In what will come as a setback to the broadcasters, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has proposed to put a price cap on different genres of channels in its draft tariff order for digital addressable system (DAS) platforms.
As per the genre caps prescribed by TRAI, sports channels have the maximum retail price (MRP) cap at Rs 19. General entertainment channels have the highest price ceiling of Rs 12.
The ceiling for movie channels is Rs 10. Kids and infotainment channel cannot be priced above Rs 7 and 9 respectively.
The cap on news channels is Rs 5 while that for devotional channels is Rs 3. TRAI has also suggested cutting down the number of genres from 11 to seven.
Every broadcaster will have to declare a genre for each of its channels among any of the genres, namely (a) Devotional, (b) General Entertainment, (c) Infotainment, (d) Kids, (e) Movies, (f) News and Current Affairs and (g) Sports.
The authority has done away with genres like music, youth, lifestyle and regional. Broadcasters have to provide the MRP of their channels to consumers.
The MRP will have to be consistent with the genre caps. No price cap on premium channels In order to have price flexibility, broadcasters will have to declare their channels as ‘premium’.
TRAI has said that there will be no price ceiling for channels that are declared by broadcasters as being ‘premium’. However, there will be genre price caps for channels which are not ‘premium’.
A broadcaster is free to place a channel provided by it in any of the prescribed genres and fix the MRP of the channel within that price ceiling.
Tenure of genre and MRP There will be no change in the genre and MRP of a channel within one year from the date of declaration of genre and MRP by broadcasters.
Frequent change in RIO (reference interconnect offer) will cause inconvenience to subscribers.
This will in turn will result in frequent amendments to RIOs and hence in frequent agreements between broadcasters and distributors of television channels, causing inconvenience to subscribers.
MRP on HD channels As per the draft Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Addressable Systems) Tariff Order, 2016, the MRP of a pay channel transmitted in standard definition (SD) in a given genre cannot exceed the rate specified for such genre.
The MRP of a pay channel transmitted in HD format cannot be more than three times the maximum retail price of corresponding channel transmitted in SD.
Read more at:
TRAI’s genre-wise price cap in draft tariff order; Sports MRP at Rs 19, GECs at Rs 12 | TelevisionPost.com
As per the genre caps prescribed by TRAI, sports channels have the maximum retail price (MRP) cap at Rs 19. General entertainment channels have the highest price ceiling of Rs 12.
The ceiling for movie channels is Rs 10. Kids and infotainment channel cannot be priced above Rs 7 and 9 respectively.
The cap on news channels is Rs 5 while that for devotional channels is Rs 3. TRAI has also suggested cutting down the number of genres from 11 to seven.
Every broadcaster will have to declare a genre for each of its channels among any of the genres, namely (a) Devotional, (b) General Entertainment, (c) Infotainment, (d) Kids, (e) Movies, (f) News and Current Affairs and (g) Sports.
The authority has done away with genres like music, youth, lifestyle and regional. Broadcasters have to provide the MRP of their channels to consumers.
The MRP will have to be consistent with the genre caps. No price cap on premium channels In order to have price flexibility, broadcasters will have to declare their channels as ‘premium’.
TRAI has said that there will be no price ceiling for channels that are declared by broadcasters as being ‘premium’. However, there will be genre price caps for channels which are not ‘premium’.
A broadcaster is free to place a channel provided by it in any of the prescribed genres and fix the MRP of the channel within that price ceiling.
Tenure of genre and MRP There will be no change in the genre and MRP of a channel within one year from the date of declaration of genre and MRP by broadcasters.
Frequent change in RIO (reference interconnect offer) will cause inconvenience to subscribers.
This will in turn will result in frequent amendments to RIOs and hence in frequent agreements between broadcasters and distributors of television channels, causing inconvenience to subscribers.
MRP on HD channels As per the draft Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Addressable Systems) Tariff Order, 2016, the MRP of a pay channel transmitted in standard definition (SD) in a given genre cannot exceed the rate specified for such genre.
The MRP of a pay channel transmitted in HD format cannot be more than three times the maximum retail price of corresponding channel transmitted in SD.
Read more at:
TRAI’s genre-wise price cap in draft tariff order; Sports MRP at Rs 19, GECs at Rs 12 | TelevisionPost.com
