Plan of Action

According to Vikki Choudhry, President, NCTA, the new Union government should conduct an enquiry on the implementation of the compulsory Digitization of Cable TV and should take strict penal action against those included in the scam (if there is any).

The associations have jointly listed out a number of steps that should be taken by the government to correct the situation.

The appeal says that new government should extend the Cable TV digitalization process by allowing Analogue transmission of about basic 30-36 TV channels including all the DD services. This step is for avoiding black out of basic TV viewing.

Secondly, the government should also instruct TRAI to ensure a level playing field for all the stake holders in the distribution value chain with a prescribed revenue share arrangement on non discriminatory terms. It should also fix reasonable and affordable prices for the Pay TV channels and ensure that the advertisement cap for the pay TV channels should be lowered to maximum six minutes in an hour. Also, there should be no Advertisement Cap or the existing 10+2 minutes Advertisement Cap regulation should be made for the FTA free to air for consumers TV channels.

Thirdly, the government should finalize strict guidelines on cross media holdings and check monopoly in the Cable TV industry. The cable TV industry association claims that the Murdoch group owned entities are violating Indian laws and strict penal action should be taken in case anyone tries to get around these laws. The cable operators associations also expressed that Competition Commission of India (CCI) is inactive.

Fourthly, the Government should ensure that the Phase III and Phase IV of the digitization of Cable TV services is implemented only if India has enough supply of Indian made Set Top Box (STB) available in the country. Also, these STB manufacturing units should get a subsidy on the Excise and VAT till digitization is achieved 100 per cent in the country.

Lastly, the government should abolish entertainment TAX levied by the various State Governments. TV viewing should be termed as an essential information service. How much of it will the new Government accept and revert to will be interesting to see.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/national-news/item/4466-plan-of-action.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/national-news/item/4466-plan-of-action.html