The Hindu : New Delhi News : Cable operators back with CAS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 02, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Cable operators back with CAS

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JULY 1. With the change of guard at the Centre, the cable operators have once again approached the Government with a request to reconsider implementation of the Conditional Access System (CAS). Earlier this year, an unsuccessful attempt was made to implement CAS by the NDA Government at the Centre.

The cable operators have requested the UPA Government to bring in a new legislation to check the "monopolistic" tendencies of the pay channels and also threatened an agitation if the issue was not dealt with properly.

The representatives of the cable industry today informed mediapersons at a press conference here that they have submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, demanding that CAS be made mandatory. Arguing that technically CAS was still in force through a Chennai High Court ruling in March, the cable operators claimed that the impediments being created in its implementation was a ploy on the part of the foreign pay channels to monopolise the market, right from the ground networking level to providing content.

Demanding a new legislation, the president of the Cable Operators Federation of India, Roop Sharma, said the legislation should check the pay channels from having an arbitrary price structure. "They want to be able to arm-twist the cable operators by keeping the option of selling bouquets of channels, and not individual channels, open. With CAS in effect this would not be possible and that is why they are trying to stall it," alleged Ms. Sharma. She added that the Government could also think of adopting the Pakistani model where every pay channel is telecast at a fixed price of Re. 1 a month.

The cable operators alleged that the previous Government neglected the interests of both the subscribers and the cable operators. They hoped that the present Government would look into the issue in right earnest as the Information and Broadcasting Minister, S. Jaipal Reddy, had drafted a bill in 1997 which had clauses to check the monopolistic practices of foreign broadcasters.

Expressing complete dissatisfaction over the way the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has been dealing with the issue, the cable operators declared that they would welcome a new independent body which could look into broadcast related issues. "They first asked us to fix the prices, while allowing increased connectivity to the pay channels which continue violating rules by showing advertisements," said another representative of the cable operators.

The recent rumblings about bringing in TRAP system in place of CAS was also dismissed by the operators as another gimmick on the part of the pay channels to maintain their stranglehold over the market. The system is redundant and was discarded in 1996, they said.

The operators also sought to clarify the notion that they under-reported the number of their subscribers. As against 32,000 subscribers, which is assumed to be the number of subscribers for every operator, they had only 600 connections on an average, they claimed.

A request has also been made to the Government that telecast of sporting events, in which India participates, through Doordarshan should be made mandatory so that broadcasters do not arbitrarily hike their price.

Ms. Sharma also warned that if the Government neglected the issue, the cable operators all over the country would resort to agitation.

"The operators from West Bengal and Assam have already proposed such agitations, but we are waiting for the Government's response," said Ms. Sharma. Also, the monthly cable bill for the subscribers may go up to Rs. 450-500 a month on account of the increased prices of pay channels and also due to the hike in power tariffs, she added.

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