Cable television was born in the late 1940s in Pennsylvania,US. It was then known as the Community Antenna Television (CATV). An antenna was erected on a pole on a mountain top and television broadcasting was commenced from three Philadelphia stations though with weak signals. The mountain antennae was connected to an appliance store via a cable and modified signal boosters, which was connected with the mountain antennae to both the store and the customers' homes. In India, television was introduced in the late fifties and since then it has come a long way. Doordarshan (DD), also known as TV1, was established in 1959 and was the only service provider for a long time. DD had only one national network and seven regional networks. The transmission was also primarily in black & white for almost twenty-one years. However, two major events revolutionized the TV broadcasting industry in India.
The regular satellite transmission began only in 1982. Since then, there has been a tremendous growth in the number of cable operators in India. Both people in the urban areas and rural areas have been enjoying the entertainment provided by cable television. At present, there are over 250 channels being transmitted to the Indian homes.1 The major broadcasters are Doordarshan, Zee, Star, Sony, Sun TV, and ESPN - Star Sports. Other prominent broadcasters are ETC, ETV, and Discovery. Among these channels, thirty-two are pay-channels and the rest are Free to Air (FTA) channels. Similarly, the cable and satellite broadcast business in India also have undergone a continuous transformation since its inception. Initially, it was driven by small cable operators. According to an estimation in 1995, there were about 60,000 cable operators in India. The increasing cost of operations and the need of fresh investments to upgrade cable infrastructure and to accommodate more number of channels has led to the consolidation of smaller players. MSOs2 like Siticable, InCable, and Hathway soon made their entry into the Indian cable industry. These players used to cater to the needs of cable operators by transmitting signals to the households. Some of the independent cable operators are also operating in semi-urban and rural regions.
In India, the number of cable operators is estimated to be anywhere between 30,000 and 60,000. The number of operators who registered themselves with the post office as per the Cable TV Network Regulation Act, 1995, is between 16,000 and 19,000. Though various surveys show different numbers for growth, the fact of huge growth is indisputable. According to the National Readership Survey (NRS) 2002 data, there are 81 million television homes in the country, out of which 40 million are connected via cable and satellite (Exhibit-I). The 2001 Census data recorded only 61 million television sets.3 Cable and satellite homes have continued to increase starting from its modest beginning in the early nineties (Exhibit-II). |
