Dish TV, Tata Sky sign up with BJP

Political advertising money has started moving to the DTH sector. Dish TV and Tata Sky have firmed up ad deals with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and are in talks with other political parties, including the Congress, as India goes to the Lok Sabha polls this month. The BJP has committed Rs 1.5 million to Dish TV, which has a subscriber base of close to five million. Tata Sky, however, did not disclose the ad money it would get from the BJP.

Starting today, Dish TV will have ad spots running on its default landing interactive channel no. 999 and branding on its News Active and Bhakti Active services. Tata Sky has already started running BJP’s campaign on its channel no. 100, the promo channel of the DTH operator. Meanwhile, the new DTH entrants like Big TV and Airtel Digital TV have not been able to tap political advertising as their subscriber base is still too small, political sources say.