TRAI Comes Down Hard On Broadcasters For Heavy Discounts In Bouquet, Discusses Variable NCF, Discounts On LTR Plan 

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a paper on tariff-related issues for the broadcasting and cable services in India, the Telecom Talk reports. The move comes after National regulator received various viewers over the new tariff order introduced earlier this year, and admitted to bringing changes.

The paper seeks stakeholder views on what changes may be needed in the tariff regime. The national regulator in the detailed paper came down hard on broadcasters and blamed them on offering huge discounts on bouquets.

The regulator had harsh views on how broadcasters were misusing the new tariff regime. They said: “it was expected of the broadcasters take a holistic view of the matter and give due consideration to the observations of while pricing their bouquets and channels.”

TRAI observed that broadcasters offer bouquets with upto 70 per cent discount of the sum of a-la-carte pay channels in the bouquets. The move, according to the TRAI makes a-la-carte channels prices illusory, and thus impacts the selection of a-la-carte channels by consumers.

Further, the huge discounts force consumers to pick channels they do not want to watch, which is the opposite of TRAI’s objective of giving subscribers a choice to choose their channels. TRAI also came down hard on broadcasters/distributors as most of the bouquets offered contain the same set of channels.

Among other things, TRAI also discussed variable NCF for different regions, DD channels being a part of one hundred channels and discounts on long-term recharge plans.