Sanjay Gupta on transparency & power to consumers driving new tariff regime

Ahead of the December 29, 2018 deadline when the New Tariff Regime comes into effect, Star India has revealed its channel pricing under the Star Value Pack and Star Premium Pack offering in 7 languages – Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. 

The Star Value Pack includes channels across Entertainment, Movies, Education and Sports, which gives viewers access sports properties such as Vivo IPL, ICC Cricket World Cup, BCCI tournaments, Vivo Pro Kabaddi League, and Hero Indian Super League, among others. The Star Premium Pack includes the Star Value Pack content as well as the best of international entertainment, movies, lifestyle and marquee sporting events such as Premier League, Grand Slam events and Formula 1. 

Star India has unleashed a nation-wide multi-media, multi-starrer campaign to bring the idea of how unbelievably affordable the Star Value Pack offerings is. Mega stars like Aamir Khan, Mohanlal, Kamal Hassan, Nagarjuna, MS Dhoni, Bengali movie star Dev, Kannada film star DarshanThoogudeep, Swapnil Joshi and more are spreading the message to educate the consumers across the nation. They will be joined by prominent Star Network television faces like Divyanka Tripathi, Gautam Rode, Sharad Malhotra, Bhumika Gurung, Sushant Singh and more. 

Commenting on the new channel pricing strategy, Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director, Star India, said, “We believe Entertainment and Sports play a critical role in shaping the nation. By including Sports in the Star Value Pack, we aim to make it accessible to every Indian and thus change the way Sports has been consumed in the country. The Star Value Pack offers viewers the very best from our wide canvas of content across general entertainment, movies, sports and knowledge at unbelievably affordable rates. We have been entertaining, inspiring and serving millions of viewers across India for close to 25 years now, and are delighted to empower the consumer further with even greater choice and value.” 

Details of Star Value & Premium pack*

Pack Prices

 

Star Value Pack (in INR)

 

Star Premium Pack (in INR)

 

Star HD Value Pack (in INR)

 

Star HD Premium Pack (in INR)

 

Hindi

 

49

 

79

 

85

 

120

 

Marathi

 

49

 

79

 

85

 

120

 

Bengali

 

49

 

79

 

85

 

120

 

Tamil

 

25

 

69

 

75

 

110

 

Kannada

 

30

 

69

 

75

 

110

 

Malayalam

 

39

 

69

 

75

 

110

 

Telugu

 

39

 

69

 

75

 

110

 

Star’s a-la-carte offering allows consumers to subscribe to only what they want to watch. Bouquet offerings are crafted for different language-regional preferences to provide wholesome experience with the best mix of channels. 

According to Gupta, the biggest change of the tariff order would be to bring transparency into the whole system of how content gets created and how content gets bought. He is confident that consumers are ready for the new tariff regime and will welcome it. 

Adding further, he said, “Good tariff brings value to any business or environment from the consumer point of view. We invest a lot in making marquee content, in data, in our channels. The question that we asked ourselves was how do we ensure that there is great value for consumers that we can provide through our pricing?” 

Speaking on clubbing the sports content with the Value Pack, Gupta noted that one of the issues was that people found sports content to be quite expensive in India. “With our new Value Pack, we are saying that sports is basic content that everyone should have access to. That is a dramatic shift in content. Normally, some operators have charged Rs 100-Rs 200 for sports content. But with Star’s new pricing at Rs 49, you will get a complete pack which includes cricket, football, Vivo IPL, Kabaddi, other sports, along with Star Plus, Star Bharat and other drama channels. Hence, our new tariff pushes for greater transparency, more power to the consumers and creating value by driving sports at Rs 49, and we are committed to it,” he added. 

In order to create awareness of the new tariff regime, Star, along with the Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF) and other major broadcasters, has come out with a campaign. The group has also released a TVC featuring Aamir Khan and Pankaj Tripathy to inform consumers about the Star Value Pack. 

When asked about a-la-carte pricing, Gupta said that if people wanted to choose only one channel, they could. “There are differential pricing that are available at our channels, for instance, Star Plus has been price at around Rs 19. But there is a lot of content that we think are mass requirement. So, we are trying to make it as cheap as possible within the constraints of the investments that we make,” he maintained. 

Regarding the usual practice of clubbing less performing channels with the higher rated channels, Gupta reiterated Star’s commitment to give more power to consumers and stated that, “Consumers have the right to decide. The less performing channels cannot come to consumers if they don’t like you. So, when you give power to consumers, you will have to work really hard and that will force the business to perform better and better in providing quality content.” 

As is known, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has filed a Special Leave Petition in court to which Star is also a party, asking for a 15 per cent discount cap. Giving his take on this, Gupta said, “I think it is subject for the Court to decide on. The current ruling is that there is no discount cap at present, but it may change depending on how the Supreme Court rules.” 

When asked to clarify what the situation will be like post December 29, 2019, when the new tariff regime becomes effective, Gupta said, “The TRAI ruling right now is that before December 29, all content owners will have to define their prices, offer their own bouquets and the customers will need to shift to those bouquets. It is possible that they are not ready at the same time and that TRAI might need to take a view. But as of now, December 29 is the deadline and we are following the TRAI deadline, both in our intent and in our communication on ground. In the last few months, we have invested aggressively, both in putting together our communication on our website and training people internally, because this is such a massive change. All our internal teams have to be prepared for this change. Thus, this requires a complete re-understanding.”

Star Value Pack- Region wise: -

7 Languages

Channels

Prices* (in Rs.)

Hindi Base (SD)

·       Entertainment- Star Plus, Star Bharat, Star Utsav,

·       Movies- Star Gold, Movies OK, Star Utsav Movies.

·       Sports- Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, Star Sports First,

·       Education- National Geographic & Nat Geo Wild.

49/-

Marathi Base (SD)

·       Entertainment- Star Pravah, Star Plus, Star Bharat, Star Utsav,

·       Movies- Star Gold, Movies OK, Star Utsav Movies,

·       Sports- Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, Star Sports First

·       Education- National Geographic & Nat Geo Wild

49/-

Bengali Base (SD)

·       Entertainment -Star Jalsha, Star Plus,

·       Movies- Star Gold, Jalsha Movies

·       Sports- Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, Star Sports First.

·       Education- National Geographic & Nat Geo Wild

49/-

Telegu Base(SD)

·       Entertainment- Maa TV

·       Movies- Maa Movies, Maa Gold,

·       Music- Maa Music,

·       Sports- Star Sports 1 Telugu, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, Star Sports First,

·       Education- National Geographic & Nat Geo Wild.

39/-

Malayalam Base(SD)

·       Entertainment- Asianet, Asianet Plus,

·       Movies- Asianet Movies,

·       Sports- Star Sports 1, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, Star Sports First.

·       Education- National Geographic & Nat Geo Wild

39/-

Kannada Base (SD)

·       Entertainment- Star Suvarna, Suvarna Plus,

·       Sports- Star Sports 1 Kannada, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, Star Sports First,

·       Education- National Geographic & Nat Geo Wild

30/-

Tamil Base (SD)

·       Entertainment- Vijay, Vijay Super,

·       Sports- Star Sports 1 Tamil, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, Star Sports First,

·       Education- National Geographic & Nat Geo Wild

25/-

 

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