Singapore – MDA’s revised Media Market Conduct Code took few by surprise, least of all StarHub and the many channels it currently carries exclusively. Under the terms of last week’s announcement, the new Public Interest Obligation requires qualified pay TV licensees to cross carry each other’s content that is acquired or renewed on an exclusive basis on or after 12 March 2010. But as the changes to the code had been widely leaked, and therefore anticipated, StarHub is believed to have locked in many of its channels exclusively for 3 and in some cases 5 years. Networks seemed unfazed by the announcement, saying that, as the changes to the code cannot be enforced retroactively, the cross carriage obligation will not impact them until the expiration of their current contracts. It’s also no secret that, although having lost out on the BPL soccer to SingTel’s mio TV, this left StarHub with a significant amount of money to sweeten their exclusive deals with channel providers. A statement from StarHub said, “We understand that the proposed regime will not be applied retrospectively to StarHub’s existing agreements with our channel partners. As a result, the new regime will have little impact on us in the foreseeable future. Due to strict confidentiality and business obligations, we are not able to provide details of our existing agreements with our content partners, nor will we be able to provide information on upcoming content that is up for renewal or bidding.” SingTel said they will be taking a wait and see approach before commenting on the implications of the changes to the code.