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The
Indian Broadcasting Foundation meeting on CAS - or conditional
access system - held at the offices of Discovery in New
Delhi ended after a marathon five hour session with head
honchos of channels having tired smiles on their faces.
In attendance were Star India's Peter Mukerjea, SET India's
Kunal Dasgupta, Discovery India's Deepak Shourie, ESPN-Star
Sports' Manu Sawhney, Turner Broadcasting's Anshuman Misra
and Zee TV's Sunil Khanna.
The meeting covered a range of issues related to CAS right
from technology (analogue or digital - what is the way forward?),
to the cost of the addressable set top box to the mode of
financing (lease or bank finance etc).
The IBF committee concluded that the task force on CAS should
give broadcasters a chance to spell out the details for
the transition towards addressability. And that they would
have to meet over the next few days to thrash out the details
of the way forward. The IBF members also said that the issue
of CAS should be referred to the Parliamentary Select committee
headed by parliamentarian Somnath Chatterjee in the interest
of the consumer. Observers see in this an effort by the
IBF to bury CAS in ordinate delays as the committee has
not been able to move on the Convergence Bill for a long
time now and is unlikely to do so in future too.
A source close to the discussions said that there was an
undercurrent of resentment against Essel group and Zee TV
chairman Subhash Chandra for openly endorsing CAS in isolation
of the IBF yesterday. "In principle, all present agreed
that there is no getting away from CAS, but we have to approach
it with a full understanding of the issues and considering
all perspectives jointly," says the source.
Another issue that the IBF agreed upon is that six months
is to short a time to get addressable boxes into enough
Indian homes as hardly any boxes are available in the market.
Additionally, the IBF concluded that a focused communications
strategy on the CAS issue has to be drawn up, something
the IBF is believed to be working on.
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