New cable TV Tariffs to put a hole in your pocket!
if you like to take the issue in a positive way then okay
if TRAI has good intentions,
all free channels should be available for free absolutely !
IMO, so called digitization of tv broadcasts in the beginning itself was a big scam ..
Lets say, you want to give away some stuff for free and post an ad. Some guy contacts you and asks that you deliver the stuff to him. You tell him that you are willing to ship if he pays for the courier. The other guy argues that all free stuff should be available for free absolutely and also that the courier should not be charging for delivery since its free stuff. He says that the govt should force the couriers to deliver free stuff for free. Does that sound ridiculous?
What you are saying boils down to that. The free channels are already free. You don't pay for them. You only pay the distributor charges for them to be delivered into your home.
There is no scam. The intent of TRAI is pretty clear on that matter if you go through their proposal documents. They wanted pricing transparency and tracking. In the earlier analog world, tracking was not possible. That's why TRAI pushed for digitization which improves the situation. The whole regulation is ongoing effort towards that goal and this effort has been running for more than 15 years now. This is not something abrupt. The problem is that people assumed that TRAI should act in consumer interests. But that was never the case and they never misled anybody on that matter.
Membership fees or Carriage fees - Rs 130 (153.40 inc taxes) which include 100 FTA channels can be picked by customers and not operators..
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/tv/news/tr...ick-100-channels-for-rs-153-base-pack-1977565
Also there are people who only watch NEWS.. They'll be saving!
List of FTA channels on post#1 will make you realise that your Free Regional pack on DTH were the actual premium channels. Lol
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/tv/news/tr...ick-100-channels-for-rs-153-base-pack-1977565
Also there are people who only watch NEWS.. They'll be saving!
List of FTA channels on post#1 will make you realise that your Free Regional pack on DTH were the actual premium channels. Lol
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Why? It costs money to setup infrastructure and continuous running and maintenance costs whether you are subscribed to free channels or pay channels and the people doing it are different from those doing the broadcasting and offering free channels. Then there is also spectrum and bandwidth to consider which is a a limited resource.
You have almost made a case for free internet for those who are on going to use free services like youtube, twitch, facebook, gmail etc.
I can totally understand if you are asking that govt should subsidize the cost by paying the distributors from tax money and it even makes sense for internet to an extent, but why should they do it for something like TV which is not an essential service.
You have almost made a case for free internet for those who are on going to use free services like youtube, twitch, facebook, gmail etc.
I can totally understand if you are asking that govt should subsidize the cost by paying the distributors from tax money and it even makes sense for internet to an extent, but why should they do it for something like TV which is not an essential service.
The verdict on 15% max discount on bundles is not really very clear. There was an article that I read couple of days ago where it said that the SC had upheld TRAI regulations. Instead of going and implementing the ruling, TRAI asked for clarification if the SC verdict meant the 15% max discount regulation is now valid. SC seems to have got pissed off and scolded TRAI for asking repeated clarifications. So, in effect, TRAI and the people in general are not sure if the 15% max discount is upheld by SC or not.
If TRAI enforces the 15% max discount on bouquets then channels will be forced to reduce their premium channel pricing and also make their useless channels FTA. Otherwise people will watch those premium channels that are priced lower. Case in point is how many people watch Amazon Prime vs Netflix even if Netflix has superior content. People have only so many hours per day for TV and most of these channels air similar content (Music and reality shows are more or less the same on most channels and people will pick one or two and stick to them).
One of the prime reasons why I expect the prices to come down is that if people start choosing channels selectively based on the pricing then the TRPs will go down which will impact the Channel's ad revenue. Currently the way BARC/Nielsen does the TRPs is not something that TRAI is happy about. With full digitization and full clarity on how many people have really subscribed to channels the TRPs will become more transparent. This is what the channels are scared of. Today, due to the bouquets, many junk channels reach homes that hardly ever watch them but these households are considered for calculating the reach and subscription numbers thus inflating the ad revenue.
Give this system 3 months time and I am pretty hopeful the pricing will settle down and we might even pay much less than what we are currently paying.
Give a years time and I will not be surprised if TRAI will impose the 13 minutes / hour ad limits on pay channels that it had proposed few years ago.
If TRAI enforces the 15% max discount on bouquets then channels will be forced to reduce their premium channel pricing and also make their useless channels FTA. Otherwise people will watch those premium channels that are priced lower. Case in point is how many people watch Amazon Prime vs Netflix even if Netflix has superior content. People have only so many hours per day for TV and most of these channels air similar content (Music and reality shows are more or less the same on most channels and people will pick one or two and stick to them).
One of the prime reasons why I expect the prices to come down is that if people start choosing channels selectively based on the pricing then the TRPs will go down which will impact the Channel's ad revenue. Currently the way BARC/Nielsen does the TRPs is not something that TRAI is happy about. With full digitization and full clarity on how many people have really subscribed to channels the TRPs will become more transparent. This is what the channels are scared of. Today, due to the bouquets, many junk channels reach homes that hardly ever watch them but these households are considered for calculating the reach and subscription numbers thus inflating the ad revenue.
Give this system 3 months time and I am pretty hopeful the pricing will settle down and we might even pay much less than what we are currently paying.
Give a years time and I will not be surprised if TRAI will impose the 13 minutes / hour ad limits on pay channels that it had proposed few years ago.
People need to understand the motives of the regulation first. TRAI is not acting in interests of consumers here. It is made clear from their proposal documents. They wanted pricing transparency and uniformity. Killing the competition is a pretty good way to keep the pricing uniform and at a reasonably high level. But, if it looks like tax revenues from this sector is going to degrade, they will a move to increase the max pricing limits for the channels.
There is not a instance when a govt has tried to enforce a max or min pricing on something and that pricing hasn't become the standard across the board. There is no reason for broadcasters to reduce prices on premium channels. As I said before, they will just kill the channels with poor viewership and keep the premium channels at the highest prices allowed by TRAI and every broadcaster will do do the same thing. As pointed out earlier, one of the key goals of the regulation is uniform pricing to all distributors. Want a sports channel? Every sports channel will cost the same. Want a edutainment channel? Every edutainment channel will cost the same. The distributors will also kill bundles if necessary. They will also increase sponsorship costs for advertisers on the premium channels which are watched the most. It is a naive to think volumes is the only way for them to make money.
There is not a instance when a govt has tried to enforce a max or min pricing on something and that pricing hasn't become the standard across the board. There is no reason for broadcasters to reduce prices on premium channels. As I said before, they will just kill the channels with poor viewership and keep the premium channels at the highest prices allowed by TRAI and every broadcaster will do do the same thing. As pointed out earlier, one of the key goals of the regulation is uniform pricing to all distributors. Want a sports channel? Every sports channel will cost the same. Want a edutainment channel? Every edutainment channel will cost the same. The distributors will also kill bundles if necessary. They will also increase sponsorship costs for advertisers on the premium channels which are watched the most. It is a naive to think volumes is the only way for them to make money.
I have to disagree here. Market forces will drive the prices down. If your logic were to be true then TRAI would have already put a minimum call charges on cell phone calls. They will not allow bundling of SMS, Calls and Data in one package. It is in govt's interest to keep the call, sms and data charges high to collect higher revenue.
Just the way JIO has disrupted the pricing in mobile telephony, there will be someone network (could be Zee or Star or anyone for that matter) that will undercut the market prices to garner who eyeball share and hence ad revenue. It is not a question of if it will happen but when it will happen. Just like how there is not much to choose between the mobile service providers there is really not much to differentiate between the networks too save for one or two marquee shows here and there.[DOUBLEPOST=1547619513][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, there might soon be a situation where we will go Pay Per View for those marquee shows or events (Sports events especially).
Just the way JIO has disrupted the pricing in mobile telephony, there will be someone network (could be Zee or Star or anyone for that matter) that will undercut the market prices to garner who eyeball share and hence ad revenue. It is not a question of if it will happen but when it will happen. Just like how there is not much to choose between the mobile service providers there is really not much to differentiate between the networks too save for one or two marquee shows here and there.[DOUBLEPOST=1547619513][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, there might soon be a situation where we will go Pay Per View for those marquee shows or events (Sports events especially).
Have you read TRAI proposal on the TV broadcasting regulation? Why do you think TRAI has the wording like this in the proposal
instead of some thing like this
The goal is clearly higher prices, not less. A channel pack cost Rs 280 individually was being sold for Rs 145 in bundle. TRAI's stance is that the bundle should not cost less than 280 x 85% = 238. They even had a annexure with sample calculation detailing what they are expecting and went so far as to go to supreme court over it.
So what do you think would happen if "market forces" drive down the prices? They will make changes that will decrease the loss of revenues.
TRAI has penalized Airtel and Vodafone thousands of crores each for offering cheap rates on services like SMS and forced them to increase the cost back. They also mandated that every operator would have at least one plan that will have tariff on per sec basis so that people are encouraged to use the phone more for outgoing thereby increasing revenues.
I hope you realize that the disruption done by JIO was against the regulations of TRAI and they would not have allowed any other operator to do it. JIO only managed to do it because of the excessive political influence they have and if you notice, the disruption was also temporary to the capture market. TRAI was literally taken to supreme court for its bias in the matter. If it were up to TRAI alone, bundling would not be encouraged for neither TV or Telecom services. Unfortunately, TRAI still is under the influence of the govt and so yes, there is a possibility of a disruption, but not because TRAI wants it, but because the govt is forcing it for the benefit of one corporate.
Heard that TataSky has managed to defer the judgement further.
Whether the glass is half full or half empty the result is still the same.
TRAI proposed regulations stating that they want to prevent steep discounts through bundling which was resulting lack of clarity and revenue loss and thereby wanted to keep bundle prices within 85% of individual channel prices and you are arguing that distributors would do the exact opposite of what TRAI wanted by reducing per channel prices for no good reason and that there is no difference between what TRAI wanted and the exact opposite of it.
The only reason channels have kept the popular channel prices high is to force sale of bouquets. Once the 85% ruling comes in no body will go for bundles if the pricing is kept as it is. If the networks want people to watch their channels they have to reduce the pricing of the individual channels or close the not so popular channels.
Anyway, let us revisit in 6 months and see if the prices to the customer has gone up or down. To me my monthly expense will come down to Rs 400 from Rs 600 if I only choose the channels that I am really interested in.
Anyway, let us revisit in 6 months and see if the prices to the customer has gone up or down. To me my monthly expense will come down to Rs 400 from Rs 600 if I only choose the channels that I am really interested in.
Yep. Plus all those crap channels which will suddenly reach out to lesser viewers, and then these networks will not be able to command those massive advertising rates.
As for Tata Sky, it will no longer have the monopoly and be reduced to a dumb pipe, similar to the way OTT apps did to SMS!
This I would like to see as recently everyone know how they treated the subscribers with the sony channels fiasco.
There are about 550 FTA and 330 Pay channels in India. Are the DTH service providers mandated to carry all the 900 odd channels? Do they all really have the satellite bandwidth? I doubt it. If they do not then who will decide what channels the DTH providers need to carry compulsorily (apart from the DD ones)? One thing is clear the DTH providers have an option of not including all the bundles of the networks. (Example: Sony has lots of bundles but Dish and D2h decided to include only 2 or 3 bundles along with all channels a-la-carte.)
If all DTH providers have the bandwidth to carry all channels then what will differentiate one provider from another? I can think of the following. What else?
- EPG Quality and EPG update frequency (how quickly the EPG is updated. Example: A cricket match gets rained out and there is no further live telecast or a match gets extended beyond a certain period and the EPG is updated so that the recording will continue)
- User Interface of the STB (I dropped out of Reliance Big TV because they used to display messages boxes overlaying whats on screen forcing me to reach out to the remote and pressing the blue button to remove the message even though they had the best picture quality at that time.)
- Cost of Service Technician Visit and Spare Parts
- Promptness in service
- Call center wait time and their ability to resolve issues
- STB quality and features (Tata Sky has the best recording interface in my opinion)
- Exclusive Content
If this present government will continue after the election certainly Jio will have a field day. They will arm twist the govt and TRAI will most likely bring out regulations that will help and suit JIO.
Which is pretty much exactly what TRAI wants. They don't want users to be on bundles. TRAI wanted to get rid of bundling and they even attempted it in the past and was contested, but now instead of an outright ban through regulation, they want to make it such that there is little to no advantage in going for bundles from consumer cost perspective. They want to consumers to be subscribing to individual channels where there is clarity on costs and no discounts. That is why they went to supreme court when the 85% clause was not allowed by the high court which btw didn't allow it because unlike the rest of the regulations, this one was to prevent distributors from reducing costs to customers.
Broadcasters will just close the not so popular channels. They will not reduce the pricing of individual channels. They will be charging the uniform rates proposed by TRAI. These rates were decided in the first place by collecting data on operating costs and profitability of all the broadcasters.
No one is going to run this business at a loss. This is not like e-com where there is an indefinite supply of investors to keep pumping money on a non-profitable business.