Earlier TV satellite television channels were broadcast in India which includes channels from the state-owned Doordarshan, News Corporation owned STAR TV, Sony owned Sony Entertainment Television, Zee TV, Sun Network and Asianet.

DishTV was the first one to come up in Indian Market, others came only years later.
Direct To Home service is provided by Airtel Digital Tv, BIG TV owned by Reliance, DD Direct Plus, DishTV, Sun Direct DTH, Tata Sky and Videocon D2H.

These services are provided by locally built satellites from ISRO such as INSAT 4CR, INSAT 4A, INSAT-2E, INSAT-3C and INSAT-3E and private satellites such as the Dutch-based SES, Global-owned NSS 6, Thaicom-2 and Telstar 10.

DTH is defined as the reception of satellite programmes with a personal dish in an individual home.

Direct-to-Home (DTH) is a method of receiving satellite television by means of signals transmitted from direct-broadcast satellites. Government of India permitted the reception and distribution of television signals in January 09, 2001. India had 78.74 million subscribers as of September 2015.The following is a list of DTH Operators in India

India currently has 7 major DTH service providers:

DishTV (a ZEE TV subsidiary),
Tata Sky,
Videocon D2H,
Sun Network owned ' Sun Direct DTH',
Reliance Digital TV,
Bharti Airtel's DTH Service 'Airtel Digital TV'
The public sector DD Direct Plus.

Service Provider Name Market Share

Dish TV 27%

Tata Sky 20%

Airtel digital TV 19%

Sun Direct 16%

Videocon d2h 12%

Reliance Digital TV 6%

DD Free Dish -