Direct-to-home (DTH) players have hit upon a new stream to shore up their revenues. Private sector DTH players Dish TV and Tata Sky have put in place a mechanism where a new broadcaster has to pay a carriage fee, as high as Rs 4 crore, to be available on their platform.
This mechanism is seen as similar to the one followed by the cable operators before the implementation of digital TV in CAS areas. Cable operators under the analog television regime charged broadcasters to air their content as analog had a limitation in the number of channels. Now cable operators are still charging the carriage fee mainly to pay for the conversion from analog to digital.
DTH players are making losses due to the massive subsidy of the hardware they provide to consumers. They are not allowed to charge more than the Trai mandated amount from channel subscribers and not allowed to show any exclusive content. ?This puts them at disadvantage in terms of revenue generation,? an analysts said. Subhash Chandra-promoted Dish TV is reportedly asking for Rs 4 crore per channel per year. The public broadcaster Prasar Bharti brought its carriage fee down from Rs 1 crore to Rs 25 lakh after the new CEO, BS Lalli took over recently. The Tata-Star joint venture, Tata Sky charges different amounts depending on the respective deal they make with the broadcasters.
This new charge would severely affect new broadcasters like INX Media and UTV. DD Direct is the market leader with 7 million subscribers followed by Dish TV with more than 2 million subscribers and Tata Sky with more than 1 million subscribers. The DTH players say that the carriage charge is sure to limit the number of channels due to capacity constraints.