India – The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced a new Tariff Order and Interconnection Regulations for the digital cable TV systems in the country.

As per the regulation, all channels (pay and free-to air) will now be offered on a-la-carte basis to subscribers. There will be a Basic Service Tier (BST) consisting of a minimum of 100 free-to air (FTA) channels, comprising at least five channels of each genre – news and current affairs, infotainment, sports, kids, music, lifestyle, movies and general entertainment in Hindi, English and a regional language of the concerned region. The TRAI also requires 18 channels of the public broadcaster Doordarshan and the Lok Sabha TV channel to be included in the BST. Subscribers can form their own package of a maximum of 100 FTA channels for not more than Rs. 100 per month.

Multi-system Operators (MSOs) have to offer the BST. However, subscribers are not obligated to subscribe to the BST; instead, they can form their own package of a maximum of 100 FTA channels. Pay channel monthly subscription should not exceed Rs.150.

The TRAI has mandated MSOs to carry a minimum of 500 channels from starting January 2013. For smaller MSOs having less than 25,000 subscribers, the TRAI will extend the deadline up to April 2013 for them to build capacity. To ensure that consumers are not affected, the TRAI has mandated that every MSO should have a minimum capacity to carry 200 channels by July 1, 2012.

While the implementation of digital TV systems will incur considerable investment by MSOs, the TRAI has noted that every MSO may fix the Carriage Fee. However, the fee must be charged in a uniform, non-discriminatory and transparent manner. The TRAI will intervene if the Carriage Fees are deemed to be unreasonable.

Revenue sharing between the MSOs and local cable operators (LCOs) shall be based on mutual negotiations. The fees charged by a broadcaster to MSO remains set at 42% of the rate they charge in the non-addressable (analogue) systems.

The MSOs can fix the retail tariff and package and price offerings. However, the sum of the a-la-carte rates of channels, forming part of a bouquet, shall not exceed 1.5 times the rate of the bouquet. Further, the a-la-carte rate of any channel shall not exceed three times the average channel rate of the bouquet.