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Protecting customer choice is the most important mandate of any regulator, and it is a task that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken all too seriously as it outlined this week guidelines for preventing any one entity dominating television broadcasting, and unfairly restricting viewer choice. TRAI asserts that television broadcasters must not be allowed to control the distribution channels such as the Direct-to-Home satellite platform or a cable outfi t and vice-versa. The argument is simple: distribution platforms owned by broadcasters can effectively block a competing channel and therefore deprive viewers of choice. Preventing a build up of ownership interest in an entity will prevent control over that, goes the rationale. So the regulator has suggested that broadcasters or any entity representing them can have no more than 20 per cent equity in any distribution outfit.

The trigger for regulatory action was apparently the denial of access to DTH platforms for some broadcasters as also denial by broadcasters of their signal to certain platforms. Yet these complaints were judicially resolved fairly quickly, and no serious customer misgiving on this score is still outstanding. Whether any regulatory action is required at this juncture is a legitimate question. Ensuring plurality and diversity is essential for a mature democracy, argues TRAI, but it is amply clear that one of the strongest suits of the television broadcasting industry today is its plurality and diversity. In all about 440 television channels, including 215 bearing news and current affairs content, beam down directly by satellite or get piped by cable into tens of millions of homes. There may be some issues of inadequate access for channels and choice in the cable distribution system which tends to lapse into natural monopolies in many cities and towns, but the new DTH platforms offer the alternative delivery route and with five of them competing with one another, there is sufficient choice for the viewer as well.

TRAI believes it is better to put safeguards in advance rather than applying correctives after distortions have taken place, but what it has proposed as a corrective measure is merely an exercise in ritualism and there is no certainty it will stave off any attempt at constricting viewer choice. Placing a ceiling on cross equity investment is usually not an effective block to mal intent. Clever ways have always been found to get around such ownership norms, as TRAI discovered in the case of an existing guideline. The regulator must find some other credible way to help viewers retain their choice they so fortunately have. Some wannabe broadcasters will still have trouble climbing on to specific DTH platforms as there are limits to the number of channels these can carry. For such broadcasters, the judicial process is always available.

More Stories on : Editorial | Regulatory Bodies & Rulings | Radio/TV

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