Cable losing in India, gaining in Russia as Singapore roils

While the eyes of the world have been focused on Los Angeles and The Cable Show this week--at least, that's what the U.S. cable industry would like to think--things have been happening internationally that impact on the cable space as well.

In India, a report by the Centre for Media Studies for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said that DTH satellite is gaining ground against cable TV because cable TV subscribers are "wary" about paying more for TV. Surprisingly, 25 percent told the survey they would pay more. Even more surprisingly, in a 2007 survey 90 percent said they were willing to dig deeper.

Things are a little different in Russia, where the pay TV market grew by 18 percent last year and the number of cable TV homes grew by 11 percent while revenue went up 15 percent. On the other hand, IPTV had a spectacular year with subscriber and revenue totals growing 46 percent and 75 percent respectively.

In Victoria, Australia, Neighbourhood Cable said it has a nine month plan to upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 over HFC and boost download speeds from 30 Mbps to 100 Mbps while switching its pay TV platform to digital.

And in Singapore, a regional broadcasting association is bristling with concern over new pay TV rules that "impose a form of compulsory licensing that is not acceptable." The trade association represents 130 media companies including Sony, Fox International, HBO Asia and NBC Universal and it's not happy.

"We believe the government and the regulator, the Media Development Authority, have made a serious miscalculation of the damage to Singapore's economic interests through this excessively broad regulatory decision," Twiston Davies, CEO of the Cable And Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia said.

And you thought the FCC was meddlesome.

For more:
- see this article on the Centre for Media Studies report
- and this coverage of Russia's pay TV market
- and this article on Victoria's Neighbourhood Cable
- and this story from Singapore

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