CASBAA expands its wings in India

CASBAA has announced a powerful expansion of its Indian agenda with the addition of three market leaders as members of the Association. The new CASBAA Corporate members are telecoms-to-media services specialist Bharti Airtel, leading news content provider NDTV and media and entertainment giant Star TV India.

In line with this market growth, as a regional body with a domestic agenda, CASBAA continues to increase its commitment to India through undertaking conferences, issuing reports and regularly engaging with policy-making government bodies on key industry issues.

"As a leading DTH player, we are committed to collaborating with world leaders in bringing innovative technologies," said Ajai Puri, Director & CEO - DTH, Bharti Airtel. "We are confident that CASBAA, leading the evolution of ecosystems and technologies that enable cable, satellite and broadcast industry, will impact positively on some critical structural changes to help digitize India rapidly."

K V L Narayan Rao, Group CEO and Executive Director, NDTV said: "We are delighted to become members of CASBAA. As the market-leading news broadcaster in the region, we look forward to working with CASBAA for what can only be mutual benefit."

Anupam Vasudev, EVP - Marketing, Star India added that "as the country's leading television network, we are committed to working with reputed industry bodies on initiatives that can help develop and move the broadcasting industry to the next level. We look forward to our partnership with CASBAA to create successful programs to achieve this objective."

"Certainly, the additional memberships bring extraordinary new value to CASBAA's contribution to the Indian pay-TV market," said Marcel Fenez, Chairman of CASBAA. "With our extended footprint the Association looks forward to joining hands with all its Indian members and partners."

By almost every measure India is the most dynamic pay-TV market in the world with almost 10% growth every year over the past five years. In the next 12 months it is expected to overtake China as the biggest pay-TV market in Asia.