AIDCF claims 50% drop in Cable TV subscriptions in five years; what does data say?

New Delhi: In its response to the consultation paper on audit-related provisions of Interconnection Regulations, 2017 and Digital Addressable Systems Audit Manual floated by TRAI, the pay cable TV body highlighted that the Cable TV industry witnessed around 50% drop in subscriptions in the last five years.

“Cable TV industry (including MSOs and LCOs) has already lost around 50% of its subscriber base in the last 5 years and nearly 3 lakh people have become unemployed. Moreover, presently, the industry has 10 lakh people employed, which will go jobless in the next 3-5 years if the current regulatory imbalance regarding Free Dish and OTT applications is not resolved at the earliest,” All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) said in its response.

With the fast-changing consumer behaviour, there is no doubt that the cable industry and broadcasters are struggling to hold their subscribers in the linear ecosystem.

GTPL Hathway, the largest MSO in terms of the number of subscribers, posted on Wednesday a 9.8 per cent rise in its total revenue during the second quarter ending September 30, 2024.

However, the company reported a 3% drop in revenue from Digital Cable TV operations.

In terms of the number of subscribers, GTPL said it witnessed consistent growth in subscriptions. 

According to the BSE filings, GTPL Hathway recorded 9.5 million subscribers in the July-September quarter versus 9.2 million in the preceding quarter.

The audited data released by TRAI shows that the statement by AIDCF about losing 50% of subscribers in the last five years is true for only half of the MSOs.

TRAI releases the number of subscribers for the top MSOs having subscriptions above one million on a quarterly basis.

In the July to September quarter of 2019, the top MSOs (above 1 mn subscribers) had 41.6 million subscribers.

In contrast, the latest data for the April-June 2024 quarter saw 41.4 million subscribers for the top MSOs.

A look at the individual subscribers indicates a sharp decline in subscriptions for a few MSOs such as Siti, Den, Arasu, Fastway and Asianet losing up to 46% of subscribers.

On the other hand, the number of subscribers for GTPL Hathway, Thamizhaga, KCCL, NXT Hits, KAL Cable and VK Digital grew up to 71%.