About a 1,000 cable operators gathered in Chennai for a one-day fast against the high handedness of Sun TV and its cable operations. Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), which is a separate company, is the cable distribution wing of Sun TV. Cable TV distribution in the state has been dominated by SCV. The cable operators flung many accusations against the Maran brothers. What they want is an end to the monopoly of SCV in the state. They aired their many grievances (a few somewhat wild) against the Marans. The operators have alleged that Maran brothers have threatened them. They have demanded the revival of Arasu Cable Corporation (ACC), launched by the previous DMK government. They are just reiterating what the Tamil Nadu government has already announced. The state will nationalise all private cable TV operations and will revive ACC, which was defunct for the last three years.

The Tamil Nadu government launched Arasu Cable TV in 2008 when the Maran brothers fell out with their grand uncle, then-chief minister M Karunanidhi. Kalaignar TV, too, was launched by the Karunanidhi family to take on Maran?s Sun Group, south India?s largest satellite TV network.

The cable distribution business grew right under the government?s nose. By the time any sort of regulation was thought of, it had spread all over the country, giving employment to lakhs of people. Most of them were video shop owners, who pulled cables over tree tops and apartment buildings to provide a service when satellite television was opened up. This happened in the mid-1990s. Cable television services were brought under Trai only in 2004. The Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) is now available for settlement of disputes between broadcasters and multi system operators (MSOs)/ cable operators.

The Indian TV distribution industry now comprises of more than 6,000 MSOs, around 60,000 local cable operators (LCOs), seven DTH/satellite TV operators and several IPTV service providers. In the 1990s, the business was dominated by street-level cable operators. Then came the large operators from Hinduja group (InCablenet), Zee group (Siti Cable), Asianet, Raheja group (Hathway), RPG group (RPG Netcom) and SCV?who are now known as MSOs. In Tamil Nadu, Sun TV needed distributors. They literally introduced cable operations to the state by persuading video shop owners to turn cable operators.

They entry of the big corporate players changed the way the industry was run. It led to the consolidation of small operators. The MSOs could offer better quality of services and give a wider range of channels. They operate on the model of franchising their cable TV feeds to the small operators. However, many customers felt that they did not have a choice over channels and they had to take the bouquet their local operator offered. By this time, pay channels were increasing, which led to a steep increase in subscription fees. To overcome this problem, the conditional access system (CAS) was introduced.

CAS is a digital mode of transmitting TV channels through a set-top box (STB). The transmission signals are encrypted and viewers need to buy a STB to receive the signal. CAS was introduced by the government in 2001 to control and monitor the cable operators, and to improve the quality of services and control the tariff. Initially, CAS was supposed to be introduced in all the four metros. In Chennai, it was partially introduced in 2003. CAS is not a success story. The DTH TV continues to expand rapidly, attracting large investments from new and existing players. The DTH market began its commercial operations in 2003. The Sun Group launched its Sun Direct in 2007 and is racing towards 6 million subscribers. Its attractive offers have got itself a solid customer base.

In Tamil Nadu, the cable business has always been political. The AIADMK launched an MSO during one of Jayalalithaa?s earlier regimes, which did not take off. It is a fact that SCV has a near monopoly in the state and it managed to edge out Raheja?s Hathway. There has always been a section of cable operators who have been against SCV. There is also a large section that gets along with SCV. The recent protest has been against the Sun bouquet raising the carriage fees. Then all popular channels raise their fees periodically. The sports and movie channels are by far the most expensive.

The new government has promised to reduce cable charges considerably. It will be interesting to see how it will manage to do it. Will it end up subsidising cable households each month? Or can the state government nationalise cable distributions? Opinions differ. Technically, the state government can increase entertainment tax and control the laying of cables. On the other hand, it can pass legislation to nationalise a business if it can prove that it is because of over-riding pubic interest. It will be interesting to watch how all this will play out.

sushila.ravindranath@expressindia.com