Mumbai: Asserting that distributors misused the new tariff order to throttle market discovery of TV channel prices, telecom regulator TRAI on Friday sought views of all stakeholders after problems connected with pricing and selection of channels came to the fore. In March 2017, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had notified the 'New Regulatory Framework' for Broadcasting and Cable services. The new framework came into effect on December 29, 2018. TRAI's new regulations or orders for the television and broadcasting sector gave freedom to consumers to select the television channels of their choice.
Analysis reveals that the new regulatory framework has brought transparency in TV channel pricing, harmonised business processes in the sector, and reduced disputes among stakeholders, but adequate choice to select TV channels has not been given to the consumers, TRAI said in a statement. The telecom regulator has issued a consultation paper on tariff related issues for broadcasting and cable services. A lot was expected from the broadcasters and the Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs) to use flexibility given under new regulatory framework to address the concerns and aspirations of the consumers, TRAI said.
However, the given flexibility was misused to throttle market discovery of TV channel prices by giving huge discounts on the bouquets, it said. It has been observed from the tariff declared by the broadcasters under the new regulatory framework that they are offering bouquets at a discount of up to 70 per cent of the sum of a-la-carte rates of pay channels constituting those bouquets, the statement said. It indicates that in the absence of any restriction on the discount on the offering of bouquets, broadcasters are making prices of a-la-carte channels illusory thereby impacting the a-la-carte choice of channels by consumers, it said.
TRAI said no restriction on the number of channels has created another problem wherein broadcasters and DPOs are offering too many bouquets. It said it has observed that too many bouquets are formed by the broadcasters or distributors and many of them contain very similar set of channels, with very few changes.