The fourth
quarter is the best quarter for the media industry as corporates
exhaust their remaining ad budgets in this quarter.
For the news
channels, specifically the business news channels, the Union
Budget is the major event that takes place in the fourth quarter,
bringing in more ad revenues.
The ICC
Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007 was seen as a major event that
was expected to affect the revenues of the general entertainment
channels (GECs) but India's early exit is believed to have negated
this to a certain extent.
This was the
first quarter of the roll-out of the conditional access system
(CAS) in parts of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. While 1.63 million
cable homes fall under these CAS mandated zones, about 29% were
estimated to have opted for set top boxes (STBs) till February 15,
2007 (source: FICCI- PWC Frames-2007).
The
penetration of CAS is expected to improve over a period of time
with better subscriber awareness, the availability of STBs and its
implementation in the other cities. CAS also provides an
opportunity to alternative digital distribution platforms such as
direct-to-home (DTH) and Internet Protocol TV to expand faster. We
expect CAS to bring in transparency and curb under-reporting of
subscriber base, thereby improving the profitability of
broadcasters and
MSOs.
