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The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), an apex body of broadcasters
operating in India, has conveyed to the Telecom Regulatory Authority
of India (TRAI) in a formal reply that television media provides
unique programming and content essentially comprised of copyright-able
material and other intellectual property and, thus, "fixing
prices for copyright-able material would be tantamount to regulating
prices of copyrights - in effect regulating creativity."
Pointing out that "cable television is not a utility and therefore
commercial issues like rates, periodicity of revision of rates and
other commercial matters should not be regulated," the IBF's
reply, a copy of which is available with indiantelevision.com, puts
the blame on the doorstep of the cable fraternity.
The IBF has pointed out, "Cable monopolies are the curse.
In actuality, the industry will greatly benefit from increased transparency
and thoughtful regulation of the most highly monopolistic segment
of the industry: cable operator control of territory and households."
On conditional access system (CAS), IBF's stand is that STBs should
be paid for by the cable operator (meaning boxes should be provided
free to CAS consumers) because "it is ultimately the system's
asset, which can be shifted from one subscriber household to another."
The broadcasters have also maintained that regulating advertising
time on pay channels would be detrimental and that the broadcasters
are aware that too much advertising would take away consumers and
viewers from that particular channel. Bottomline: don't pass any
order on that and let the market forces decide what should, and
can be, done.
On the other hand, the cable fraternity has blamed the broadcasters
for most of the ills afflicting the industry.
Zee Telefilms cable arm and the biggest multi-system operator,
Siti Cable, has pointed out to TRAI, amongst other things, that
the regulator must ensure that content is made available to all
platforms or modes of delivery (like CAS-enabled regions, DTH and
headend-in-the-sky) without any "discrimination."
This would mean that Siti Cable is attempting to draw TRAI's attention
to the reluctance of major broadcasters like Star India and SET
India to come aboard ASC Enterprise-Zee combine-promoted DTH platform.
National Cable & Telecom Association (NCTA), in its reply that
would go today to TRAI, has said that the broadcasters 'sabotaged'
implementation of CAS and that advertising on pay channels should
be regulated.
"The CAS regime is threatening the pay TV broadcaster's advertising
revenues in the short run, as it will expose the true extent of
their viewership to the advertisers. It is also threatening the
lucrative pay-TV subscriber revenues, which these broadcasters are
virtually 'extorting' from the Cable service providers on most unreasonable
terms. For example, channels have been 'bundled' into bouquets of
channels and the Cable service providers and the consumers have
to buy all or nothing," NCTA's president and Home Cable Network
MD, Vikki Choudhry, has said in reply to the consultation paper
issued by TRAI.
With the cable and broadcast industry dropping all semblance of
any bonhomie, which had been tom-tommed some months back in the
wake of CAS deliberations, TRAI has a big task on its hand: that
is, first, bring the warring factions together before trying regulatory
mechanism for the industry.
Also Read:
IBF
response to Trai
Reply
of National Cable & Telecom Association to Trai
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