New Delhi, Aug. 8: Tata Sky Ltd, the 80:20 joint venture between the Tatas and Star India, launched its direct-to-home (DTH) service in 300 cities across the country today.

The commercial launch of the service was announced at a press conference in New Delhi where chairperson of Tata-Sky, Ishaat Hussain, pressed the button of an oversized TV remote to inaugurate the service.

Tata-Sky is the third DTH service in the last three years to have been launched in the country after the Zee- promoted Dish TV and Prasar Bharati’s DD Direct Plus.

The company’s managing director and CEO Vikram Kaushik said the DTH service is targeted at the masses. It will be available at an introductory price of Rs 3,999, including the set top box and installation charges, and a monthly payment of Rs 200.

“If we do not get a million customers in the first few months, I’d be disappointed,” he said.

Tata-Sky is using 225 distributors and 10,000 dealers of consumer electronics and mobile phones to push the boxes in the market. The company has earmarked an investment of Rs 3,000 crore for the project.

“The biggest element of the cost is customer acquisition that entails investment in advertising and marketing as well (as) subsidising the hardware to popularise the set-top box,” Kaushik said.

Tata-Sky has also set up three call centres at Pune, Hyderabad and Mohali for its DTH customers.

For starters, Tata-Sky will offer all the satellite channels that are available via cable.

“But we are offering interactive services from day one and will soon launch our pay per view service,” said Kaushik.

Tata-Sky is using 12 transponders on the INSAT 4A satellite for its DTH service.