|
The Information
& Broadcasting ministry task force, which has estimated that
Cable Television reaches 38 million households in the country and
has a potential to generate Rs. 7500 crore annually, has recommended
that government should allow the consumer to pay only for the channels
they watch and not for all the channels they are offered.
The task force
of the ministry headed by one of its official, Rakesh Mohan, has
also recommended that Conditional Access System (CAS), which helps
in monitoring what a consumer is watching and for how much time,
should be enforced through Cable Television Networks (Regulation)
Act, 1955. It has also recommended that unauthorised viewing of
channels and their distribution should be made a cognizable offence.
In a recent
development, the ministry of Information & Broadcasting has
sent the draft report submitted by the task force on CAS back to
the task force calling for clarity of certain issues related to
it. The draft report has recommended a three tier pricing and technology
regime. The free-to-air channels are recommended to be made available
in the present mode directly without CAS and all submission based
channels to be included in CAS. The I&B ministry has asked some
questions to the task force which prepared the draft report. Questions
are: (a) By what time cable operators will be ready to offer CAS?
(b) How many set top boxes, (CAS system works through set top boxes
installed with the TV sets) can be made available through domestic
market and through imports? (c) What type of set top boxes would
be deployed? And (d) How many STBs would be required?
I&B ministry
is believed to have rejected the entertainment industry’s plea
that above mentioned issues would be decided by the market forces!
Ministry is in the opinion that if many things and issues remain
undiscussed and unsolved, entertainment industry may manipulate
certain things. Like broadcasters may continue to bundle their weaker
channels with their strong channels and cable operators on the other
hand would pass on the costs to the consumer. A ‘Communications
Commission of India’ is proposed under the Communication Convergence
Bill and is expected to come only after the Parliamentary Standing
Committee gives its report on the Bill. Ministry officials say that
the Communication Commission of India would act as a regulator and
the above mentioned matters would be looked after by the commission.
Meanwhile, the Information & Broadcasting ministry has started
working on something other than DTH or CAS. It is pushing ahead
the proposal of bringing free-to-air channels on KU-band. For this
technology a 30 inch disk antenna and set-top box is required. But
it is very cheap compared with earlier maintained CAS system. Government
has plans to offer the set-top box at 50 per cent subsidy initially.
Afterall, the most important issue is who will pay for the set-top
boxes? Asking the consumers to pay for the boxes would not be that
easy. While the above mentioned technique is considered as a poorman’s
DTH, STAR’s James Murdoch has demanded a rethink on DTH from
the I&B Ministry.
Amitabh Parashar
|
