Over the last few days several Dialog TV subscribers have been expressing their disappointment regarding the removal of Zee TV channels & also others have been happy that Sun TV is finally on Dialog TV. The removal of Zee Cinema & Zee TV which are both 24hr Hindi channels has given rise to this issue. These two channels have been replaced by a 24hr Tamil movie channel KTV & 24hr Tamil music channel Sun Music which along with Sun TV are top notch Tamil entertainment channels & extremely popular among the Tamil speaking population anywhere in the world & not limited to India/Sri Lanka. Likewise Zee TV & Zee Cinema are top of the line in their respective language all over the world.
The problem here has stemmed out of the fact that due to Dialog TV not concentrating on the Tamil speaking population from its inception & solely concentrating on the English speaking community & fans of Hindi entertainment, therefore they have fans of the Hindi channels on their subscriber base who have established themselves on Dialog TV, thereby making it more difficult now for them to remove the Hindi channels. This has been clearly shown in the present situation that has arisen from the removal of Zee TV & Zee Cinema.
So far whenever Dialog TV replaced a channel, they replaced either a lower quality channel which no one watched with minimal damage, or replaced it with a channel of the same language example Zee Cafe with Warner TV, Zee Studio with MGM. Even though there are subscribers who maybe unhappy with this move, they at least got a channel of the same language. But in the case of Zee TV channels they were both replaced with channels of a different language. Dialog TV may argue that they have provided Star Plus free and UTV Movies free as replacements but this applies only to lower packages & those who were in the higher packages who are fans of Hindi programming have actually lost channels of the particular language.
As far as Dialog TV is concerned they have been really short on Tamil channels & adding Sun TV is actually a plus point for them to attract more subscribers from the Tamil speaking community which they did not cater to so far and we are happy that they have finally realized this and doing something about it.
A Sri Lankan pay television company should always give preference to Tamil channels over Hindi channels when adding channels but when replacing Hindi channels with Tamil/English ones they should give due consideration to the tastes of their existing subscriber base.
The present situation will play both ways for Dialog TV since they will lose subscribers who are fans of Zee TV, Zee Cinema & mainly Hindi channels to Indian DTH operators however they will gain subscribers from the Tamil speaking population & also gain subscribers who prefer Singapore feeds of channels due to the addition of Warner TV & MGM over the Indianized Zee Cafe & Zee Studio.
Dialog TV should look at replacing Star World India with Star World Singapore because Star World India which was previously managed by Star Singapore has been handed over to Indian management of Star, they have confirmed that they will produce more Indian English content to be broadcast on their lineup meaning further Indianization on Star World. Since the management has changed Dialog should approach Star Singapore and request for the Singapore feed. They should also introduce a proper English music channel on Dialog TV, they could study PEO TV for this because PEO has better English Music channels than Dialog TV. We are of the opinion that people would not miss VH1 if a higher quality music channel is replaced instead of VH1.
Dialog should henceforth take steps to increase channel capacity either by adding new transponders or moving to MPEG4 & until then they can look at taking out channels like CCTV News which is available FTA in Sri Lanka, Prime TV which has such a low rating, TH TV must go although it is highly unlikely, NHK is also a candidate for replacement but has better programming that CCTV, so they should assess the subscriber preference before taking it out.
Dialog TV so far had more Hindi channels than they could chew and looked like they were being confused of whether they are catering to the Indian public or the Sri Lankan public and if they move ahead with taking out more Hindi channels and replacing them with English channels from the Singapore feed & Tamil channels they would be treating a certain set of subscribers very unfairly and will lose them eventually but they would also gain subscribers who prefer Tamil programming & those who prefer Singapore feed over Indian when it comes to English channels. They would also be distinguishing themselves & setting themselves as apart as a DTH provider catering to Sri Lankans.
The problem here has stemmed out of the fact that due to Dialog TV not concentrating on the Tamil speaking population from its inception & solely concentrating on the English speaking community & fans of Hindi entertainment, therefore they have fans of the Hindi channels on their subscriber base who have established themselves on Dialog TV, thereby making it more difficult now for them to remove the Hindi channels. This has been clearly shown in the present situation that has arisen from the removal of Zee TV & Zee Cinema.
So far whenever Dialog TV replaced a channel, they replaced either a lower quality channel which no one watched with minimal damage, or replaced it with a channel of the same language example Zee Cafe with Warner TV, Zee Studio with MGM. Even though there are subscribers who maybe unhappy with this move, they at least got a channel of the same language. But in the case of Zee TV channels they were both replaced with channels of a different language. Dialog TV may argue that they have provided Star Plus free and UTV Movies free as replacements but this applies only to lower packages & those who were in the higher packages who are fans of Hindi programming have actually lost channels of the particular language.
As far as Dialog TV is concerned they have been really short on Tamil channels & adding Sun TV is actually a plus point for them to attract more subscribers from the Tamil speaking community which they did not cater to so far and we are happy that they have finally realized this and doing something about it.
A Sri Lankan pay television company should always give preference to Tamil channels over Hindi channels when adding channels but when replacing Hindi channels with Tamil/English ones they should give due consideration to the tastes of their existing subscriber base.
The present situation will play both ways for Dialog TV since they will lose subscribers who are fans of Zee TV, Zee Cinema & mainly Hindi channels to Indian DTH operators however they will gain subscribers from the Tamil speaking population & also gain subscribers who prefer Singapore feeds of channels due to the addition of Warner TV & MGM over the Indianized Zee Cafe & Zee Studio.
Dialog TV should look at replacing Star World India with Star World Singapore because Star World India which was previously managed by Star Singapore has been handed over to Indian management of Star, they have confirmed that they will produce more Indian English content to be broadcast on their lineup meaning further Indianization on Star World. Since the management has changed Dialog should approach Star Singapore and request for the Singapore feed. They should also introduce a proper English music channel on Dialog TV, they could study PEO TV for this because PEO has better English Music channels than Dialog TV. We are of the opinion that people would not miss VH1 if a higher quality music channel is replaced instead of VH1.
Dialog should henceforth take steps to increase channel capacity either by adding new transponders or moving to MPEG4 & until then they can look at taking out channels like CCTV News which is available FTA in Sri Lanka, Prime TV which has such a low rating, TH TV must go although it is highly unlikely, NHK is also a candidate for replacement but has better programming that CCTV, so they should assess the subscriber preference before taking it out.
Dialog TV so far had more Hindi channels than they could chew and looked like they were being confused of whether they are catering to the Indian public or the Sri Lankan public and if they move ahead with taking out more Hindi channels and replacing them with English channels from the Singapore feed & Tamil channels they would be treating a certain set of subscribers very unfairly and will lose them eventually but they would also gain subscribers who prefer Tamil programming & those who prefer Singapore feed over Indian when it comes to English channels. They would also be distinguishing themselves & setting themselves as apart as a DTH provider catering to Sri Lankans.
