MUMBAI:The Adhikari brother's promoted SAB Network has announced it will begin locally uplinking from 1 October onwards. SAB has already secured government clearance and will be uplinked from the Essel-Shyam Telecom facility in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi.

Markand Adhikari, vice chairman and managing director of SABTNL, revealed this in an interview this morning to CNBC India. It is from the Essel-Shyam facility that the Zee Network channels are uplinked. At present, SAB is uplinking from Singapore. SAB reportedly estimates that local uplink will result in a cost saving of Rs 10 million a year.

But even more significant for SAB than the operational cost savings is the new government policy that allows non-exporting companies (local advertisers) to advertise on satellite channels as well. These local advertisers will improve commercial time utilisation rate and spot rates; they are also expected to drive advertisement revenues in the future. With the local market opening up, all broadcasters are aggressively wooing local advertisers.

Adhikari estimates the size of the local advertising market at Rs 4 billion and says SAB will be looking to aggressively tap that.