Tata Play is expanding beyond its traditional direct-to-home (DTH) business with a new app that brings more than 500 live television channels to connected TVs without a set-top box or dish antenna, but the company is not preparing to move away from satellite television. <\/p>\n
The launch comes as India’s paid DTH industry faces mounting subscriber losses. The active subscriber base of the four paid DTH operators fell 13.4% year-on-year to 48.56 million as of June 30, 2026, from 56.07 million a year earlier, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) performance indicator report for the April-June quarter. The industry also lost subscribers sequentially, with the base declining from 49.05 million in March, underscoring the pressure on traditional pay-TV distribution. <\/p>\n
Tata Play remained the country’s largest paid DTH operator, with 14.84 million subscribers and a 30.56% market share as of June 30, followed by Bharti Telemedia with 13.58 million subscribers, Sun Direct with 10.93 million and Dish TV India with 9.21 million. The figures exclude DD Free Dish, Prasar Bharati’s free-to-air DTH service. <\/p>\n
For Tata Play, the launch of its internet-based live-TV app comes as it seeks to expand its distribution model beyond satellite television, even as it maintains that DTH and newer digital platforms can grow alongside one another. <\/p>\n
The launch of Tata Play Smart, priced at Rs 199 a month for the first language and Rs 99 for each additional language, reflects the company’s bet that DTH, streaming and other internet-based television services will continue to grow alongside one another, MD and CEO Harit Nagpal told ET Online.<\/p>\n
The app allows viewers to access live television through an internet connection, retaining familiar features such as channel numbers, a programme guide and remote-friendly controls. It is available on compatible smart TVs and can also be accessed through mobile devices, tablets and laptops, opening Tata Play’s live-TV offering to consumers beyond its existing DTH subscriber base.<\/p>\n
\u201cTata Play is not looking at this as a shift away from DTH, but as an expansion of how we serve evolving consumer needs,\u201d Nagpal said, adding that the company’s focus was on building a portfolio of offerings that gives consumers choice and convenience across viewing platforms.<\/p>\n
The strategy comes as the television industry adapts to changing consumption habits, with connected TVs and streaming services expanding the ways in which households access entertainment. For Tata Play, the challenge is to extend its role as a content aggregator without assuming that the rise of internet-based viewing will automatically translate into a decline in conventional television. <\/p>\n
DTH is not out of the picture <\/p>\n
The launch of Tata Play Smart comes against the backdrop of a maturing DTH market and a global shift towards internet-delivered entertainment. However, Nagpal argued that the opportunity for traditional pay television remains significant, particularly among households that have yet to enter the market.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is maturity for one customer, is an entry point for another,\u201d he said. More than 100 million households have yet to buy their first television, while over 40 million TV-owning households have yet to upgrade to pay television, he added.<\/p>\n
The figures point to the opportunity Tata Play sees in bringing new households into the television market, even as some existing viewers move away from conventional subscriptions. The company’s strategy is to serve these different segments through multiple delivery models rather than treat the growth of one as necessarily coming at the expense of another.<\/p>\n
Framing the company’s expansion in terms of a broader role in television distribution, Nagpal said, \u201cTata Play\u2019s role has always been to aggregate content, make it available in packs that subscribers desire and provide a user interface that makes content selection and consumption easy. This role is getting wider as new tech platforms appear.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company has previously expanded its offerings through DTH, PVR and Binge, and sees Tata Play Smart as another extension of that approach. Its emphasis remains on how content is packaged and delivered, rather than on any single technology. <\/p>\n
Live TV at an internet-era price <\/p>\n
Tata Play Smart is built around the proposition that live television can be delivered over broadband without the hardware associated with a conventional DTH connection. Consumers can download the app from a compatible smart TV’s app store, irrespective of whether they currently subscribe to DTH, cable television or neither.<\/p>\n
Tata intends to preserve the familiar experience of browsing live channels on a TV screen rather than navigating individual streaming catalogues.<\/p>\n
The company is also drawing a distinction between paid television and free, advertising-supported services. \u201cPayTV does not compete with free, nor can high quality, studio produced content be sustained for free, supported only by ad revenue,\u201d Nagpal argued.<\/p>\n
That argument reflects the economics Tata Play sees underpinning its offering: consumers pay for access to a packaged selection of channels, while the company seeks to make the service available through a simpler internet-based setup. <\/p>\n
The app’s launch also gives Tata Play a route to reach connected-TV users who may not want a dish installed or a set-top box attached to their television. <\/p>\n
\u2018An aggregator, not a content producer\u2019 <\/p>\n
The company\u2019s longer-term ambition is to remain the interface through which consumers discover and access content, even as the technology used to deliver it changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always were and shall remain aggregators of content who make content delivery and consumption easy, whatever be the technology,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are not producers of content. Hence Tata Play Smart is a natural extension of our core business.\u201d<\/p>\n
That positioning could become relevant as smart TVs bring linear channels, subscription streaming apps and free ad-supported channels onto the same screen. For distributors, the opportunity lies in simplifying access to these services; though the challenge is to remain relevant when consumers can choose and access content directly through individual platforms.<\/p>\n
Nagpal sees room for multiple technologies to expand in India, rather than a winner-takes-all contest between DTH and internet-based entertainment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndia\u2019s diversity makes it an \u2018and\u2019 opportunity in which multiple technologies, hence platforms, will exist and grow simultaneously,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tata Play is expanding beyond its traditional direct-to-home (DTH) business with a new app that brings more than 500 live television channels to connected TVs without a set-top box or dish antenna, but the company is not preparing to move away from satellite television. The launch comes as India’s paid DTH industry faces mounting subscriber losses. The active subscriber base of the four paid DTH operators fell 13.4% year-on-year to 48.56 million as of June 30, 2026, from 56.07 million a year earlier, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) performance indicator report for the April-June quarter. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1043755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1043785,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043755\/revisions\/1043785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}