Following the announcement of a new Headend In The Sky (HITS) project, JAIN HITS, by the Jain TV group, we spoke with Dr JK Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Jain TV Group, on the company's foray in the business, future plans and tie-ups. Here's an excerpt of the interview: MediaNama: Why did you decide to foray into this business, when your peer, Essel Group had exited out two years ago citing uncertainty in the regualatory environment and absence of favourable tariffs? Dr Jain: See, the timing of entry is very important for any new business. When Subhash Chandra's company entered the HITS business there were no guidelines, or directions to support this venture, no directions for compulsory digitisation,and cumpolsory CAS. In the new regulatory environment HITS is a viable alternative as it's cheap and allows for digitization of the entire country, in one go. MediaNama: What about tie-ups? Have you partnered with any broadcaster yet? Dr Jain: We just made the launch announcement. We are going step by step, first we streamlined the licensing part. Now we're giving orders to hardware companies like Harmonics, Motorola, Via-Sat, another company for subscriber management system. So work orders are being given to a consortium of technology providers. We already have the infrastructure, manpower, space as NSTPL is already uplinking 50 channels from our port. It's just one more extension of the same people who're doing this work. The companies we're partnering will not just fulfil orders but they'll also install, operate and maintain services. MediaNama: What…
