Discovery Channel more popular in India than MTV!
The latest ratings by TAM Media Research on TV viewership in India shows some of great trends:- Discovery Channel is the highest rated English language channel with a viewership of 13%... MTV is a distant 3rd.
- 60% of men watching TV watch Discovery Channel
- News channels, with all of them regurgitating the same news couldn't cross 5% each.
The Economic Times has an article about these results that I've quoted from below but these guys miss a few things:
- I have rarely seen ANY English content on MTV India - so does it qualify as an English channel???
- There's no analysis on the news channels' viewership except to say that "affluent Indians" seem to prefer watching an English movie to watching the news.
- TAM - what does it expand to/mean??? Indians have this tendency to create acronyms and then assume the whole world knows about them! TAM expands to "Television Audience Measurement".
Discovery displaces MTV in viewship-Entertainment-Media / Entertainment -News By Industry-News-The Economic Times
Discovery topped the share with 13 per cent in the first half year against eight per cent last year, followed by Star Movies and MTV at 12 per cent each.English news viewership lagged far behind infotainment with channels like NDTV 24X7, CNN IBN and Times Now managing a share of just about 5 per cent each.There's the usual plug in the article to the Internet posing a major challenge to TV viewership.
Technorati Tags: TV in India, Discovery Channel, MTV India
6 million new Internet users in India in 2006-2007 but broadband growth rates are stalling
Its 2007, the "Year of Broadband" in India, but broadband growth rates are stalling! The dream was for 9 Million broadband (>=256kbps) subscribers by year end. However the latest numbers show the number of subscribers at just 2.46 Million and the growth rate in May dropped to 0.04 million from 0.13 million in the previous month. See here for more details and how Indian operators believe that launching IPTV service will get 80 - 90% of subscribers adding this service. Here's the article about the survey numbers on number of Internet users in India: India added 6 million Internet users last year, survey finds - livemintIndia had 30 million internet users in April, six million more than it had a year ago, according to a survey released on Friday, and 20 million of these users are on the Net daily. These are the findings of Juxt Consult Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based Internet research firm.Another great one from this article:
Interestingly, the survey found that the Internet users who accessed the Net from home spent more time surfing the Net than watching television, reading newspapers or listening to radio.I expected that one! Remember, most internet subscribers in India browse the Net through cyber cafes such as Sify's iWay and Reliance's WebWorld or at the office. Only BSNL's nationwide expansion project for DSL service can cause a resurgence in growth rates. And nothing beats providing rural connectivity for broadband - the dream and goal is broadband connectivity in every single one of the 600k villages in India by 2012. Technorati Tags: IPTV, Broadband in India, TelcoTV
AT&T decides to wait for and invest in LTE
I shared this news item on my link blog earlier today: Looks like AT&T is going to sit out the WiMAX deployment cycle and wait for Long Term Evolution (LTE) - the 4G equivalent of GSM. Engadget is linking to an article about this in Wireless Week and connecting this to the Sprint story on plans to reduce their WiMAX investment requirements by possibly partnering with other operators (read Clearwire) that are also deploying. Good luck to AT&T subscribers who aren't seeing much of an improvement in service speeds for their HSPA network! See the Engadget article's comments for complaints about HSDPA service. Engadget article: AT&T looks beyond WiMAX, headed for LTE What is LTE? Technorati Tags: AT&T Wireless, WiMAX, LTE, SprintFree Broadband in India? Solve higher priority problems first!
The great government of India as recently as last week promised free broadband for all citizens by 2009 - with service provided by BSNL.Broadband to go free in 2 yrs -Telecom-News By Industry-News-The Economic TimesThe government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL.While taken on its own merits, this sounds like a great idea - as availability of a high-speed internet connection has usually spurred new growth in various economies. However, I see this as a gimmick...
Why isn't this government more concerned about ensuring free food for all citizens, or free potable water for all citizens, or for that matter proper education? OK, education is "covered" by the education cess levied on all taxes - but how much of that money is being spent properly in providing basic education to kids? While I see all the comments on the feasibility of implementing it or of this being a simple election (national elections are in 2009) gimmick, no one is talking about the fact that there are so many higher priority problems in this country that should be tackled first. If those are addressed first, free broadband for all would become a reality all on its own without any major intervention from the government.Disclaimer: I happen to work for a telecom equipment provider that might stand to gain business from this initiative.
Technorati Tags: broadband, india, bsnl, goverment of india
2 Mbps Broadband in India - the start of the next growth spurt?
I was reading this blog post by Vijay Anand called The Truth Behind Indian Broadband yesterday and thought I should state a few of my thoughts on this subject here. Vijay leads into the argument with:256Kbps. Thats what they seem to be calling as Broadband here. Actually, even 128kbps is sold in the broadband internet package. The cost, almost seems to be at par with what would cost a 2mbps line in North America. What's this all about?The typical large service provider in India (the usual suspects: BSNL, MTNL, Airtel, Reliance Infocomm and Tatas) either have their own international networks or are in the process of acquiring them (by laying cables or leasing). So its not about the bandwidth not being available. These large providers are capable of servicing 2 Mbps or higher connections to subscribers without any problems. It has been avoided as there has been a lack of understanding on the need for 2 Mbps when even 256 kbps is high for checking email and browsing a few websites. Over the last year, since the adoption of broadband in India has witnessed a growth spurt and also the recent launch of IPTV by some select operators (MTNL and BSNL included) subscriber lines are already being provisioned for 1 or 2 Mbps. For those of us waiting for 2 Mbps connections to be available, the other shoe has dropped yesterday: the Minister for Communications has announced that BSNL will offer 2 Mbps connections to all customers with 256 kbps connections without any increase in price. I believe its only a matter of weeks to see Airtel and the others matching these rates and services. Now for the smaller ISPs: This marked change in the bandwidth of connections available will have a significant impact on the guys who just make money in reselling bandwidth but don't have scale and numbers. Without innovative features and captive portals that give advertising revenue or other revenue, the smaller ISPs will end up spending more money on bandwidth than they receive in revenue. Going back to Vijay's post, its quite likely that based on the announcement from the Minister (and more importantly its implementation by the service providers) the rates for a 2 Mbps connection in India will match the US before mid-2007. Technorati Tags: broadband bsnl india Airtel
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About Me
Ram ViswanathanApple customer & fan, intrapreneur, @ramhv on twitter. Create and drive go-to-market initiatives for a major systems engineering & integration company headquartered in India with a presence in South Asia, Middle East, Africa, UK & Europe & North America.
