During entire month of June, industry regulator TRAI and other stakeholders were busy deciding on the cable TV tariff in non-CAS areas. After a consumer survey, consultation paper and several intense meetings with all stakeholders, TRAI is expected to come-up with a proposal, capping the monthly cable TV tariff to Rs 250 plus taxes for a complete bouquet of channels. However, operators are allowed to charge lesser. For free-to-air channels, consumers have to pay just Rs 100.
Among many other issues, the long-pending issue of bringing parity in the price that cable operators and MSOs pay to broadcasters in order to access their content was also discussed upon. Rationalization of the price structure at par with other technologies such as DTH and IPTV was long needed and I hope that this time, it would get clearance from the Government.
