Faced with competition and losing market share to low-cost airlines, Indian Railways is starting a pilot project to install flat-panel touch screen TV on individual seat in select North Indian Shatabdi trains.
These TV would have a head-phone with options of live and pre-recorded entertainment and movie channels, and initially the licence will be for five-years.
According to Business Standard, Adlabs and Dish TV are in race to acquire the rights, who would also have the advertising rights.
For Railways this may be a nice transition in offering world-class services, and would also boost its profitability as all investment would be done by the media companies who would share part of revenue to railways.
For media companies, it throws open a new distribution vehicle and they can target a select niche audience through their package.