TRAI(Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) is a regulatory body whose main purpose is to oversee the telecom as well as satellite entertainment services along with increase broadband penetration in the country. Recently, TRAI has come up with new rules for DTH (Direct to home) operators like Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV (ADTV), Videocon D2H, Reliance Digital TV (RDTV), JIO DTH, Sun Direct, DD Direct+ or cable providers.

In India, TV is not just an electronic gadget but an important part of the family, TV viewing is more of a family activity, so people are really apprehensive what these new rules mean for them. Some viewers are thinking about increasing prices others are thinking about the loss in existing channels. So let us dive into the rules so that customers may prepare accordingly beforehand.

WHAT RULES?

At this juncture, nobody is cent percent sure about what the exact thing is going to be. According to TRAI’s statement, a new regulation is going to be effective from 29th December 2018.

As per the new regulation, bundle channel packaging system will not exist as a concept. Individual subscribers will have to select there own assortment of channels and services and pay accordingly, unlike the earlier system in which no individual deals were there rather most of them were included in bulk. In accordance with the above regulation, TRAI has asked all the channels to publish each and every channel’s price.

NEW TARIFF

Each user who subscribes has to bay a basic fee of Rs.130 for 100 free channels( can be selected by the subscriber) plus taxes.

Apart from that either you can select either all the channels in a network given below or channels individually.

• Star India: 49 INR (13 channels)
• Zee Entertainment: 45 INR (24 channels)
• Sony Pictures Network: 31 INR (9 channels)
• Times Network: 7 INR (4 channels)
• Indiacast: 25 INR (20 channels)
• TV today Network: 0.75 INR (2 channels)

Individual channels Pricing:-

These are some of the basic channels and networking broadcasters that has been stated.

SUBSCRIBER’S PROFIT OR LOSS?

In the case of the customer, whether this new regulation would result in a reduction of prices or increase in prices:  

• Before this regulation came into effect, the subscribers who had subscribed to the higher packages with your DTH or cable operators, that will be providing them almost all the channels, they had to pay around (400 – 600) INR. But now if the subscriber subscribes to almost all the channels, then the cost after 29th December, if effective, will shoot up to around 800 INR or more. So that’s a clear loss for all the subscribers.
• Whereas if a subscriber subscribes to the basic 100 free channels then he will have to pay only 130 INR and taxes, which is mighty low as compared to the previous high amount of around 600 INR. Also according to BARC, the viewer measurement company, data 50% viewers does not watch more than 30 channels, so this category of viewers will be most profited by this step of TRAI.
• The other 50% of viewers will have to really compare all the channels and the network prices to get the best deal out of this new regulation. They need to research the prices of each and every channel and find out there cheapest assortment.

For eg: (Basic 100 channels) [130 INR+taxes] + (Star Sports 3 SD)[4 INR] + (Living Foodz)[10 INR] + (Times Now SD)[5 INR] + (National Geographic Channel SD )[2 INR] = 151 INR + taxes

CABLE OPERATORS and/or DTH

The cable and/or the DTH operators are not so happy as they will be now profiting more money due to higher pricing of channels from the subscribers as opposed to earlier what they were getting earlier.

But they are also worried not happy with popular channel prices being priced at 19 INR, then if 35 channels are viewed then it will come around 785 INR which is too high. So they are really hoping that popular networking channels slash their prices.

Because if people stop seeing popular channels then and viewership will take a hit, so, for now, they have requested BARC, to stop giving information till they figure out what is going to happen on 29th December 2018.

OUR TAKE

The new directive of TRAI is not user-friendly rather it would lead to more biased tariff plans by the cable operators who would be more profitable if this regulation goes through as it is.

Another aspect of this regulation is that it does give the users more freedom to pay only for what they are watching, as opposed to the previous rules where most of the channels that were there were never used.

All an all, TRAI may have done the right thing considering the demand for online streaming services such as Hotstar, Netflix and Amazon Prime. We will nevertheless have to wait for reviews about the new executive order.

What do you think of these new regulations?  Do let us know in comments below.

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