No major changes to be brought in to New Tariff Order: TRAI
Putting an end of all apprehension around what changes TRAI is about to introduce in the NTO, the secretary of the body on Thursday confirmed that there is going to be no major change in the Tariff Order.
SK Gupta, Secretary, TRAI, said, “We are not against bouquet. We are not planning to get rid of it. There is no reason for broadcasters or consumers or anyone to worry. There will be only minor tweaking and modifications made to address the consumers’ complaint of the NTO not being consumer friendly.”
“TRAI is not anti-bouquet. The change that can be expected is to have a policy wherein those willing to buy a la carte channels are not pushed towards bouquet,” he added.
TRAI’s new tariff regime, implemented earlier this year, allowed viewers to select the channels they wanted to watch and pay the maximum retail price (MRP) set by broadcasters for each channel or for a bouquet of channels.
According to the consultation paper on tariff-related issues for broadcasting and cable services, at present, pay channels offer a package deal to the MSOs and the MSOs transfer the same to the subscribers. Even in CAS areas, compared to a bouquet of channels offered by the broadcaster, an individual channel is priced in such a manner that subscribers do not have a real option to choose channels on an a-la-carte basis. The committee set up by TRAI to look into the matter decided that the issue needs to be regulated.
