Hinduja names HITS brand NXT Digital, service to commence from Aug 15

The service will roll out in Phase 3 and 4 DAS markets. The Hinduja Group has already invested $80 million in the project out of the $100 million it has committed

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | July 16, 2015

The Hinduja Group has named its Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) service NXT Digital. The services will roll out in Phase 3 and Phase 4 DAS (Digital Addressable Systems) markets from August 15, 2015. The company has shared details of its offerings to the distribution fraternity in a market of over 110 million analog TV households in India.

Anthony D'Silva

While announcing the HITS service, Anthony D'Silva, Managing Director, Grant Investrade, said, “We believe it will strongly support the laudable national mission to roll out Digital Addressable Systems of broadcasting all over India. DAS will not only empower, inform and entertain the consumers, but, through news, knowledge and infotainment will help them contribute to societal improvement and national economic growth.”

“We will roll out the services in August this year. NXT Digital is here to help the distribution fraternity in analog markets make a smooth and timely transition to digital, and we are hopeful it will help write what could perhaps be the biggest chapter in the Make in India story,” he added.

NXT Digital is an initiative of Grant Investrade, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hinduja Ventures. The Hinduja Group has already invested $80 million in the project out of the $100 million it has committed.

It has developed NXT Digital platform as a state-of-the-art broadcast facility in Noida, designed and purpose-built to provide top quality service to the entire country. Satellite-based, NXT Digital will have its footprint across India.

Adding further, D'Silva said, “NXT Digital will empower and enable the distribution fraternity, including Last Mile Owners (LMOs) and Multi-System Operators (MSOs) to offer a world of exciting digital services to their end-subscribers in all the analog households across markets. Crucially, NXT Digital will not only help the LMOs and MSOs go digital as per Government mandated standards and within the set deadlines, but, throughout the process, help them be independent and retain the ownership of their network.”

By signing up for a NXT Digital service, a network owner in a Phase 3 market can be saved the burden of having to make huge investments in the technology and highly skilled manpower required to convert his analog households to digital. A NXT Digital headend will help them provide 500+ MPEG-4 encrypted services, including HD channels, with the ability to insert local channels as per requirement, robust SD and HD STBs with PVR functionality, world-class conditional access and subscriber management systems, a 24x7 call centre in multiple languages for customer support, a user-friendly operator terminal and the ability to provide VAS, OTT and other add-on digital services as and when rolled out.

NXT Digital brand name and logo

The brand logo of NXT Digital has been designed by brand consultancy Chlorophyll.

On why the brand has been named NXT Digital, D'Silva said, “While HITS is the pipeline of content delivery, our offering will not be limited to encrypted television channels through digitally addressable systems. Instead, we will offer a rich bouquet of every kind of additional digital service such as VAS, OTT and others that will keep getting added. Hence, we decided to go with the name NXT Digital, and both, the name and the logo represent the next level in the digital technology we will offer.”

The eagle in flight symbolises the empowered LMO/ MSO who, thanks to the NXT Digital offerings he can take to his end-subscribers, is ready to take off and soar to achieve greater growth – in both, customer delight and business. The soaring eagle is also indicative of the reach of NXT Digital.

How it works

The NXT Digital service will provide television channels to cable operators through a satellite instead of the traditional cable television headend, where multitudes of satellite dishes and antennas are used to grab cable stations from dozens of communication satellites.

The low comparative capital investment is expected to be the biggest draw for the network owner, apart from the additional revenue opportunity through VAS services – something which is not possible with DTH. Hence, the network owner will no longer have to worry about high investment costs to provide digitised cable TV services.

Commenting on the nature of investment, D'Silva stated, “We've invested $80 million, and in due course, this figure will reach $100 million.”

When asked when the company hopes to break even, he replied, “We're looking at a break even in two years. We're quite positive about it.”

On being asked how many MSO/ LCOs they are targeting in the first year, D'Silva stated, “It's difficult to say how many MSOs and LCOs because I believe quite a few of them would join together to buy the C.O.P.E (cable operators' premises equipment). I would say we're looking at 25 per cent of the market.”

The Hinduja Group is not the first company to explore the HITS concept, however, earlier efforts didn't yield the desired result. How confident are they about NXT Digital?

“If you look at Zee, they wanted to launch this service when there was no digitisation, but it was analog regime. Plus, they wanted to launch their own satellite, which the government didn't allow. Our competitors don't have the kind of backing (funding) that we do,” D'Silva said.

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