Trai gets broadcasters double number of channels in Rs130 pack to 200
13 Jan 2020
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Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has made amendments to New Tariff Order (NTO) allowing consumers to have 200 channels instead of 100 at a price of Rs130, against the 100 channels that broadcasters provided earlier.
"There were 100 channels that were given at Rs130 and it included mandatory channels broadcasted by Prasar Bharati. Now you have 200 channels in Rs130 excluding the Prasar Bharati channels," Trai chairman RS Sharma said.
"Fine-tuning the provisions of New Tariff Order (NTO) we are providing more channels to consumers," he said, adding that the sum of the a-la-carte price or individual price of channels constituting a bouquet cannot be more than 1.5 times the price of Bouquet.
"No channel should be priced more than the price of Bouquet and the sum of the a-la-carte price of channels constituting a bouquet cannot be more than 1.5 times the price of Bouquet," said Trai chairman, adding that the measures were brought in to remove distortions and unfair practices.
Trai has brought down the price of individual channels forming part of bouquets from Rs19 to Rs12. Now, the channels having an MRP of Rs12 or less are permitted to be part of a channel bouquet.
"Many of the broadcasters have misused the Rs19 ceiling rule and have priced the channels costing Rs5, 7, 8, etc to Rs19. As a result, in any bouquet, the channel is either Rs19 or less than Re1. Things were either on the ceiling or at the bottom, nothing was in between. Even HD and SD channels having different prices are fixed at Rs19," he said, adding "The ceiling rule was misused."
"Earlier Rs19 was the ceiling but now the channels that are priced less than Rs12 or equal to that will be part of the bouquet," said Sharma, adding, "Earlier it was not appropriate from the consumers` viewpoints and also distorted consumer choice."
