India:: 11th Plan Spends US$350m on Radio and TV Networks

Indian Government Spends More on National Radio and TV Networks in Face of Growing Commercial Broadcaster Competition - Move to Benefit Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturers Digital Broadcast Vendor News Asia (DBVNA) has been following India's development of its terrestrial digital broadcasting under the country's 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012). On April 8, 2010 the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI) approved proposals from the Ministry of Broadcasting for Doordarshan (TV) and Akashvani (All India Radio) to digitise its transmitter networks, and studio output. The move costing Rs 1,540 crore (nearly US$350 million) is to help maintain the state radio and TV broadcasters leading role in light of increasing challenges from the private broadcasters. This move will likely prove a true bonanza for digital broadcast equipment manufacturers. The Minister for Information and Broadcasting Minister, Ms Ambika Soni said that the expansion program was to bring people in the remotest regions of the country more program choice and highest quality of transmission, including HDTV. Some 60 per cent of the budget would go to AIR and the rest to DD. DD would see 40 new digital transmitters installed linked by satellite that would increase the choice from eight DD channels to 10 for most viewers. The liberalization of commercial radio has reached Phase III - bringing radio to towns with populations of around 100,000 population. Digital Broadcast Vendor News Asia notes that Minister Ambika sees Radio Phase III as posing a serious challenge to the current role of AIR in these areas/markets. This has prompted more urgent development of the Akashvani radio network to face head on the new market circumstances. The spending under the 11th Plan will involve replacement of Medium Wave transmitters with digital transmitters, digitalisation of studio operations and network links, establishment of regional digital archives and further newsroom automation.

Digital Vendor | NDS Opens New Delhi Office

NDS Asia Pacific, owned by NDS Group plc (NASDAQ: NNDS) has informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia, that it has opened a sales and support office in New Delhi. A leading provider of technology solutions for digital Pay TV, NDS already has a Mumbai office and a Bangalore Research and Development Center. With 900 staff already working in India, NDS says it is committed to providing continuing support to the Indian PAY TV market and to investing in further expansion. With unprecedented emphasis on technology research and development, NDS says it ensures its customers are market leaders, today and tomorrow. Commenting in Mumbai, Sue Taylor, VP and General Manager of NDS Asia Pacific said, "NDS is very optimistic about the growth of the Indian Pay TV market." Latest research shows that India's digital Pay TV market will lead the Asia-Pacific region in revenue generation by 2015. India's established Pay TV market leaders, Tata Sky, Hathaway Cable and Datacom, as well as new market entrants Bharti and Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), all rely on NDS systems to protect and enable their Pay TV services.

Time Warner Cable | 2008 Cable Show

Fox BusinessNews has a wrap of the 2008 Cable Show in New Orleans on the role of Time Warner Cable (TWC) as the industry moves forward. Rebecca Gomez interviews Peter Stern VP for Strategic Planning at Time Warner Cable. Stern addresses: time shifting consumer options, giving customers greater control to watch what they want, when they want and through what equipment using the innovative "Star Over" product. He also addresses the Verizon Network competition, the Sprint and ClearWire JV with TWC, and the way forward incorporating 4G, the next generation phone interface/wi-fi. Watch the Fox Business News video interview with Peter Stern at the 2008 Cable Show.

Digital Broadcaster | TVNZ Heads Up with Aussie

Television New Zealand has informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News that Aussie, Anthony Flannery a veteran newsman from Nine Network (PBL:AX) is to head up News and Current Affairs at the Kiwi network from May. Flannery has been responsible for Nine Television Network's highly rated, "A Current Affair" program. He is regarded as one of the most experienced broadcast journalists in the Southern Hemisphere familiar with a variety of news distribution platforms in digital. TVNZ's own website has an insatiable appetite for strong news content. The TVNZ move is a prize catch for them as Flannery has been a Nine Network staffer since 1995 and before that at Nine's NTD8 Darwin TV station, Mid-State Television in Western New South Wales, WIN TV in Canberra and in the mid-1980s, he was Press Secretary to Aussie member of Parliament, David Simmons MP. Digital Broadcasters Vendors News believes that the hiring of Flannery could be misunderstood at a time when TVNZ has cut back on its Newsroom staff to save NZ$10million in salary costs. Television New Zealand in the past decade has suffered as a national institution at the vagaries of governing parties in Wellington. The once invisible flagship news on TVOne and TV2 has recently shown holes in its ratings, challenged by the news output from Canwest's TV3.

Digital Broadcasters | India | Bhubaneswar Adds Two FM stations

Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa state, and popularly known as the
"Temple City of India" adds two 24/7 private FM radio stations from
this month. Adlabs' BIG 92.7 FM will have an effective radiated
power that distributes its signal for a 60 kilometre radius that also
takes in the city of Cuttack with a program diet of entertainment and
"serious" information. Serious means updates to the supply of
vegetables in the markets, where there are power cuts, other utility
problems and government announcements. Music content is being split
in a ratio of 70% Hindi to 30% Oriya.

The second station is Eastern Media Ltd's Choklate 104 FM Superhit
Music. Its broadcast area includes Cuttack and Rourkela and areas
smaller cities of Athagarh, Chandaka, Gopinathpur, Raghunathpur,
Salepur,Jagatpur, Tangi, Deogaon, Gondia, Dhenkanal, Barhachara,
Haridashpur, Manda, Khurdha, Balipatna, Kapilespur, Pipli,
Jagatsinghpur, Patkura, Ratnagari, Udaigiri, Jenapur and Bhuban.

The two broadcasting network stations were issued the licences in the
second batch of 250 stations issued last year.

The introduction of the commercial FM stations is prompting All India
Radio's AIR Cuttack to upgrade its FM Rainbow Channel locally.

Digital Broadcasters | Genesis Opens Tokyo POP

Tokyo, Sydney and Auckland have been added as the latest "point-of- presence" POP's in Asia-Pacific on the New York - based, Genesis Networks global video transmission network. Digital Broadcasters Vendor News understands that POPs are already operational in Beijing, Singapore, and other major media centers in Asia. The new POP sites will allow Genesis Networks to interconnect with local broadcasters throughout the Asia Pacific region, notably in China and Japan routing content using fibre optic and satellite from Asia via the Genesis network and broadcasting it anywhere in the world but mainly to the US. The company has a teleport in North Miami and is building a reputation as a carrier of ethnic channel programming from India, Poland and Latin America for distribution to US cable TV systems.

http://www.gen-networks.com