Regulatory micromanagement has made Pay TV uncompetitive: DTH affiliation

DTH Affiliation, the apex physique of personal direct-to-home (DTH) operators, has requested the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to undertake value forbearance as regulatory micromanagement has stagnated the expansion of the Pay TV business. The affiliation additionally acknowledged that the sector has change into uncompetitive towards DD Free Dish and OTT platforms as a consequence of discriminatory insurance policies.

In its response to TRAI’s session paper titled ′Concern associated to New Regulatory Framework for Broadcasting and Cable providers’, the DTH Affiliation acknowledged that the present New Tariff Order (NTO) framework laid down by TRAI has restricted the expansion of operators whereas forcing clients to pay extra for TV channels.

It added that the authority ought to revert to the pre-NTO coverage of permitting the distribution platform operators (DPOs) to cost and bundle their very own plans/bouquets with none restrictions so as to meet the calls for of the subscribers.

The DTH Affiliation additionally acknowledged that DD Free Dish and OTT are unregulated whereas the Division of Telecom (DoT) is planning to waive licence charges for IPTV gamers. “With DD Free Dish and OTT not being regulated by TRAI, conventional distribution platforms have change into uncompetitive of their value providing to subscribers. DoT can be proposing to waive off license charges from IPTV,” the affiliation submitted.

It requested the regulator to both regulate pricing for Pay TV, DD Free Dish, and OTT or preserve forbearance for all three. “Broadcasters supply their pay channels freed from value to DD Free Dish and both free or at a lot decrease charges to OTT platforms, whereas the identical channels are given at a lot larger, TRAI notified charges to Pay TV platforms. This ends in discrimination for subscribers and makes Pay TV platforms uncompetitive as towards DD Free Dish and OTT platforms,” it added.

It identified that the subscriber base of DTH has fallen from 70.99 million to 68.89 million within the final one yr whereas that of MSOs/HITS operators having greater than 1 million subscribers, has decreased from 47.58 million to 45.55 million.

“On this hyper-competitive business, we request for value forbearance for DPOs as that will be greatest for the subscribers and the business. Forbearance would additionally enable DPOs to cost packages preserving in thoughts the paying capability of the subscribers which they know greatest as a consequence of their proximity to the shopper versus the broadcasters,” it averred.

Whereas stating that the regulator doesn’t must be prescriptive, the affiliation argued that the market forces would rationalise the costs that are making mass market subscribers endure and forcing them emigrate to different unregulated platforms.

On the TRAI’s prescription of a 35% distribution price (20% fastened and 15% variable), the affiliation that the margin is just too lopsided and discretionary and is the foundation explanation for negotiations, disputes, and litigation in a really simple content material proprietor/content material distributor relationship. “Furthermore, the margin must be relevant on each a la carte and broadcaster packs as the identical quantity of effort goes into enabling the 2, on the a part of the DPO,” it stated.

The DTH Affiliation has additionally urged the TRAI to permit an annual inflation-linked increment mechanism for Community Capability Charge (NCF). It additionally desires value ceilings on Multi TV pricing to be eliminated as A number of TVs are owned by prosperous customers.

The DTH operators additionally need licence price to be relevant to all of the DPOs. “We request to take away the discriminatory license price remedy being meted out to the DTH Trade and supply a stage enjoying subject by both waiving off the License Charge from DTH or making the identical License Charge relevant to Cable, HITS, IPTV, and OTT,” the affiliation contended. ScoopMint