Under the new amendments to the tariff order, NTO 3.0, broadcasters were allowed by TRAI to increase the price of channels that are part of a bouquet from the earlier Rs 12.
As the face-off between television broadcasters and cable operators continues over the new pricing regime, major industry players are giving signal shutdowns to cable operators, who refuse to roll out channel price hikes.
Under the new amendments to the tariff order, NTO 3.0, broadcasters were allowed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to increase the price of channels that are part of a bouquet from the earlier Rs 12.
The Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation, an apex body of television broadcasters, on Sunday said that the All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) is not only flouting the law but is also holding its less than 25 million subscribers hostage by only running its own commercial Reasons for and disseminating misleading information as it refuses to implement the price hike.
“Under the new pricing regime, the subscriber has the option of choosing a single channel or a bouquet of channels. The maximum monthly subscription fee for inclusion of any channel in the bouquet is Rs. 19 which is much less than the cost of essential commodities in the country. AIDCF's effort to invite consumer sentiment on price hike is lent credence to their effort to increase the portion of the consumer bill that goes only to AIDCF members, which is the Network Capacity Fee (NCF), IBDF said in a statement. ) Is.
TRAI's 2017 regulations have introduced a separate charge of NCF, which DPOs charge and collect from customers for providing access to TV services, the statement said. “DPOs charge upfront subscription fee from consumers but do not give shares to broadcasters on time. The increase in prices during implementation is largely due to the demand for increase in NCF by the DPOs and not on the back of channel prices. While no pay TV channel is provided in lieu of the said fee, this cost burden ultimately makes TV services costlier for the subscribers. Consequently, AIDCF's claim that broadcasters are raising prices of TV channels and that 45 million households have been affected by channel disruption is completely false. With no interim relief in several High Courts, AIDCF is trying to drum up public sympathy through a false narrative," the IBDF said.
In a counter-claim, AIDCF has pointed out that NTO 1 resulted in the loss of over 30 million subscribers from cable TV service providers and over 200% increase in subscription revenue for broadcasters. While TRAI felt the need to go through another consultation process to rectify the anomalies and distorted pricing in the structure of channels and bouquets declared by the broadcasters, the cable platforms (under AIDCF) are against any price increase for the subscribers. while the broadcasters wanted a price hike for the channels. Channel to be reinstated at Rs.19 for inclusion in bouquet.
“The price hike will result in a cost of around Rs 5,000 crore. 8,000 crore per annum to the consumers, which will benefit the broadcasters to a great extent, the AIDCF has said. It added that despite the matter being sub-judice, the broadcasters sent legal notices to the AIDCF members to sign the agreement within 48 hours of being served notices or confronted. AIDCF had apparently written to TRAI to raise pricing issues as well, which the regulator ignored for reasons unknown, it said.
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