Broadcasters declare pay channel, Star News free

New Delhi, Oct 13: Twelve broadcasters including Star TV, Discovery, ESPN, BBC, Zee Turner and Sun TV today declared maximum price of their pay channels at Rs five per month for areas where the Conditional Access System (CAS) is to be introduced from December 31.

However, Star News will be free, but it will be encripted.

The price is exclusive of taxes, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) said here.

Today was the deadline for declaring the maximum retail price for CAS notified areas of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

CAS is being rolled out in these metros under a Delhi High Court order.

Star TV business head Paritosh Joshi told UNI that though they had legally challenged the TRAI order fixing Rs five per pay channel, they today announced the tariff as per the regulator's plan.

He said all Star channels will be pay channels, except the Star News, which will be encripted or acessed through CAS but without any charges.

On August 31, the TRAI had issued a tariff order fixing a maximum retail price of Rs five per channel and later directed the broadcasters to declare price this ceiling.

Others who have declared the price at Rs five per pay channel are Raj TV, B4U Network, Udaya TV, Gemini TV and Ushodaya Enterprises Limited (Television Division).

In respect of broadcasters who are yet to confirm the dispatch of the reports, a communication is being sent to them to report compliance, TRAI said, adding that declaration of tariff for pay channels in CAS areas was an important milestone in the implementation of CAS which will also protect the interests of consumers.

TRAI is also pursuing the completion of interconnect agreements among the service providers as envisaged in the Interconnection Regulation in order to ensure smooth roll out.

Broadcasters had received with a ''shock'' the new tariff order announced by TRAI in August. Since them several of them have gone to court.

According to them, the rate of Rs five per pay channel was a highly unreasonable, and they said different amount of money and different amount and kind of labour and skills go into the productions of content for different channels, so it would be ''foolish and unrealistic'' to equate them and price them at the same rate.

However cable and multi-system operators had welcomed the CAS Tariff Plan, saying it was consumer friendly.

According to TRAI tariff order, there will be one month's notice to subscribers before conversion of a free to air channel to pay channel or vice versa.

The maximum of Rs 77 that will be charged for a minimum 30 Free to Air channels will be exclusive of taxes.

Additional free to air channels, if any provided, will also be accommodated within the above maximum amount.

The order relating to STBs will come into effect from October 15.

TRAI said that these rates were based on detailed examination and analysis of the inputs received during the process of consultation over the last two months.

UNI