Sectoral tribunal, the Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), ahead of the much awaited roll out of cable TV digitization has allowed Multi-System Operators (MSOs) to charge placement fee, setting aside the restrictions of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on placement fee, number of channels and carriage fee. Comparing cable with DTH, the tribunal observed that MSOs can charge placement fee from broadcasters for keeping their channels in a particular slot and TRAI’s regulation to curb it was “bad in law”. Cable services in the country’s four metros are slated to go completely digital by November 1.
The TDSAT bench headed by Justice S B Sinha has further said that placement charges, if any, will depend upon the mutual agreement between the broadcasters and the MSO. The direction that the MSOs must set up head-ends having carrying capacity of 500 channels too has been set aside, keeping in view that the market forces play an important and significant role in the matter of carrying capacity of the MSO, hence it should not be regulated.
However, TDSAT has upheld certain broadcast regulatory clauses allowing customers to select a combination of 100 free-to-air channels for basic plan. The tribunal also largely consented with the tariff order and regulation of TRAI and gave a go-ahead to TRAI’s revenue sharing mechanism between the local cable operators and the MSOs.
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