ESPN is off the air again in Chennai, Haryana and Mumbai, according to various media reports. As the time came for the cable operators to renew their annual contracts with the channel, many of them decided to protest against the numbers, which they say are loaded against them.

ESPN, which is a pay channel, apparently has placed a 25 per cent increase in number of subscribers on the contract and increased the tariff per connection to Rs 7 up from Rs 5.70. A move that has made cable operators hopping mad.

What is more interesting is that the contract is for a period of eight months and fifteen days and expires just before the World Cup. And so the operators figure that if they don't fight now, it would be never as they cannot hold out against public opinion, once theWorld Cup gets going.

Says one cable operator, ``ESPN has increased subscriber figures by 25 per cent. But actual statistics will show that there is no corresponding increase in the number of cable connections. Even higher sales of television sets was in the replacement market with not many significant new sales. So where do we go for business?''

However, as Modi Entertainment Network's chief executive Tony DeSilva puts it: ``That is not what the cable operators say when they go out for advertisement collections or for adding on business. Then the figures go up and if we go by the figures they quote in such instances, we are grossly underpaid.''

So the bone of contention remains and DeSilva says that any effort to bring in addressibility systems to track actual numbers would have to come from the operators themselves.

The operators aren't buying. The addressibility systems are too expensive to install and once installed there is no guarantee that a subscriber will buy a decoder at his end, is whatthey say.

Meanwhile, the cable operators are not entirely united in their stand. While the bigger operators in the city say that some of the smaller operators have signed up with ESPN and continue to air the channel, it is the contention of some of the smaller operators that they cannot trust the bigger operators.

As one regional cable operator puts, ``Last year we threw in our lot with the big operators in the city and finally when it came to the crunch, they walked away without taking any stand. We lost face with our subscribers and it costs us a lot. So this time round we are wary of where we go.''

Nevertheless, it seems that the bigger operators or `head ends', as they are popularly called, are determined this time. In fact, some of them have gone to the extent of placing their decoders with smaller operators in a bid to win their trust.

The unity is however incomplete with some of the smaller operators airing the channel. There is one point though where all the operators are apparently incomplete agreement. ``ESPN has now hiked the charges to Rs 7 per subscriber and asked us to pay for higher subscriber numbers. We cannot afford to do it even at this level. When the contract expires before the World Cup we learn that ESPN is planning to increase the tariff to Rs 12 per subscriber. At that level of payout we are finished and we can't even hold out at that time, as there will be public pressure. So it is now or never for us,''they say.

And even as the stand-off continues, the operators wait and watch for their cues as the Sahara Cup comes close. As one operator tells us ``We will know for sure how many cable operators are ready to jump into the fray when the Sahara Cup comes. Then we can draw up our future strategies.'' Apparently, September 19 is the deadline for the cable operators to decide one way or the other.