Watch Out... Here comes competition

It's crunch time for Dialog TV. It has been announced that Dish TV will officially launch services in Sri Lanka through their joint venture Dish TV Lanka formed in partnership with Satnet. Dialog TV has been swapping, time sharing, replacing channels despite complaints from subscribers to suit their own whims and fancies. Just yesterday "Setanta Sports" was replaced by "MTV Sports" to telecast "Dialog Rugby", all this while Dialog TV wastes a channel slot labelled as "Dialog Test".

With delays in switching from MPEG2 to MPEG4 DVB-S2, no actual additional channels (only those that are permanently replaced), High HD rentals, increasing subscriber frustration, etc, Dialog TV will be decimated unless they take steps to rectify these problems before Dish TV becomes operational.

With rumors flying around of a satellite switch over, the lack of transponder capacity has been Dialog's Achilles Heel plaguing it from time immemorial. Dialog TV promised switch over the MPEG4 DVB-S2 but apart from a few, none of the others have been upgraded as yet.

Some subscribers are sticking to Dialog TV due to lack of choice, a problem that will no longer exist with the launch of Dish TV. This launch will definitely see a mass exodus from Dialog TV to Dish TV unless Dialog TV takes steps to rectify problems and prepare to face the stiff competition.

The only silver lining in the cloud for Dialog TV is that it has Asian feeds of channels such as HBO, AXN, Cartoon Network, Toonami, etc instead of ad infested Indian feeds. Its not clear what Dish TV's choice of feeds will be for those channels that allow Asian feeds into Sri Lanka. However with rumors that Dish TV has already completed their satellite up-linking station in Sri Lanka, Dish TV would probably uplink Asian feeds of channels where ever available & also uplink local channels.

Dialog TV's dominance of the local pay television market is under threat, in the past Dialog's services such as Broadband & Cellular services have reacted positively to competition and have come out on top. It's yet to be seen how Dialog TV will fare against the threat posed by Dish TV India. It should be stated that a wait and see attitude will be disastrous, rather Dialog TV should act now.

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

Discovery Kids launched, R.I.P Kidsco

With effect effect from yesterday, Discovery Kids in now available on Dialog TV & replaces the soon to be defunct Kidsco channel. As mentioned in our previous blog post, Kidsco which shutdown its European feed at the end of December will be ceasing all their other remaining feeds which are Asian & African feeds in the next few days.

The Discovery Kids that has been launched in this region is quite different to the Discovery Kids channel elsewhere, since this Discovery Kids is mainly a cartoon entertainment channel which is expected to introduce educational programming in the future. The choice of Discovery Kids is commendable since it makes a worthy replacement to Kidsco & so far it has been premiering some high profile cartoon serials such as Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc.

Dialog TV should now look at returning MTV India which was replaced last year and look into adding a few channels and increasing their offerings instead of replacing existing channels with new ones. Since Kidsco is a channel that is to be shutdown in a few days time, its okay with replacing it with another, otherwise this replacement would have been considered unacceptable.

Dialog TV hopefully is capable of switching fully to MPEG4 DVB-S2 soon and cutting down on the cost per channel by adding more channels to a transponder.

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

Kidsco to close, replaced with Discovery Kids

According to information coming in, Dialog TV has replaced/or will be replacing Kidsco with Discovery Kids India following reports that the Kidsco channel will be closing down their Asian feed at the end of this month.

Kidsco which has been on Dialog TV for a number of years has constantly struggled against competition from Cartoon Network, Toonami and the likes not only in this region but internationally too. The Kidsco channel European feed closed at the end of last year and the South African & Asian feed will close end February 2014. Source: "Kidsco set to cease broadcasts".

Discovery Kids India mainly telecasts cartoons as opposed to the traditional educational programming that "Discovery" is known for. The channel is expected to introduce more educational programmes in the future. This channel telecasts cartoons such as "Transformers", "G.I Joe", etc entered the Sri Lankan market sometime last year.

We are still unclear whether the replacement has been carried out already, it is however expected either during the course today or in the coming days. Please keep us updated on the latest regarding the replacement of Kidsco with Discovery Kids & other information regarding Dialog TV in the days to come.

Update Feb 11th 2014 @ 1:55pm
PLEASE NOTE THAT DISCOVERY KIDS CHANNEL WILL BE LAUNCHING TOMORROW FEB 12TH 2014 ON DIALOG TV.