Of IPTV preparation & replacements......

It has been quite sometime since the last post that we made on this blog. Our apologies for our sudden disappearance but we are happy that the members of this blog made sure that this place stays continually updated.

It seems that the much awaited replacement for Zone Reality will be NDTV Good Times a lifestyle channel. However a higher quality channel such as BBC Entertainment, AXN Beyond or Disney Channel would have been a better choice. This is once again an excellent example of channel choice by Dialog TV management who have decided to go with an Indian channel instead of a higher quality one.

It also seems that Dialog TV is preparing for the launch of HDTV in response to the challenge posed by IPTV. Lets hope that it is accompanied with some price reductions.

Please keep us updated with the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

Two years since that fateful day

Exactly two years ago when Dialog TV was known as CBNsat the entire station was abruptly shutdown at approximately between 9pm and 9:15pm on June 6th while many of its users were using the service. The shutdown resulted in a court battle that lasted almost 6 months after which the company was taken over by mobile operator Dialog Telekom.

Now many who condemned and called the service "clandestine" are now benefiting in various ways due to the service and are themselves using the service and are benefiting from the previous management whom they portrayed as traitors.

After the take over by Dialog there have been many positives and negatives. We take this opportunity to thank the previous management headed by Mr. Muhunthan Canagey, the management of Dialog Telekom, the Dialog TV staff who originated at CBNsat, the subscribers who so valiantly fought for the resumption of this service and also to Dialog TV Subscribers Unite who did an invaluable job of raising subscriber concerns.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

AXN Beyond should be introduced immediately

With Zone Reality moving out of Dialog TV by the end of this month there is no point with Dialog TV to continue with this channel unless they are planning to replace this with Zone Reality Africa DTH available via DTH operator DSTV. This was done earlier by Dialog TV when they had a problem with the Zone Reality feed.

Dialog TV should take immediate steps to introduce AXN Beyond (either as a replacement for Zone Reality or as a temporary replacement to an existing Hindi channel) since many of AXN's signature programming such as the latest season of Lost will be premiering on this channel. It was a bad move by SPE Networks to introduce Lost onto AXN Beyond since the channel is not as widely available as AXN. However this channel has been around since January and Dialog should have taken steps to introduce this channel. However this channel is not available on any pay television operator in Sri Lanka.

With SLT IPTV running teasers over the media such as "What about tomorrow - wait for a better option than satellite tv" and with Dialog TV answering that in an advertisement saying "even tomorrow - the future is today". All this is marketing but then there is the real thing whether SLT IPTV will be the next phenomenon in Sri Lanka is yet to be seen since SLT has a very bad service record. However Dialog will not have it easy now since for the last one year being the sole pay television provider to cover the entire island, Dialog TV did not perform as expected but now with competition this will have to change since the people are now getting choices.

Under competition Dialog Telekom has always done well but then Dialog TV is a totally different thing altogether. Dialog cannot wait for ages to introduce a new channel they should be able to do it as soon as the channel is launched in addition all this pixelation, etc will have to be sorted out and subscription rates should be reduced.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.