New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on has put on hold the new cable television tariff model that was to take effect at midnight on Friday, 29th December amid confusion surrounding the process of migrating to the new MRP Regime.
The industry regulator on Thursday gave 30 days time for transition to the new regime. Now, the revised deadline for transition will be February 1, 2019.
Earlier, on Wednesday asked service providers to ensure that their subscribers continue to get their pay channels, irrespective of whether they have submitted the new subscription forms or not.
TRAI has decided to postpone implementation of the new system after realising that the migration process in every state has been very slow and also in view of the fact that there is still a lack of awareness among consumers about the new policies.
“The authority hereby advises all broadcasters/DPOs (distribution platform operators)/LCOs (local cable operators) to ensure that any channel that a consumer is watching today is not discontinued on 29.12.2018,” TRAI said in a press release put up on its website on Wednesday afternoon.
The cable industry had time till December to complete the migration process. The extension given by TRAI now gives subscribers a possibly reasonable window to understand the system and make their picks.
The TRAI release states that subscribers will get “ample opportunity” to make informed choices. It does not mention when the new tariff system will take effect.
While TRAI has announced its decision at eleventh hour, almost all the Broadcasters had released their a-la-cart and package prices adhering to the new tariff regime and Some cable operators had started distributing subscription forms this week but the TRAI order might slow down their progress.
