Bharti Airtel, India's biggest telecom company, is aiming big in the media business, but not by creating content or owing TV channels.
A relatively new player in the direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting business, the company has now announced the launch of digital media exchange for integrated content delivery acrossmultiple screens-cinema, TV and mobile handsets-in various geographies.
Apart from that, the company would cater to animators, gaming firms, media producers and banking institutions.
Bharti Airtel CEO for India and South Asia, Sanjay Kapoor, said the end-to-end content delivery strategy would cater to mobile subscribers once 3G (third generation) telecom service is launched in India.
3G auction is scheduled for April and the service rollout is expected sometime in 2011. "We will leverage the 3G service," he said.
Kapoor stressed that Bharti would remain an enabler in distributing content, and would not create content.
"There's a huge unserved market in this sphere and we see a huge opportunity in this," he said.
Speaking on the scope in digital cinema delivery market, top executives pointed out that only 2,000 out of 16,000 cinema screens have been digitised so far.
"Being both content and access agnostic, Bharti Airtel's digital media business will open up the market opportunity for the Indian media and entertainment industry," the company said.
The company's digital media business would be linked to its global network of submarine cable systems, international points of presence (PoPs) and content delivery network services.
To a question on why the company was a late entrant in the area of digital content delivery, Kapoor said "we are not late. It's a pioneering effort. Unlike others, we are playing end-to-end."
The content delivery service will be subscription-based, but the company refused to elaborate on revenue expectations from the business.
Company officials refrained from replying any question on the proposed deal between Bharti and Kuwaiti telco Zain.
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