information to the consumer who has subscribed to a package. Last year Tata Sky and ESPN Star Sports were battling over their financial agreement and the former had blocked ESPN from its basic package.

Bharti Airtel launches two DTH entry packs

11 May 2009, 1643 hrs IST, PTI (www.Economictimes.com)

NEW DELHI: Leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday announced the launch of two new entry packages for Digital TV, its direct-to-home (DTH) Service.

The packages, priced at Rs.1,850 and Rs.2,000, offer a three-month free subscription to various bouquets of channels and interactive services.

While the Rs.1,850 package gives three months free subscription for ESPN sports channel and a new value pack of 77 channels and five interactive services. The Rs.2,000 pack allows subscribers to view 121 channels and nine interactive services.

Customers who opt for either offer have the option of changing their pack choices after the free preview period of three months. Both offers are valid from May 1, and are available across the country.