While going through the news about the drastic fall of BSE Index in the third week of May 2006, I came across a quote by the CEO of a leading domestic private sector financial firm, who said “We are so enamoured by foreigners in this country that no one has still figured out the impact this circular will have on domestic investors”. This is so much right when we talk about the broadcast industry too. We are always ready to spread a red carpet for the foreign broadcasters at the cost of own industry, be it the Indian broadcasters or the cable operators. It is the foreign broadcasters who always wanted to delay CAS as long as possible and they should be happy that the government has asked for a eight months delay from the High Court. However Court has has not accepted the same and wants the implementation completed in 2006 itself which is a positive sign. The ministry has been asked to submit a plan by 05 July 2006.
Before star enters the DTH fray, there in enough hype being created about the service in all types of media. This was also evident in a seminar held at Mumbai about the consumer interest and grievances in the telecom sector including broadcasting where DTH was projected as a messiah of all ills in Cable Television service. I wonder what will happen after the DTH business too gets embroiled in fracas about sharing of content, open system boxes, pricing of bouquets and channels and non affordability of so much hyped services of multi camera sports broadcast, Video-on-Demand, Interactive games and HDTV. Remember, these services have not even picked up strongly in the developed markets. In India we can easily wait for another five years for these services to become off the shelf pick-ups.
I am also eagerly waiting for Star’s DTH to be launched. After all, let us see what Mr Murdoch has to present to India.
The new downlinking guidelines have been put in place and almost all channels have got registered with the government barring a few Pakistani and Middle East channels. I think it has some thing to do with the policy of their own country. These regulations will definitely slow down the fast pace of new channel launches. Now interconnect regulations are further being looked into for amendments by TRAI. Their consultation paper is already on the net. We are introducing regulations in all fields except CAS. Perhaps no one wants to touch the subject because of its high controversial value. Hope this gets sorted out soon.
Broadcast Asia, Asia’s premier trade event is taking place in Singapore from 20th to 23rd June 2006. Hope to see many of you there because you will be able to see the latest in technology and services in the field of Broadcasting, Telecommunication, Cellular, Enterprise Networking etc.
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