The ‘State of Pay DTH subscription and players in India’, in numbers

New Delhi: The latest performance indicator report from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), released last week, showed a much sharper decline in Pay DTH subscriptions.

The Pay DTH players – Tata Play, Airtel Digital, Dish TV, and Sun Direct – together have a subscription base of 56.92 million subscribers in the January–March quarter of 2025.

Pay DTH subscriptions peaked in 2019 at 72.44 million, marking a 21.42% decline in six years.

The Pay DTH subscription across four platforms since 2018

Key highlights

Tata Play (erstwhile Tata Sky) has continued as the market leader since 2020. However, the DTH player has been consistently losing subscribers since its peak of 23.17 million in 2021.

The decline was sharpest in the last year, as Tata Play lost 2.28 million subscribers—down 11.3% over the previous year.

From its 2021 peak, Tata Play has lost 23% of its subscribers in four years. Broadcast veterans predict this drop will accelerate further with the unavailability of the India-England series in its packs.

At No. 2, Airtel Digital is within striking distance of Tata Play, trailing by just 0.7 million subscribers.

While Airtel Digital is also experiencing a decline due to shifting consumer behaviour, its year-on-year drop in subscriber base is minimal.

From its 2021 peak, Airtel Digital has lost only 3.4% of its subscribers over the last four years.

The third Pay DTH player, Sun Direct, sits at 11 million subscribers in 2025, down 10.8% from its peak of 12.33 million in 2022.

Trailing in last position, Dish TV once held the largest market share at 43% following its merger with Videocon d2h in 2018. In seven years, the platform has lost about two-thirds of its subscribers, recording a drop of 62.64%.

A year before the merger, Dish TV had a market share of 25% with 15.9 million subscribers in 2017. This marks a drop of 31.7% in eight years as a single entity.

Pay Cable TV vs Pay DTH

Earlier this month, the All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) highlighted a sharp decline in Pay TV subscriptions in its first-ever report on the “State of Cable TV Distribution in India,” in partnership with EY.

The report said the Pay TV subscriber base dropped from 151 million in 2018 to 111 million in 2025, down 26%.

The number of Pay DTH subscribers stood at 67.53 million in the January–March quarter of 2018, leaving Pay Cable TV subscribers at 83.47 million in 2018.

In 2025, Pay Cable TV subscriptions stand at 54.08 million, less than the 56.92 million Pay DTH subscribers.

Pay DTH subscriptions dropped 15.71% in 2025 from 67.53 million subscribers seven years ago. However, Pay DTH is down 21.42% from its peak in 2019.

In contrast, Pay Cable TV subscriptions have declined by 35.21% in the last seven years, indicating a sharper fall than Pay DTH.