Once again the fate of the Indian cable and broadcasting industry hangs delicately between the right intentions of the sector regulator and the shaky will of the government to implement them.
As part of the tariff revision exercise for the sector that reaches over 90 million cable homes, mostly with an access to old analogue copper-wire cable delivery, Trai is eyeing 2013 as the cut-off date for the complete conversion to digital and addressable cable TV. That is the only solution for cleaning out our cable market, which is fraught with under-declarations, uneven subscriptions revenues, carriage fees, growing number of cable channels?550 channels already operational and 150 more waiting for clearances and the growing cost of operations among others.
For the industry, a complete digitalisation is the only solution towards digital cable at affordable pricing. But simply put, this means putting the entire country under the contentious umbrella of Conditional Access System (CAS). A similar move, though at the direction of a court order in 2006, did lead to selective CAS rollout across the three metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata with debatable results. For broadcasters and other stakeholders, CAS was a failure back then as either consumer switched to the digital DTH platforms or simply paid extra to the local operators to access the pay channels without routing them through a mandatory set-top box.
The cable prices are still not uniform and transparent as intended by Trai. And this is because while Trai recommends, it is up to the government to enforce its recommendations including CAS. But the government develops cold feet when it hears CAS. It did so in 2003, and 2007. And it may do so once again.
So, the gulf between the regulators? intentions and government?s action still continues. But the regulator is again at work doing what it does best?make recommendations. And we can guess what the government will do next going by what it did three years ago. It will write to all state governments looking to gauge their mood for participating in CAS enforcement. If it succeeds, the Indian cable sector will be lucky, if not, the regulator is there to make more recommendations.
?ashish.sinha@expressindia.com