JioStar begins full migration from Chinese satellites; what changes now

New Delhi: JioStar has begun a full-scale migration of its entire TV bouquet of 130 channels  off AsiaSat-7, AsiaSat-5 and GSAT-30, and onto GSAT-17 (93.5°E) and Intelsat-20 (68.5°E). 

In a communication to distributors sent last week, the company said that all its channels will now come only from these “new satellites,” which are cleared by Indian authorities, and has asked partners to start switching immediately. 

The company has also circulated fresh downlink parameters for every channel and said that almost all feeds will now be available only in HEVC format.

JioStar has told DPOs that “dual illumination,” meaning parallel transmission on both the old path and the new path, will start in early November 2025 and stay on only till December 31, 2025. After that, affiliates are expected to stop relying on AsiaSat and move fully to GSAT-17 and Intelsat-20. 

This means cable headends, MSOs, DTH platforms, hotel distribution systems and other bulk receivers have barely two months to re-point dishes, re-cable racks, and make sure their IRDs and PIRDs are ready for HEVC.

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB), acting on directions from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe), has told all private broadcasters and teleports that they cannot continue using AsiaSat-5 and AsiaSat-7, which are operated by Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company, a Hong Kong–based company with significant Chinese state-linked ownership, for broadcast or communication services into India beyond March 31, 2026. 

The government has said that these Chinese-owned satellites will not be authorised for Indian broadcast carriage after that date.

IN-SPACe has already tightened the rules for foreign satellite usage. Any new or additional capacity from non-Indian satellites now needs explicit approval, and it has to come through an Indian entity. 

Over the last year, the policy has shifted clearly towards what the Centre calls “trusted sources,” which means Indian-owned or Indian-authorised infrastructure for critical communication services. The stated logic is national security, signal control, and data sovereignty. 

The government does not want Indian television distribution, which reaches almost every home, sitting on capacity controlled even indirectly by Chinese state-linked companies.

Why broadcasters were on AsiaSat in the first place

For decades, Indian broadcasters, including big networks, used AsiaSat-5 and AsiaSat-7 because they were reliable, high-power, wide-footprint C-band workhorses. One dish at a headend could pull in a full cluster of channels from the same orbital slot. The cost per transponder, when shared across dozens of channels, made commercial sense. 

Capacity was always available. Engineers knew the drill. Uplinks were stable. Downlinks were trusted. For many networks, AsiaSat became muscle memory.

In simple language, AsiaSat was convenient, proven, and always on. It also had enough coverage to comfortably bathe the Indian subcontinent, which made it easy for distribution partners to align to one or two “standard” birds and carry large bouquets.

What exactly is changing now

JioStar’s advisory says all channels will move to GSAT-17 and Intelsat-20. GSAT-17 is an Indian communications satellite positioned at 93.5°E and operated under Indian control for telecommunication and broadcast services. Intelsat-20, at 68.5°E, is a long-standing commercial broadcast and telecom satellite widely used in South Asia. Both have been cleared by Indian authorities for downlink in India.

Almost all of JioStar’s channels on these “new satellites” will now be carried in HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding). HEVC compresses video far more efficiently than older MPEG-4, which means the same satellite bandwidth can carry more HD-quality feeds, or the same number of feeds at better quality.

From the broadcaster point of view, this is good economics in the medium term. It means less satellite bandwidth per channel, which reduces distribution cost per feed going forward. It also creates more headroom for regional HD launches and language splits without immediately needing to lease more transponder space.

Few DPOs told BestMediaInfo.com that this has come as a forced capex event for them. Many MSOs and local cable operators still run legacy MPEG-4 IRDs that cannot decode pure HEVC transport streams. 

“Those boxes will have to be swapped or upgraded. Headend engineers will have to reconfigure routing. Dish farms will have to be physically re-aimed towards 93.5°E and 68.5°E. All of this costs money and takes labour time,” said a senior executive at a large MSO.

The cost impact on distributors

There are three buckets of cost in this migration.

First, physical realignment. When a broadcaster moves off AsiaSat to GSAT-17 and Intelsat-20, you cannot just press a button. Someone has to climb up, swing dishes, lock signal, run new LNB chains or waveguides where needed, and bring that feed back down to the rack. That is manpower and downtime. For MSOs with multiple hub locations, this is multiplied city by city.

Second, hardware refresh. HEVC-only distribution means old MPEG-4-only boxes are now half-useless. Some operators will need new IRDs/PIRDs that can receive, decrypt (where applicable), and hand off HEVC streams into their internal headend. Those boxes are not free. Smaller cable operators, who already run on thin margins, tend to delay these upgrades until they are forced. This is that moment.

Third, parallel carriage. “Dual illumination” sounds generous, but it is not cheap. During November–December, JioStar will be lighting the same channel on two satellite paths. Somebody is paying for the extra bandwidth. 

In plain terms, that cost sits on the broadcaster side in the short term, but everybody in the chain understands it is not permanent. Once the AsiaSat feeds go dark, those backup costs disappear, but so does the safety net for any DPO who did not finish his migration.

Behind the government’s move

For the government, this shift is not only about picture quality or compression efficiency. It is about strategic control. IN-SPACe, which was set up as India’s single-window authority for commercial space activity, has effectively said that Indian broadcast distribution cannot sit on infrastructure linked to China after March 31, 2026. 

New Delhi has already moved telecom networks toward “trusted sources,” meaning vendors that the Centre is comfortable with from a security point of view. 

Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE were quietly pushed out of India’s core telecom backbone under that same logic. Now the same playbook is coming to satellite TV distribution.

By forcing large Indian TV networks off AsiaSat and onto GSAT-series and approved alternatives like Intelsat-20, the Indian govt may achieve three objectives.

One, better sovereignty over a critical mass-market pipe. TV carriage is still one of the fastest, cheapest ways to push messaging into homes. The government wants that pipe sitting on authorised and monitored satellites, not capacity tied to a rival power. 

Two, leverage. When distribution sits on Indian-approved satellites, regulators can lean on domestic capacity planning, pricing, and prioritisation. They can demand uptime, emergency feeds, or even temporary carriage during public messaging drives without going through foreign operators.

Three, industrial policy. The move is expected to drive more business to Indian or Indian-authorised satellites like GSAT-17, and to push investment into India’s own satellite and ground-segment ecosystem. 

Over time, that means more money for Indian satcom capacity, more incentive for Indian private players in space, and less outflow of lease payments to non-Indian operators. 

Broadcasters’ maths

Broadcasters like JioStar also get some benefits, even though the migration hurts in the short term.

First, HEVC. Moving to HEVC at scale lets them squeeze more channels into the same bandwidth, which protects margins in a world where they are already under pressure from digitisation costs, content costs, and hybrid TV/OTT bundling.

Second, future-proofing. When they are already sitting on authorised Ku- or C-band capacity with Indian regulatory blessing, it becomes easier to add regional HD splits, genre spinoffs and event feeds without going back to square one for clearances.

Third, compliance. After March 31, 2026, AsiaSat-5 and AsiaSat-7 are not allowed to carry Indian TV distribution into India. Any broadcaster still on them would be in violation. Non-compliance can lead to regulatory action and, in worst cases, disruption. By moving now, JioStar avoids a last-minute scramble and can claim to be aligned with MIB’s and IN-SPACe’s direction. 

Industry concerns

The biggest concern on the ground is cost compression at the distribution end. MSOs and local cable operators are being told to upgrade, realign, recable before New Year’s. Some of them are still recovering from ARPU pressure and cord-cutting. 

The second concern is capacity squeeze. If a rush of large broadcasters all try to exit AsiaSat and enter the same authorised satellites in roughly the same 12–18 month window, there is a real question of whether everyone gets comfortable transponder slots without either quality loss or price hikes. 

This is especially sensitive for regional news, language clusters and niche channels, which tend to sit lower in commercial priority. If bandwidth tightens, some players fear they will get pushed into tougher commercial terms or downgraded carriage.

The third concern is coverage and redundancy. AsiaSat’s C-band footprint was known and tested for India-wide delivery. Some distribution engineers quietly worry about rain fade, link robustness and redundancy once everything is concentrated on fewer “approved” birds. 

Intelsat-20 has long been used in India, and GSAT-17 is authorised for Indian broadcast and telecom services, but a mass shift always creates teething issues, especially for smaller headends in weather-prone zones who now have to maintain lock on two different orbital slots.