MUMBAI:  And they say TV - and more specifically - pay TV is dying in India (snicker, snicker). But if one were to go by TRAI figures, you would say otherwise.

According to its annual performance indicators report for 2023-24, the number of registered pay TV channels in the period ended 31 March 2021 were 361 (258 being SD satellite and 103 HD satellite) out of a total of 912 permitted satellite channels. The rest (551) were free-to-air (FTA)  broadcasters. (10 other channels were permitted to uplink from India but downlink in other countries only; taking the total number of permitted satellite TV channels to 922.)

This compares to 892 permitted satellite channels consisting of 358 pay TV channels (254 SD; 104 HD) and 534 FTA in the year to 31 March 2023; 885 channels in 2022 made up of 345 pay TV (248 SD channels; 97 HD channels) and 540 FTA; 885 channels in 2021 made up of 327 pay TV (235 SD and 92 HD) and 558 FTA channels.  The number of permitted satellite TV channels for the respective years tots up to 903 for 2023; 898 for 2022 and 901 for 2021.

Clearly, the trend line shows that while there was a lull between 2021 and 2022, there has been an impressive upswing in the following years at a time when naysayers have been tom tomming the demise of television. Not only has there been an improvement in quality of TV signals with the transition to HD, but there has also been an increase in the number of FTA channels.