Chennai: The Supreme Court judgement upholding the regulator’s tariff order related to fixation of charges for free and pay channels is a “big win” for consumers, TRAI Chairman RS Sharma said Tuesday. The order will provide consumers choice of channels, transparency and better service quality, he added.
“It is a historical judgement in the sense that this is a big win for consumers of television services in our country because it provides them choice and transparency. They will be able to get whatever channels they want to subscribe to, and will not be unnecessarily pushed some other channels,” Sharma said.
A two-member bench comprising Justices Rohinton F Nariman and Navin Sinha on Tuesday dismissed the plea challenging the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) March, 2017 regulations and tariff order relating to fixation of charges for free and pay channels.
The apex court held that the Regulation and the Tariff Order have been made keeping the interests of the stakeholders and the consumers in mind. TRAI’s framework aims to ensure better quality of services and the regulator also expects the tariffs to come down over a period of time, Sharma said.
The new rule
As per the new tariff order by Trai, 100 free-to-air channels have to be offered at Rs 130 per month (excluding taxes) and rest a-la-carte and every channel will now have to put up what is its MRP.
The new tariff order by TRAI mandates broadcasters to declare the MRP within 60 days and distribution platform operators to declare network capacity fee and distribution retail price (DRP) within 180 days.
“It is a huge, new framework, this is a comprehensive framework on tariff, quality of service and interconnection. We also expect this framework to reduce the litigations among the stakeholders because it will ensure hassle-free smooth
relationship among various stakeholders,” Sharma added.
The country’s leading media house Zee Entertainment has welcomed the apex court order and termed it as ‘strong and positive’ step.
“While the overall media and entertainment landscape has been evolving at a rapid pace, it is for the first time in 26 years that such a strong and positive step has been taken to eradicate the lack of transparency in the entire value chain
of the broadcast and cable industry,” ZEE and Essel Group Chairman, Subhash Chandra said.
He further added, “It will certainly help the LCOs (local cable operators), MSOs (multiple system operators) and the broadcasters.”