Dish TV slashes entry price by Rs 2k

Responding to the raging price war in the Direct to Home (DTH) market, Dish TV on Friday further reduced its entry price point to Rs 1,990 from Rs 3,990. Competitor Tata Sky had reduced its price point to Rs 2,990 early this week.

Dish TV COO Salil Kapoor said: “We want to attract new consumers through this competitive price point. They will have to pay up Rs 1,990 and will get a set top box connection and 12 months subscription free.

In addition, we have reduced the monthly subscription price to Rs 100, in which we will offer 125 channels, which is a good mix of all genres.” The company is clearly responding to Tata Sky’s offer of Rs 99 for 53 paid channels.

Talking about the losses Dish TV would incur by the price war, Mr Kapoor said he did not believe it will impact the bottom line. ”As a company, we have managed our subscriber cost and at this point we can comfortably offer the reduced entry price point to the consumer,” he added.

In a bid to woo analogue cable consumers to digital cable, the company has also reduced the price of its free-to-air channel bouquet to Rs 60 per month from Rs 100. It has been a race for volumes for all the DTH players.

Industry sources believe that the focus to garner numbers rather than average revenues per user could cost them heavily. While ADAG’s Big TV has already been launched, Videocon and Bharti are the other new entrants who will launch their DTH service before the end of the year.