January 2nd, 2020 / 6:00 PM
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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Wednesday, January 2, made an announcement about the changes in the DTH and Cable TV regulation, to make more channels accessible at lower rates to cable TV subscribers.
The new rules, which will be effective from March 1, are part of the changes made by the regulator to its 2017 tariff order for broadcasting and cable TV services.
For all free-to-air channels, the user will have to pay a fixed rate of ₹160 as a minimum monthly subscription price. Users with multiple TVs and TV connections with different names of one person will be charged a maximum of 40 per cent of declared Network Capacity Fee (for the secondary and TV connections),Hindustan Timesreported.
The maximum NCF charges have also been revised to ₹130 for 200 channels, and the price is exclusive of taxes.
This package, however, will not include the channels that Ministry of Information and Broadcasting declared mandatory. The TRAI has allowed Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs) to give discounts on long-term subscriptions, which have validity for six months or more.
TRAI said that in no case shall the sum of the a-la-carte rates of the pay channels forming part of a package exceed 1.5 times the rate of the package, of which the channel is a part.
Further, the a-la-carte rates of each pay channel (MRP), which forms part of a package, shall not exceed three times the average rate of a pay channel of the package, of which the pay channel is a part.
According to the telecom regulator, only those channels which have an MRP of ₹12 or less in the package can be included by broadcasters. It said that broadcasters’ concern regarding huge carriage fee being charged by DPOs will also be considered and taken into account.
A cap of ₹4 lakh per month has been prescribed on carriage fee payable in a month to a DPO by a broadcaster for carrying a channel in the country.
TRAI is also considering to give more flexibility to DPOs to place the TV channels on the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG).
It is mandatory that while placing channels on EPG, the channel of a language in a genre will be kept together. It mandated that such EPG layout should be reported to the TRAI. There cannot be any changes made to this without prior approval of the Authority.
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Written by : Sumanti Sen
Edited by : Shubhendu Deshmukh