The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed the writ petition filed by the All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) challenging the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) New Tariff Order (NTO) 3.0. The members of AIDCF include Reliance-owned cable companies such as Hathway, Den and GTPL, the Hinduja-group-owned NXTDigital and Asianet Digital Network, which is part of the Rajan Raheja group.
Last month, the Kerala HC had reserved its judgment on the matter after hearing all sides, including the AIDCF, TRAI and the Indian Broadcasting and Digital Federation (IBDF). The IBDF includes top broadcasters such as Disney-Star, Sony and Zee. The dismissal of AIDCF’s writ also came as members of the cable body had begun signing fresh tariff agreements with the above-mentioned broadcasters, media industry sources said, fearing a loss of subscribers to platforms such as direct-to-home and over-the-top services.
The issue had reached a boiling point in February when Disney-Star, Sony, and Zee turned off their signals in 45 million cable homes, causing a weeklong blackout in all major cities. The broadcasters had said they were doing this after AIDCF members had failed to sign fresh tariff agreements with them. The AIDCF said the blackout had happened within 48 hours of a notice sent by broadcasters to them on the issue.
The standoff between cable operators and broadcasters was triggered by the move by Trai, the regulator for both the telecom and broadcast sectors, to amend the NTO 2.0 (now called NTO 3.0) in November 2022, restoring the price cap for a television channel, which is part of a bouquet, to 19 from12 earlier.
AIDCF has contended that Trai had failed to regulate the pricing of TV channels or cap their prices. Instead, it had raised pricing of TV channels that could be included in a bouquet against consumer interest. And that the implementation of NTO 3.0 would result in a steep hike of around 18-35% in cable bills for consumers. However, broadcasters had said the price hike under the new tariff order was nominal (around 5-15%), and came after a gap of four years.
