GTPL Hathway обошла Tata Play и стала крупнейшим теледистрибьютором Индии по выручке в 2026 финансовом году

Industry 3 min read GTPL Hathway overtakes Tata Play to become India’s largest TV distributor by revenue in FY26 Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL)-backed cable TV distributor GTPL Hathway has overtaken Tata Sons- and Disney-owned direct-to-home (DTH) operator Tata Play in revenue, displacing the latter’s longstanding revenue leadership of India’s TV distribution market. GTPL reported FY26 revenue of ₹3,746 crore, ahead of Tata Play’s ₹3,530 crore, according to data sourced from regulatory filings. This is despite GTPL having 9.6 million active cable subscribers, far lagging Tata Play’s more than 15 million DTH subscribers. The reversal is notable as DTH spent the last two decades gaining ground at the expense of fragmented cable TV operators after the entry of private operators in the 2000s, bringing addressability and scale to TV distribution. Advt To be sure, GTPL’s overtaking of Tata Play, however, marks a change at the top of the industry’s revenue rankings rather than a broader shift in the balance between cable and DTH. Both segments are facing pressure as consumers increasingly cancel traditional cable or satellite TV subscriptions in favour of web streaming video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. The consolidated figures include core cable and DTH revenues, as well as broadband revenues, for both companies. GTPL Hathway’s net profit fell to ₹15.6 crore in FY26 from ₹47.9 crore in FY25. Tata Play widened its net loss to ₹551 crore from ₹529 crore during the period under review. Tata Play had been the leading TV distribution platform by revenue for several years, ahead of its DTH and cable TV peers. Despite facing pressure in its cable TV business, GTPL Hathway has been pursuing organic and inorganic expansion to grow its digital cable TV subscriber base. The company has launched a headend-in-the-sky (HITS) service, GTPL Infinity, to expand its presence in rural markets. Recently, GTPL Hathway, 37.3% owned by RIL-owned Hathway Cable & Datacom, acquired the cable TV business of Atria Convergence Technologies (ACT) in South India for ₹36 crore, bringing more than 600,000 subscribers into its fold. Advt India’s DTH industry has been under severe stress, with the active pay-TV subscriber base falling to 49 million in FY26 from 70 million in FY21, according to TRAI reports. Tata Sons and Bharti Airtel held talks in 2025 to merge their DTH businesses due to market headwinds and consolidation on the broadcasting side following the consolidation of Disney Star and Viacom18. However, the merger talks failed, forcing Airtel to focus on expanding its subscriber base through IPTV. In recent years, Tata Play has moved beyond simply aggregating and distributing linear TV channels to aggregating OTT and short-video platforms as consumers shift from linear TV to digital platforms. “The company has sustained this base despite mounting competition from free DTH in rural markets, bundled telecom offerings, and the increasingly platform-agnostic nature of content,” GTPL Hathway MD Anirudhsinh Jadeja said in the FY26 annual report. Concerned about the declining subscriber base of its cable TV businesses, even RIL has been contemplating a merger of its cable TV businesses under Den Networks and Hathway Cable & Datacom, people told ET previously. Tata Play is also expected to see a change in guard, with Harit Nagpal, the longstanding CEO credited with building it into a distribution giant, expected to retire by November, people said. The subscriber base of the top 10 cable companies, including those with HITS operations, fell to 31 million in FY26, from 38 million in FY25, according to TRAI. The decline underscores that GTPL’s overtaking of Tata Play represents a shift in the industry revenue rankings, rather than a broader revival of cable TV. By , ET Bureau Published On Sep 8, 2026 at 02:08 PM IST