Tata Sky reboots to become 'Tata Play', forays into growing OTT market

Tata Sky, one of the largest Direct to Home (DTH) platforms in India, will now call itself  Tata Play, and in sync with the changing times has made its foray into the growing OTT space as well. The company, which is a joint venture between Tata Sons and The Walt Disney Company, has teamed up with Netflix to offer 13 other OTT channels, which will include Amazon Video Prime and Disney+Hotstar in its combo package called Binge.

The costs of these new combo packs will start from ₹399 per month, and will be effective from January 27. The company’s new brand identity and new offerings will be promoted through a nationwide campaign featuring actors Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saif Ali Khan in national markets, and R Madhavan and Priyamani in the south.

The Tata Play MD & CEO Harit Nagpal told the media that though they had started out as a DTH company, they have now transformed themselves into a content distributing firm across live television and OTT services. The company realised that customers were looking to find an “unified experience” where they could watch television, as well as OTT content in one place. They do not have to jump from one platform to the next looking for content.

According to Nagpal, the pandemic may have made web content popular for all groups but this trend has not led to cord-cutting (cancelling subscriptions to multi-channel television services) in any significant way in India. People can watch content of their choice across devices such as mobile phones or other screens. Prices will vary according to the number of screens, DTH connections and packs subscribed to, he said.

Also, importantly, DTH customers who have not recharged their packs can also get reconnections for free.

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“The name Tata Play thus signifies our expanded range of product and services. The new identity is an outcome of our desire to be future-ready …” added Nagpal, according to news reports.

Further, the company also announced that it has renamed its broadband network to Tata Play Fiber. Pointing out that it is one thing to own content but quite another to make it accessible. “Distribution is what makes content easily discoverable for the masses, consumed, and talked about,” he said.

Under their Tata Play Binge pack, people can access content from 13 leading OTT apps through a single User Interface while offering the flexibility of single subscription and payment.  Meanwhile, the subscription cost of the pack is yet to be announced.

Tata Sky launched as an 80:20 joint venture between Tata Sons and 21st Century Fox in 2004. Later Murdoch’s Fox sold the entertainment business to The Walt Disney Company, with that its stake also got transferred to Walt Disney.