From http://www.medianama.com/2009/08/223-networkplay-signs-on-airtel-for-cpm-advertising-on-dth-eyes-mobile-video/ on August 25, 2009
Capital18 funded advertising network NetworkPlay.in has inked a deal with Airtel DTH for advertising on DTH in India. Interestingly enough, NetworkPlay CEO & MD Rammohan Sundaram told MediaNama that the company is going to sell CPM based advertising on DTH. This obviously means that Airtel DTH needs to be able to measure the impressions and relay the data back to the advertiser – there has to be a feedback loop with Airtel DTH. So far, interactivity has been limited on DTH. The company will offer video and image based advertisements on the DTH boot screen, iTravel, iShop, iMatinee, iCity, iNews, iPizza, iAstro and other Airtel DTH services. According to Sundaram, Airtel DTH service has a penetration of over 1.3 Million households and growing at a rate of 16 percent month on month, and reaches a SEC A & B audience in over 4000 towns in India. The total DTH userbase in India is 13 million; Tata Sky (4 million) and Dish TV (5.07 million as of March 31, 2009) are the top operators.
Sundaram says that the tie-up with Airtel is exclusive and they have been working on the deal for 6-7 months now; they are also actively pursuing deals with other DTH operators as well. The company is looking to launch Video and Mobile advertising solutions in the next couple of quarters, but Sundaram declined to comment on further plans.
Of late, we’ve seen a significant amount of collaboration between Internet, Mobile and DTH companies, with multiple services like ticketing, shopping, matrimonial, job classifieds and others being enabled on DTH. The increasing digitization of platforms means that digital services can be enabled across Internet, Mobile, IPTV, DTH etc; it doesn’t have to be about the world wide web alone.