• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Menka Shivdasani

It would pay to bring in some regulation for the existing television channels, instead of bringing in more channels.

A still from the serial, Kagaz Ki Kashtti on Sahara TV.

The last few months have been particularly busy for Roop Sharma, President of the Cable Operators Federation of India. She's been travelling around the country, trying to mobilise cable operators, bring them together to fight on a common platform. "We want the Government to regularise the industry with immediate effect," she said, when I met her last fortnight at Sudeep Malhotra's SCaT India 2002 Trade Show at the World Trade Centre in Mumbai. "Bring Conditional Access Systems (CAS) — they've been discussing it for years; what is the delay?" she asks.

Sharma also spoke of how pay channels were charging "exorbitant rates", which the customer would not be ready to pay. It was a view that was heartily endorsed by both Phoolsingh Wasle, Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh-based Multi-System Operators Welfare Association, and G.S. Chadha, who runs the Chada Cable Network in that State. "We have heard Sony and Star are raising their rates to Rs 65 in January," said Chada. "Today, Star takes Rs 40 and we are forced to take all the channels as a package." Wasle was more emphatic; he said that if the rates were hiked beyond a total of Rs 250 at the ground level, then the operators would simply run their networks without the pay channels. "There are 40 to 50 free-to-air channels," he said, "and we can run our own local channels too." Wasle mentions Sahara, for instance, which is a free-to-air Hindi entertainment channel. Sahara, which is talking of launching seven new news channels, also offers serials like the newly launched `Kagaz Ki Kashtti', a daily soap — a love story with Bhagyashree in the lead role. The show launched on November 4 and will be telecast Monday to Friday at 10 P.M.

Sharma's team was also handing out leaflets from the Karnataka State Cable TV Operators Welfare Association, urging cable operators to be aware of lacunae in the Cable TV Act. The demands included bringing in legislation for the protection of cables in order to stop "illegal activities like cutting the cables", and not allowing more than one operator to function in the same area. The statement also urged making CAS mandatory at the earliest "since most of the channels have become pay channels and they are demanding more and more subscription charges unnecessarily inflating the number of subscribers which we actually don't have." The Association has also asked for exemption from the Central service tax for the cable industry.

There is more than one side to the story, of course, and the pay channels have their own objections to the way the cable industry operates — such as under-declaration of the number of subscribers. There is no denying, however, that in an industry that is coming of age, regulation is long overdue. As Sharma points out, the delay, and the consequent uncertainty is affecting the industry and the consumer at several levels — manufacturers are not sure of what kind of investments they should make, and consumers are stuck with channels they may not necessarily want to watch.

The SCaT Trade Show

"With CAS probably round the corner," says the latest issue of the Satellite & Cable TV magazine, "there is a high level of sustained interest for addressable pay TV systems." These products from the US, Europe and Taiwan were therefore being demonstrated at the SCat India 2002 Trade Show.

The SCaT India event, now in its 11th year, attracted 100 companies, according to Dinyar Contractor, editor and executive publisher of Satellite & Cable TV. They included Sahara TV, which announced its plans to go digital; Modi Entertainment Network, which distributes DD Sports, Ten Sports, Hallmark and FTV; Sanskar TV and Arirang TV from Korea. Various industry journals were also available, such as D. Manidhar's Convergence Digest, which is celebrating its first anniversary, and Universal Media Consultants' Satellite@Internet India. Issues of the new Satellite & Cable TV Guide, brought out by Scat Media & Consultancy Pvt. Ltd., were also being handed out to visitors; the Guide, Malhotra says, is currently available in a limited edition, but should be on the stands by January.

Trade shows such as these are normally a vehicle for new channel launches. This year, however, very few new channels are entering the fray. While expectations are running high for a spate of news channels in the near future, at the SCaT event, there was only one new channel that announced its presence — the 24-hour free-to-air music channel Balle Balle from J.K. Jain's STV Enterprises Ltd., which also runs Punjab Today.

Malhotra himself had announced plans for a comedy channel at a previous SCaT show, and while he says he has 200 hours of programming ready, it looks like it will be a while before it happens.

A comedy channel, if it is ever introduced, should do well considering there is such a desperate need for good humour in the fare that is dished out today. The fact is, however, that we just have too many channels that are indistinguishable from each other. Now, instead of bringing in more channels, we need to bring in some regulation for the existing ones.

The author can be contacted at menka@shivdasani.org

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
Comment on this article to BLFeedback@thehindu.co.in

Stories in this Section
Eco Rally, aha!

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line