CAS is finally in and the government is already thinking of implementing it all over the metros soon and by the year end, it may announce CAS implementation in all major cities. I feel as far as government is concerned, it is thrilled to see the amount of revenue it is going to earn from taxes from such a large number of subscribers. Even the state governments have realized how much they were losing from the real subscriber count not being exposed in the non-CAS areas. In Delhi alone, where only 87000 households were paying the entertainment tax from South Delhi earlier, now the figures have already gone more than double of this, about 1.75 lakh set-top boxes have been installed.
It sounds nice that finally the industry has started moving towards an organized functioning and transparency. Things are going to improve further from now onwards and not deteriorate. Some major broadcasters however, have already felt the heat as their viewership has gone down tremendously in CAS areas. Their earlier claims of 80-100% viewership have come down to 40-45%. This was bound to happen and is quite normal although the broadcasters blame it on non-availability of set-top boxes. It is heartening to see another positive effect of CAS. Many lesser known channels are in the visibility zone because of the digitalization of cable networks necessitated by CAS implementation. It is difficult to keep a count of all these channels which are mostly regional. Overall, I sincerely feel a new chapter has been added in the history of broadcasting in the country. Our Cable TV viewership has already come close to that of the US and soon we will be the second largest Cable TV market in the world, next to China. This will fuel the market for further growth not only in the Cable Television field but also in the other services like DTH, IPTV and mobile TV.
IPTV, after creating much hype at the end of last year cannot to be seen or heard now. Well, as said previously, it was too early to expect miracles in this field which some of the journalists in the print media have been predicting. It will take another two years before things start taking up some shape. The biggest hurdle is content aggregation. Of course set-top box installations and servicing hurdles will remain for a longer time.
If we talk of reforms in the broadcasting field, we cannot ignore our judicial system because it is only on the order of the courts that we could implement CAS and now carrying on with other reforms like reasonable channels pricing, looking after the public interest, avoiding blackouts and realistic interconnect agreements.
No comments:
Post a Comment