Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Digital Cable TV Operators Association, an organisation that represents a section of MSOs and LCOs in Tamil Nadu has issued a legal notice to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). As per the notice the Association has asked TRAI to direct the pay TV broadcasters to refrain from increasing the TV channels’ prices as this would cause negative impacts on the consumers and cable distribution sector on whole.
The legal notice to TRAI stated, “It is worthwhile to mention here that our clients are not doubting on your intentions but have been shocked and surprised to see the conduct and malafide of the pay channel broadcasters who have wrongly interpreted the New Tariff Order, 2020 and have substantially inflated the prices of the pay channels.”
The legal notice to TRAI also pointed out that as per new rates declared by broadcasters, the prices for consumers would increase by 100 to 200 percent.
The notice further stated that the members of the Tamil Nadu Digital Cable TV Operators Association had supported all the actions of TRAI in order to promote and create transparency in the business models” for all the service providers of India’s cable TV and broadcasting sectors, including implementation of the New Tariff Order, 2020 whose objective was to make the cable TV services more economical for low and medium earning of people.
The TN Cable TV Operators Association has stated that it was surprising that pay TV broadcasters are increasing the subscription prices of TV channels at a time when OTT platforms were trying to make their services more affordable to increase their subscriber base.
They further argued that such a move by broadcasters would cause loss to the subscriber base of the LCOs and MSOs, especially as such an “abnormal (and) substantial rise in prices by the broadcasters only for the cable TV industry” would financially impact LCOs and MSOs.
