Tata Sky says, Airtel DTH ad is misleading consumers

ASCI - it is a self regulated body which aims at curbing the malpractices in advertising. It ensures that advertisements do not give wrong information to consumers and also protects the interest of competitors.

TATA sky has written the complaint that Airtel DTH is giving wrong information to consumers that its technology is MPEG-4 DVB S2 and thus gives better picture quality than others. The ad falsely claims that because of it using superior technology, picture quality is better, which is wrong.

The compression technology determines the number of channels which can be given to consumer and has no impact on video quality. So in a way the Ad is really misleading as it clearly says that video quality is good because of it using MPEG-4 DVB S2 technology.

The chief marketing officer (CMO), Vikram Mehra said, "MPEG-4 and DVB S2 are compression standards and have no impact on video picture quality. We want to correct the myth in the minds of the consumers that MPEG-4 DVB S2 provides better picture quality than other technologies used to provide digital signals."

There are currently 6 DTH operators in country and they use different compression technologies ranging from MPEG2 to MPEG4 to provide digital television signals to consumers through satellite.

Airtel Television spokesperson says that comparison is made with the services provided by cable operators providing services using analogue signals.