NEO Sports to move its cable distribution in-house!

NEO Sports Broadcast Pvt Ltd, the Sportscaster has decided not to renew its cable distribution agreement with MSMD which is scheduled to expire on March 31, 2014 as  it will distribute  their channels through its in-house team from April 1, 2014. Therefore, One Alliance, MSMD’s distribution arm will cease to distribute the NEO channels i.e. NEO Sports & NEO Prime respectively from the above date to the cable & HITS operators.

The spokesmen at NEO  said that “NEO shares a fantastic relationship with DTH operators and other digital platforms and are confident that it will be able to build a similarly robust relationship with cable & HITS companies across the country”. The dawn of addressability is a great opportunity for all of us; we are confident that we will 

NEO has continued to distribute its channels through its in-house team to DTH and other digital distribution platforms even as it gave away its cable distribution rights to MSMD in 2010. NEO Prime & NEO Sports channels are currently available on all leading DTH platforms ie Dish TV, Videocon D2H, Airtel Digital TV, Reliance & Sun. In the cable platform, the channels are also available across all leading networks nationally and regionally.

Dilip Sharan, EVP, Distribution Platforms said that it is a step in the right direction to further build our business keeping in mind the emerging digital landscape. The suggestive Regulatory approach combined with digitalization clearly points that future distribution deals will be dictated by the relevant content that is made available to various audiences and the ability to work with the platforms keeping in mind the business issues and not entirely on the strength of the channels size in the bouquet, a prevalent practice in the analogue era.  Our cable distribution deal with MSMD made better commercial sense in the analogue environment.

Our dealing with the DTH operators has reinforced this line of thinking that standalone channels can make for a business case as much and as efficiently in a digital environment provided it can offer very relevant content that has significant traction in various category of sport; is attractively priced and above all, there is strong intent to engage with its business partner in building a mutually supportive business environment.

Today operators realize more than ever that only by offering more variety of content will they be able to increase the choice to their customer, a prerequisite for increasing revenue opportunity. Addressability with availability of bandwidth was just the right start the industry was waiting for! NEO Sports bouquet offers just the right content mix that is extremely relevant & attractively priced!

In 2014-2015, NEO channels will also be showcasing some of the biggest event in the sport i.e. French Open, Fed Cup, Davis Cup, Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, Bundesliga, US PGA etc . This is  in addition to the other live events, which makes up for non-stop live action round the year!