MCCS is a key provider of news channels in India, one of the biggest broadcast markets in the world, and broadcasters such as MCCS are eager to tap into the demand for more content. Ashok Venkatramani, MCCS CEO, talks about the broadcast market in India and how a company like MCCS, which already has three news channels of its own, is looking to tap into the demand for more content. 

VIA SATELLITE: How do you work with the satellite industry in India?

  Venkatramani: We have three news channels and between them we have the largest number of viewers in the news broadcast space. While our main business is from running three 24-hour news channels, we also offer content on the Internet and mobile devices. So, we are platform agnostic in terms of delivering the content. One third of India is less than 20 years of age and half of the population is 30 or younger. So, news is consumed in a variety of ways through various electronic media platforms. We beam our channels through satellite to India and also distribute our channels to more than 22 countries across the world.

VIA SATELLITE: One of the big challenges for news broadcasters is when to move to HD. What are your plans in this area?

  Venkatramani: We are HD ready. We are ready to push with this whenever we want. At this moment in time, we are not doing it. India has started to move towards HD, but it is still a slow process. So, you are seeing some entertainment channels in HD. However, most of the HD channels are not really justifying the return on investment which has gone in through better revenues. I would say that at the moment, less than five percent of the overall channels in India are available in HD. We want to wait and see how the market moves before we go to HD. Though the digital TV market in India has moved very fast, I am still not sure whether there would be a demand for news channels in India in HD. But, we are ready. 

VIA SATELLITE: How early might you move to HD?

 Venkatramani: India is currently undergoing a massive digitalization programme. It kicked off in July this year. If everything goes well over the next two years, the entire cable and satellite system will become completely digitalized. There are capacity and bandwidth constraints in India currently. Once this digitalization process is complete at that end of 2015, I see the opportunity to move to HD. 

VIA SATELLITE: What major technology infrastructure projects are you working on?

Venkatramani: Over the last two years, a large part of our capital expenditure investment has gone into being HD ready. That was one of the main areas of investment for us. The second area of investment for us is in our newgathering infrastructure. India is a vast country. We have invested significantly in training journalists, new cameras etc. We are trying not to use agency footage, for example and move to our own footage as far as possible. 

VIA SATELLITE: Will you launch further news channels?

Venkatramani: Yes, we are planning to launch further channels. One of the trends in India is that the national channels are stagnant or hitting a plateau. The regional channels in different languages are the ones that are seeing growth. India has around 19 official languages and nearly 1,000 dialects. There is a huge demand for regional content. So, we are evaluating launching more news channels in the regional space. We believe in profitable growth. While we launched the first three channels very fast, over the last three years, we have focused on consolidation. We have one national channel that reaches 35 million households and two regional channels, one that reaches eight million households and the other reaches 11 million households. 

VIA SATELLITE: Will you need more satellite capacity?

Venkatramani: Yes, our demands for satellite capacity are on the increase. There are actually around 600 TV channels in India. But, there are also another 200 licenses that have been issued by the government. You could actually see 1,000 new TV channels in India over the next 2-3 years. So, the demands for satellite capacity are definitely on the increase. The key for us is to launch more regional channels, and for that we would need more satellite capacity.