NEW DELHI: The fifth annual India Digital Networks Summit (IDNS), jointly organised by Indiantelevision.com and Media Partners Asia, is set to kick off tomorrow in New Delhi.

Endorsed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, the day-long summit will see representation from heads of DTH (direct-to-home), Cable TV, distribution and broadcasting industries.

The industry stalwarts will discuss the critical issues that are to shape India’s digital and pay-TV marketplace. The focus of the summit will be on the key policy issues, industry trends and business models that will drive industry dynamics after 2010.

The tone of the summit will be set with keynote addresses from I&B ministry joint secretary Zohra Chatterji, Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) chairman JS Sarma and ChrysCapital MD Brahmal Vasudevan.

The debate on “Managing DTH growth and consolidation” will be led by Tata Sky CEO Vikram Kaushik, Sun Direct COO Tony D’Silva, Airtel Digital TV CEO Ajai Puri and NDS Asia-Pacific SVP Sue Taylor.

The session on cable TV will examine issues relating to funding, M&A opportunities and digital upgrades of networks. The panel will consist of Digicable CEO JS Kohli, IndusInd Media & Communications MD and CEO Ravi Mansukhani, You Telecom India CEO EVS Chakravarthy, Atria Convergence Technologies MD Sunder Raju, MSO Alliance president Ashok Mansukhani and Tandberg Television VP business development Noel Matthews.

Broadcasters form an important part of the pay-TV value chain. In the third session, Star Den CEO Gurjeev Singh, Viacom18 SVP network development Sanjev Hiremath, Zee Turner SVP (cable sales) Dilip Sharan, and NDTV head of network distribution and affiliate sales Rahul Sood will discuss on how they are to balance between carriage and affiliate growth.

The panel on “Next Generation Broadband TV, Hype and Reality” will comprise Bharti Airtel GM IPTV Puneet Garg, Time Broadband CEO Sujata Dev and Seagate Technology country manager, India and SAARC Rajesh Khurana. Can telcos and IPTV companies take big bets on infrastructure and content, and is it a premium niche service or one with mass intent? The session will try to provide answers to such issues that stand as key barriers for building a profitable IPTV proposition.

NDS, Seagate, Ericsson and Tandberg Television are industry partners for the summit while HBO, Granada TV and Videocon D2H are support partners. NDTV Profit is the exclusive telecast partner of the IDNS 2009.