IndianMascot
Core Member
As the spat between content aggregator IndiaCast UTV and direct-to-home service provider Dish TV continues, the former has made it clear that paying carriage fees is not an option. Dish TV on the other hand insists that what it is asking for is legitimate fees for extra services provided by it to carry channels from the IndiaCast bouquet.
Anuj Gandhi, group CEO, IndiaCast asserts, “Carriage fee is a phenomena that came up in the era of analogue television. At that time, there was a problem of bandwidth and thus operators charged a carriage and placement fee to broadcasters. Now with digitisation, that problem is not there. However slowly, but surely, carriage fees are coming down in the cable digital space as well. Paying carriage fees to DTH providers will mean taking two steps back for the industry. I do not feel that if we go off their platform, we will be much affected.”
Dish TV and IndiaCast UTV had a reference interconnect offer agreement till 31 December 2013. Under this agreement, which is mandated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the DTH operator has to carry the channels from the aggregator on an ala-carte basis without any carriage fee. In return, the operator will pay the aggregator content cost only for the channels that the customers have subscribed to and not on a bouquet basis.
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