13-06-2012
Only 20% of homes in India’s metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai have been issued with digital set top boxes ahead of the mandatory switch off of their analogue cable TV networks at the end of this month.
The cities require a combined total of 12.5 million digital set top boxes (STBs), yet only 2.9 million have so far been installed, according to data provided by stakeholders to the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting, the Financial Express reports today.
Mumbai has the highest STB penetration rate (47%) of the four metros that feature in the first phase of India’s ambitious target to digitise its entire cable TV network nationwide by the end of 2014. However, with the 30 June deadline just a few weeks away, Kolkata has only reached 19% of cable homes, and almost three quarters of Delhi’s cable residents are still without digital STBs.