DTH SERVICES IN A PERPLEXED SITUATION

DTH services were announced last year with much fanfare but are a non-starter till date due to the confused state of mind of our government. Earlier Doordarshan wanted to take the advantage of this direct to home technology but gave upto after the command was shifted to a new incumbent. All of a sudden it dawned on the authorities that DTH was only for a few and did not fulfill the social objectives of the National Broadcaster. No regulations existed in India that could harm DTH. Taking advantage of the situation and to have the benefit of being the first with their experience in heralding satellite revolution in India, Star TV announced its DTH plans. Hardly had their full-page advertisement appeared in the newspapers that the alarm bells started ringing in the government quarters announcing an apprehension of a similar chaos originating in the skies as it happened on the ground in the case of Cable TV.

 “There should be separate restrictions on international broadcasting and national broadcasting”

“Mandatory uplinking is not practical”

“Why uplinking from India – control it at the point of delivery and distribution”

Through a notification, the government banned all DTH reception and made it a licensed service without any formal procedure for obtaining such a license that created the DTH controversy with clarification after clarification from both sides. Some distributors of STAR TV for DTH services had even gone to the courts against the notification. Everyone’s attention got diverted once talks of DTH ervices being permitted in the Broadcast Bill made rounds in the industry.

However, who-so-ever drafted the Bill had no idea of how the country could benefit from this new technology. They have taken DTH at par with other local delivery services forgetting that every delivery method has it own character and has to be dealt with in a different manner.

Section 9(1) (e) of chapter IV of the Broadcast Bill, empowers the proposed Broadcasting Authority of India (BAI) to grant license for DTH. The above licenses shall be within the purview of certain conditions. Some of the conditions are:

Apart from the normal restrictions as programme content the license will be granted with the condition that the licensee shall provide a tier basis service which may include:-

a minimum number and type of broadcasting services for every permitted services as determined by the regulations; and a minimum number and type of broadcasting services of the public service broadcaster as determined by the regulations; that the licensee shall use not more then such number of channels as determined by the regulations out of the total channels capacity of the system for providing his own programming:

Provided that such programmes as referred to in sub-clause above shall be subject to the programme standards and codes and such other conditions as may be required by the Authority for other broadcasting services.

The period of licence for each category shall be for such period not exceeding ten years as may be determined by the regulations.

A licence shall not be transferable. 

The Authority shall invite bids for grant of licence for Direct-to-Home service and the licence shall be granted to the highest bidder if he fulfils all conditions for the grant of such licence. 

The Authority shall grant such number of licence, not less than two as may be prescribed. 

The licensee shall carry out uplinking of satellite broadcasting services or Direct-to-Home services from India only. 

Provides that the authority may also permit continuance of uplinking of satellite broadcasting services being received in India immediately before the commencement of this Act from outside the country till such time as it is reasonably required for shifting or creating the necessary uplinking facilities in India on payment of such additional license fee as deemed fit. 

DTH is a television broadcast in Ku-Band spectrum from satellites that can be received by the subscribers using a small dish of 60-80 cm dia and a decoder box. With the help of the latest digital compression technology, a bouquet of cannels can be down linked in a bedroom along with some other value added services like Internet and interactive games etc. 

INSAT-2 is equipped with DTH downlinking facility. How can the government deny a foothold in the DTH-market for itself?

One single satellite can beam 200 or more channels to the subscribers in a country like India or in a number of countries. On one hand we are licensing only the highest bidder and on the other we want to license two or more service providers. There can’t be more that one highest bidders.

There is also a restriction that if you obtain DTH licence, you can’t apply for a satellite-broadcasting license as they have been listed as separate services. Here, we are forgetting that the viewership for satellite broadcasting is through the cable operators whereas DTH has a direct viewership that may not subscribe to cable. A broadcaster needs viewership and so he would endeavor to use all possible delivery methods to increase his reach. We have no right to restrict his business.

One of the more practical approach world have been to have a fixed license fee for DTH services and permit as many service providers as desirous of applying for the license. It is the government that would make more money. The license fee could be structured on the number of channels and services a DTH broadcaster wishes to provide.

Also, a broadcaster should be permitted to apply for both satellite broadcasting and DTH license, which is happening elsewhere in the world.

Why should there be a restriction of uplinking only from India? We could give an extra benefit to those uplinking from India in the shape of a reduced license fee.

One should also not forget the possibilities of multiple beam DTH broadcast catering to different regions in the country like Rupert Murdoch wanted to introduced in the United States where due to restriction on local broadcast on DTH, he was a non starter.

As it is well known, DTH service can start without any gestation period and if programming and grouping of channels is attractive can become popular very soon. As the technology is advancing and enough infrastructures is created in the country to manufacture receiving equipment, DTH services may become at par with Cable TV and thus may give cable operators a run for their money. As it is they are scared of the high quality performance of DTH channels since the cable technology is not yet that superior. Here the government has all the reasons to protect this fledgling industry.

Considering that the basic strength of cable is local programming, uplinking of the same for regional DTH broadcast should be prohibited.

The situation now, is a very changed one. On June 4, India’s indigenous satellite INSAT-2D was successfully launched from Kourou (French Guyana). Its successful launch and perfect positioning in the orbit has heated the controversy once again. Since INSAT-2D is equipped with DTH downlinking facility, government was obliged to liberalise its stand. In the face of present development how can it deny a foothold in the DTH market for itself?

Considering all this, a number of changes may still take place before the bill is again presented in the Parliament. There is of course a big question of political will to accept the new technologies in their stride.

Source: http://cablequest.org/articles/dth/item/1424-dth-services-in-a-perplexed-situation.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/articles/dth/item/1424-dth-services-in-a-perplexed-situation.html