Dishtv Announces Matrimonial Service ‘shaadi Active’ in Association With Shaadi.com

~ New interactive value added service will bring matrimony on to TV screens~

New Delhi, July 22, 2008: dishtv, India’s No. 1 direct-to-home company and part of the biggest media conglomerate, Zee group, will launch a new interactive service on its platform called “Shaadi Active” in collaboration with the world’s largest matrimonial service provider, Shaadi.com. The initiative is yet another move from the market leader to ensure wholesome entertainment by understanding the specific needs of its vast subscriber base of 3.5 m, spread across the length and breadth of the country.

Through dishtv’s ‘Shaadi Active’ service, marriage prospects and their parents will be able to search for eligible bride / groom of their choice from amongst millions of profiles listed on Shaadi.com. Subscribers can define the parameters of selection and search by the criteria of age, community, caste, profession etc. Based on these criteria, Shaadi.com profiles will be displayed on the TV screen and the subscriber can then choose the profile of his choice and contact him / her. To ensure novelty, every single day, the profiles will be refreshed on a daily basis.

With innovative services such as this, dishtv now ventures into the Life Services space taking TV viewing to a whole new level of viewer engagement. TV viewing will no longer remain about passive entertainment, but will go far beyond that, entering into arenas that allow information exchange and data access on the hitherto idiot box, now turning smart for dishtv viewers.

Speaking on the occasion, Vinay Agarwal, CEO, dishtv said, “Dishtv already provides 205 channels and services to its discerning subscriber base. Going forward our emphasis would be entering into new arenas where subscribers will enjoy completely new genres beyond the realm of entertainment through the dishtv interaction experience. Yet another first from the leader, dishtv Matrimony service will be first of its kind in the entire world, uniquely poised to connect with the Indian audiences, given our societal context.”

Talking about the new initiative, Vibhas Mehta, Business Head - Shaadi.com said, “Through this tie-up we are delighted to extend our superior matchmaking experience to dishtv subscribers. This partnership is of great value to us, since it makes Shaadi.com’s matrimonial service available to the largest DTH user base in the country. Shaadi.com offers the widest choice in terms of eligible profiles; we have over 10 million members to choose from, and more than a million matches to our credit. Being an online service, we were looking at various mediums to capture a larger audience; with the launch of Shaadi Active, our services will now reach a wider user base through dishtv, without any need to log on to the Internet.”

Some say marriages are made in heaven…with this tie-up between dishtv and Shaadi.com, marriages will now be made through the television screen.

About dishtv India
Essel Group - the parent company of the Zee Network – has launched this product - dishtv. It aims to be an Entertainment Provider and harbinger of the new age media in India. In a short span it has on its platform 205 channels & services with registered 3.5 million subscribers, which is growing. dishtv offers the flexibility in content and channel packages so that the subscribers can choose and customize their own channel bouquets giving them complete power and independence. dishtv has a vast distribution network of about 575 distributors & 38,000 dealers that spans around 4200 towns across the country. Direct-to-home (DTH) television services deliver television channels directly to consumer’s homes via satellite without any need of a local cable service provider. With channels for the sports enthusiast, from daily dose of soaps to news, from a bevy of cartoons to infotainment, from a plethora of music channels to movie channels - its all happening on dishtv. With the complete Zee bouquet of channels, the One Alliance bouquet, and the Star bouquet, it offers the complete range of channels to its subscribers. Highly aware of prompt service orientation, dishtv has 24* 7 call centre with 700 seats in 11 different languages at 7 different locations to take care of subscriber requirements any point of time and to ensure timely solution to problems and queries. Dishtv uses world-class technology and equipments manufactured by best suppliers in the world. The STB (Set Top Box) are sourced from a Korean manufactures. Nevertheless, dishtv TBS come with a One-Year-Warranty that takes care of any technical fault free of cost for 12 months from the date of purchase

About Shaadi.com
Shaadi.com, one of India’s best known Internet brands and the world’s largest matrimonial service was founded by Anupam Mittal promoted People Group in 1997 with one simple objective – to provide a superior matchmaking experience to Indians all over the world. Since then the company has created a world-renowned service that has touched the lives of millions of people all over the world and is proud to have made almost 8,15,026 matches till date.

Shaadi.com celebrated its 10th Anniversary in 2007, and is proud to have been adjudged the ‘Most User Friendly Website’ by Juxt Consult as well as the ‘Best Designed Matrimonial Website’ by PC World Web Awards in 2007 & 2008. In September 2007 Business Today recognized the company as one of the Top 10 Marketers in the country. The company was also felicitated at the WEB18 ‘Genius of the Web’ Awards, as the best E-Commerce site (Matrimony). Shaadi.com Centres - the offline version of Shaadi.com - too won accolades by being named as the ‘Franchisor of the Year’ for the third consecutive year, in 2007. Shaadi.com is also the first Indian portal to be ISO 9001:2000, TRUST-e and VeriSign certified. The In addition it has been ranked “The most visited matrimonial website in India” by Ranking.com.

For further information, please contact:
dishtv
Sonal Thind - +91 9811857781
sonal_t@dishtv.in

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