After being severely criticised by the Supreme Court over the 2G licence-allocation fiasco, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is now facing heat from broadcasters, cable and DTH firms and other stakeholders who are asking it to ?stay away? from ?over regulating? the industry under the government-mandated digitalisation policy.
Also, broadcasters like Star, Zee, ESPN, Asianet, Sun, and various cable and DTH operators have come together to tell?Trai not to meddle in issues like tariff and pricing of content, advertisement-free channels, or imposition of more regulations under the proposed digitalised cable regime.
As reported earlier, the government has mandated a cut-off date of December 31, 2013, by which all television channels will have to turn digital and addressable. For metros, June 30, 2012, is the cut-off date to turn digital. This means, all the 110 million cable homes in India will need a digital set-top box (STB) in order to access television services from 2014 (July 1, 2012, in case of the metros).
Commenting on the requirement of Trai to fix retail tariffs for TV channels post digitisation, Star India said the business plans of broadcasters will get unsettled if Trai decided to revise the tariff. On its part, rival Zee TV said ?The tariff at retail level should be left to the market forces.? On the introduction of ad-free channels, all stakeholders have expressed the need for zero regulation and intervention by Trai.
?Trai has done nothing helpful or forward-looking for the cable sector in the last few years. It just wants to subject the industry to overregulation at the behest of certain industry players. The industry is not ready for digitisation within the prescribed timeframe,? Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI) president Roop Sharma said.
COFI is the apex body of leading cable operators. It has demanded a slew of changes in the current laws if the industry has to implement digitisation policy of the government. These include encryption of the two-dozen channels of Doordarshan, norms making distribution of DTH in buildings illegal, and questioning the capabilities of Broadcast Engineers Consultant India ? a public sector undertaking ? to effectively test and certify equipment essential for digitisation among others.
All the comments given by the stakeholders are in response to a consultation process undertaken by Trai to sort out the issues that will impact the cable and broadcast industry under digitalised regime. Trai has witnessed a record participation of 84 responses and comments including half-dozen from outside the country. Now, Trai will have to collate the responses and call an open-house meeting to thrash out some of the issues raised by the stakeholders. Subsequently, Trai will submit its recommendations to the information and broadcasting ministry for its consideration.