Digitization Phase II and the changes television industry looking forward to

‘Change’ is what the television industry seems to be looking at with digitization being in full swing!! The phase one of the process saw 10 major cities including the metros getting the set top boxes installed. In Phase 2, nearly 38 cities will go through the process. The second phase of digitization came into play from 1 April 2013. However, a proper data on the success rate of the move is yet to be derived. So what can one expect with the Phase 2 of digitization completed? We at Tellychakkar.com decided to get few queries answered. Sunjoy Wadhwa (Producer, Sphere Origins): Digitization is a long process, and with 38 cities being covered now, data will be a bit erratic. But once the whole process is over, we will have better data coming out. Having said this, Phase one of Digitization did not bring in a big difference to the existing process. Dheeraj Kumar (Producer, Creative Eye): The most important commodity of this digitization phase is a set top box. But what’s happening around us is rather contradictory. Digitization was to take place in 38 cities from 1 April 2013, but how will the process take place if people do not have set top boxes at their place. It’s not like the people in these cities are not willing to pay for it, but these boxes are just not available. One of the main reasons for this is that we do not have a company that produces these set top boxes. Hence, they are imported. Now that the process of digitization is taking place on a large scale, these boxes are being imported in large numbers due to which the import duty of these boxes has gone up to five percent. Even after this, the supply is lesser than the demand. Ranchi is a small place with 2.5 lakh households but even there they do not have a supply chain. So in small cities the ratio of house with set top boxes is just 20 percent at the moment. In fact a city like Delhi has 45 percent houses with set top boxes and Mumbai has just 50 percent. You can simply imagine the ratio in other places. I will personally say that till the time this is not fixed, we will not see a change. However, once the changes get implemented, viewers will be treated to better video, sound and picture quality. I think this should happen in four months time. Ravindra Gautam (Producer/Director): We will see a lot of changes with digitization. Most importantly we will get correct figures. It will be more like newspaper circulating information where a publication’s circulation tells you if they are on top or not. Similarly, the broadcaster will know their position clearly. This will help them get better revenues. Plus the creative minds will get some time to breathe as the pressure will not be on individual shows anymore. Abhaas Mehta (Actor- Badalte Rishton Ki Dastaan): We will have more realistic numbers with digitization; people won’t call it rigged anymore. However, I feel one needs to look into repeat telecast ratings too as a show is repeated a lot of times on the channel and different audiences watch it at different hours. We do not even have an account of the overseas audiences. I think we must do something around that plus the internet audience. There are a lot of people who watch these shows on Youtube due to time constraints and all this needs to be taken into account. Only when these things fall in place will one know if a particular show is popular or not. Shaleen Malhotra (Actor- Arjun): The phase one has been good, and I am sure that phase two will be good too. Plus makers get ample time to experiment before the whole process is in place. So, it will be a welcome change for them too. Phase two will be more like a shoe lace to sole look at the ratings as it is getting filtered now. Well, these were the views of few in the telly industry. What do you feel will be the changes observed post the digitization phase? Do send in your comments.