Chennai : The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa will be the happiest person to hear the news of Arasu Cable turning profitable in financial year 2014 as her pet project started delivering the much needed revenue for the government that might prompt other state government to follow the suit.
However, Broadcasters will not be happy to look at the financial figures of Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation (TACTVC). They will be disturbed by the fact that the state-owned multi-system operator (MSO) has reduced its content cost in the fiscal ended 31 March 2014 while mopping up subscribers. Carriage fees also constitutes almost one-third of Arasu’s revenues.
Arasu, however, has something to be proud of. The MSO has posted net profit of Rs 12.02 crore (Rs 120.2 million) in FY14, its first ever since it came into existence in 2011.
Despite a very low subscription tariff of RS 70/- per month Arasu Cable managed to witness such huge profits mainly due to the collection of Carriage Fees from the Broadcasters and increasing the Subscriber base to a realistic figures.
Revenue stood at Rs 185 crore (Rs 1.85 billion) during the fiscal. Subscription income was Rs 1.2 billion while revenue from carriage stood at Rs 600 million.
“We have increased our subscriber base and have reduced subscription fee. We hope to improve our net profit in the current fiscal,” said TACTVC managing director Kumaragurubaran.
TACTVC’s subscriber base has grown exponentially to 70.52 lakh (7.52 million) as of 31 July. It had a subscriber base of 4.94 lakh when it commenced operations on 2 September 2011.
In order to expand the scope of the state-run MSO and extend more services to the people, the state government recently decided to start 10 Arasu Common Service Centres in each district. The public will be able to avail all government-related services at these centres.
Regarding the issue of digital addressable system (DAS) licence, Kumaragurubaran said that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is pursuing the matter. He also stated that the corporation is yet to hear from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) on the matter.
It must be noted that Jayalalithaa had written a letter to Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Prakash Javadekar besides taking it up during her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier, the state government has allocated funds in the recent budget for the modernisation of the Arasu Cable control rooms with latest and high end equipments.
