TRAI extends deadline to March 31 to choose TV channels under new regulations

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently mandated a new regulatory regime for the cable TV subscriber and Direct-To-Home (DTH) which was scheduled to be implemented from January 1^st 2019, which was later extended to February 1^st 2019. Now, as per notification by TRAI, the ‘New Regulatory Framework’ for Broadcasting and Cable services will take place from April 1^st 2019. The subscribers are free to change their best fit plan anytime on or before July 31^st 2019.

As per the latest notification by TRAI, 65 per cent of subscribers of cable services and 35 per cent subscribers of all DTH platforms has already exercised the option.

Currently, there are 1000 million cable service TV homes and 67 million DTH TV homes in India.

The regulatory body has come up with a set of rules which includes prices of channels, freedom of choosing packages and plans and much more. These rules will be implemented on all operators including Airtel DTH, Tata Sky, DishTV, Hathway Cable, Siti Cable, Sun DTH and more. Currently, all the operators had a free run in offering channel packages because of which the customers were bound to choose the whole package for selecting one favourite channel.

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As per the TRAI’s regulations, the customers will have to pay a base price of Rs 130 plus taxes extra which will include 100 Free-To-Air channels. The service providers can charge more than Rs 130 for the base package and will offer multiple a la carte packs of different channel braodcasters including ZEE, Sony, TV18, Star and more.

However, DTH operators like Airtel DTH and Tata Sky are offering a base pack which starts from just Rs 99.

TRAI has also introduced a portal which list down all the price of all paid channels along packages of different broadcasters. No operator can charge more than the maximum retail price declared by TRAI.

The customers can also deselect any Free-To-Air channel and choose any other channel from a bucket of 535 FTA channels but the total number cannot cross 100 channels for the base pack.

In case, the customer has already paid for the annual or semi-annual plan, then the distributor are bound to provide the same services for the remaining period without any change in tariff plan. However, if the customer shift to any new package, the proportional balance amount of the existing pack will be adjusted in the new package.