Sony Entertainment Television, which joined Star India and Zee TV as a completely pay-driven bouquet when its flagship channel became fully encrypted on 1 September, expects to reach a subscriber base of 26 million viewing homes within the next 30 days. 

According to Shantonu Aditya, senior V-P franchise channels and distribution, Sony has already achieved a subscriber base of 20 million after the rollout of over 4,500 set top boxes in the A and B centres across the country. Distribution was going on across other centres at a fast clip, Aditya said. 

Aditya said that due to the improved yield that had been achieved (yield is defined by the average number of subscribers that the cable operator declares per box) SET had significantly reduced estimates on the number of boxes that would be required to reach a subscriber base (26 million) equal to that existing pre-encryption. Aditya said he hoped to achieve his target with the rollout of 6,000 boxes but added that at the end of it all that figure might reach as high as 7,000. 

That is still far lower than the original estimate of a 10,000 box requirement for full rollout.