The regulatory body had in its tariff order issued on Monday permitted multi-system operators to fix carriage fee, keeping in view that they are making substantial investments for implementation of digital addressable cable TV Systems.
Trai has, however, said the fees determined have to be notified in the reference interconnect offer and cannot be increased for at least two years. It has held the authority would intervene if it is felt that the fee fixed is unreasonable.
MSOs are major cable operators who give feed to local cable operators.
M G Azhar, president (strategy & business development) of multi-system operator Den Networks, said, "It is a welcome move. It will help all in the value chain: Consumers will have more choice in terms of content, broadcasters will benefit from the reduction in carriage fees and MSOs will gain from the increased volume of business they get, both in terms of carriage of channels and the enhanced addressable subscriber base."
At present, cable operators carry 70-80 channels in the analogue mode.
Trai has directed MSOs to carry 500 channels from January 1, 2013. While carriage fee per channel will reduce with the "must carry" provision specified by the regulatory body yesterday, revenues from carriage of channels will go up due to the increased business, said multi-system operators.
Deepak Jacob, general counsel and head of regulatory affairs, Star India, said, "Carriage fees came into being because of artificial constraints in bandwidth.
With Trai mandating MSOs to carry 500 channels from January, market forces will come into play and carriage fees will come down.
Cable operators will not be able to deny access to broadcasters.
Additionally, the regulatory body has noted that carriage fees should be determined and charged by MSOs in a uniform, non-discriminatory
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