In his first major interaction with the top decision-makers at the CII CEOs Roundtable on Media and Entertainment held on June 19, Javadekar asked Broadcasters to reduce subscription fee, so that subscribers should also benefit from the implementation of digital addressable system (DAS).
Javadekar told broadcasters, that with digitisation, their subscriber base has increased making their revenue grow. But so far only 4 crore (40 million) STBs have been seeded, which is just 25 per cent of the universe, while 75 per cent are still remain. He said he had no intention in delaying the digitalisation process wherever broadcasters benefited enormously, what is the trade-off for the government. He stated that government was committed for making benefits of digitalisation reach the mass which has not happened.
Manufacturing to get boost
Putting all speculation to rest, the minister asserted that the government was committed to implementing Phases III and IV of DAS, but at the same time it wanted to give a fillip to the indigenous set-top box (STB) manufacturers.
He wanted consumer’s subscription to be reduced as digitalisation progress.
While flagging the issue of domestic STB manufacturers, he affirmed that the process of digitisation will not be stalled because of that.
“As far as Phases III and IV are concerned, we have not abandoned it. As the STBs come from foreign countries, I have asked the secretary to bring some people who are ready with some plan on rolling out STB locally. Something should be manufactured here. Why should we import everything from China? But we will not delay just because of that,” Javadekar clarified.
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/national-news/item/5271-cq-das-benefit-should-also-go-to-subscribers-prakash-javadekar.html
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