Asianet,Asianet Plus and Surya TV May Become Pay Channels

Asianet, Asianet Plus and Surya TV will become pay channel. It is the news that I heard for 10 years. At lastI read it from Cable Scan Magazine (Cable Scan is a Magazine publishing news, views and information about satellite channels, in Malayalam language) in February issue. This may be correct for this time because the channel is owned by Star Jupiter Entertainment Television Pvt.Ltd, a joint venture between Star TV and Jupiter Entertainment Venture Pvt. Ltd. When Star bought the Tamil channel Vijay TV then they changed it to pay channel mode. If Asianet become pay channel it is the first pay channel in Malayalam language. Now 17 satellite channels are transmitting in Malayalam language. All of these channels are in free to air mode.

It cannot change Asianet or Surya to pay channel as simple as other language channels. Because there is big numbers of viewers of these channels are living in the gulf countries. They are using a six feet C band dish antenna and a digital set top box to receive the signal of Malayalam channels now.f the channels become pay channel means it will lose a big number middle class and upper class viewers. There are some peoples they are using Indian DTH Companies set top boxes in gulf countries to receive Indian channels. It is illegal by the rules.There are other two categories of viewers in Kerala. The first one is the homeSearch Amazon.com for lcd tv dish(C Band) users. They only need free to air channels and not ready to buy DTH or Cable TV connections to receive pay channels and they are not ready to spend money as monthly subscription fees even though they have a lot of money in their hand. The second one is poor people they are using C band dish and don’t having enough money to subscribe Cable TV or DTH. By becoming pay channel these channels will lose a huge number of viewers.