Eighty-five percent of India’s metro cable television now digitised

Indian government reports that digitization of cable television has reached 85% in four metro cities– Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry was responding to a report which said that contrary to the Government’s claim, only 59% digitization had been achieved in the four metros.

According to the Government, in the last month there has been a sharp increase in the number of Set Top Boxes (STBs) being installed in the homes of people. The Ministry cites examples over the past week, during which the average number of STBs installed has jumped to almost 50,000 boxes per day, while the DTH sector has also been making a steady progress.

The total number of TV households in the 4 metros is around 8.3 million as per the Census 2011. The government had passed “Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill” last year to digitize the entire cable television sector by December 31, 2014.