Grant Investrade Ltd (GIL), a subsidiary of Hinduja Ventures Ltd, has received the operating licence for the HITS (Headend-in-the-Sky) digital television services from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The service is launched as ‘NXT Digital’ and will target to join thousands of LCOs in Phase III and IV areas of DAS.
The company said this was the final regulatory step for it to commence operations of its HITS operations. HITS entails using a single satellite based headend to beam digitally compressed programming via satellite. In a statement, Tony D’ Silva, MD, Grant Investrade, said: “NXT DIGITAL has received an overwhelming response from the distribution fraternity in phase III & IV markets in India. Our broadcast centre and our backend systems are fully operational; our broadcaster relationships have been formalised and we’re ready to go ‘live’ shortly.”
A K Das, Chairman of Grant Investrade, said the launch of NXT DIGITAL was in line with the government’s Digital India objective and the company was proud to be apart of this national initiative. The deadline for the phase III stage of Digital Addressable System has been set at December 31.
