Mumbai: The number of pay direct-to-home (DTH) subscribers decreased sharply from 68.52 million to 66.92 million in the quarter ended on 31 March 2022, as per latest Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) performance indicator report. It has lost a total of 1.6 million subscribers during the period.

DTH operators have seen a consistent decline in their subscribers since reporting an all-time high of 70.99 million subscribers in December 2022.

Also read: DTH segment expands its subscriber base by 1.01 mn in 2020 | Indian Television Dot Com

The number of private satellite TV channels permitted by the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) for uplinking or downlinking also decreased from 909 to 898 channels. Broadcasters reported 345 pay channels down from 350 pay channels in the quarter ended on 31 December 2021. The number of free-to-air (FTA) channels also declined from 543 to 540 during the same period.

Tata Play continued to be the leading DTH operator with 33.23 per cent market share down from 33.48 per cent in the previous quarter. Bharat Telemedia’s share stood at 26.24 per cent down from 26.37 per cent.

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Dish TV India increased its market share from 22.04 per cent to 22.10 per cent. Sun Direct also increased its market share from 18.11 per cent to 18.43 per cent.

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As per the ministry, there are 1764 registered multi-system operators (MSOs) in the country.

There are 12 MSOs and 1 headend-in-the-sky (HITS) operator whose subscriber base is more than one million, according to the TRAI data.

GTPL Hathway widened its lead as the largest MSO in the January-February-March 2022 quarter with 8,232,240 subscribers followed by SITI Networks at 7,281,041, Hathway Digital at 5,455,919 and Hathway Digital 4,458,103 subscribers.

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There were 20 internet protocol TV operators in the country as of 31 March 2022.