NBDA seeks redressal via separate consultation process on NTO concerns

The News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDA) has urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to initiate a separate consultation process in order to address the concerns of news broadcasters with respect to the new regulatory framework.

"NBDA suggests additional questions or a separate Consultation Process be initiated in order to address the concerns of the Members of NBDA as the New Regulatory Framework has not been implemented in letter and spirit nor have the due benefits accrued to the News Broadcasters," NBDA said in its response to the TRAI CP.

TRAI had issued the consultation paper to address the concerns of stakeholders with respect to the New Tariff Order (NTO) 2.0 implementation. NBDA argued that the issues posed for consultation are only limited and confined to the issues that directly arose as a result of the challenge to NTO 1.0 and 2.0 and also the Interconnection Regulations dated 3rd March 2017.

It added that the consultation process does not address issues that essentially pertain to the issues faced by Free To Air (FTA)/Low priced channels and concerns of these broadcasters, especially the news broadcasters and their issues pertaining to “Carriage Fee”, “Target Market” and the non-implementation of TRAI regulations like the ones dated 3rd March 2017 and 1st January 2020.

NBDA also pointed out that news broadcasters were kept out of the committee formed by the TRAI for a smooth implementation of NTO 2.0. "Apparently, no member of NBDA was invited to be a part of the said committee, which seems to be the reason why the concerns of News Broadcasters have not been addressed in the current consultation process," it stated.

The association has also submitted that the majority of DPOs are still non-compliant with various critical provisions of NTO 1. Therefore, TRAI ought to take concrete steps to fully implement the stipulations of NTO 1 at the level of DPOs, it added.

NBDA submitted that TRAI should compel the Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs) to submission of true and correct monthly subscriber reports. Further, the DPOs must get technical and subscription audits done. Lastly, NBDA has said that the carriage fee regulations should be regulated in letter and spirit.

The association also mentioned that TRAI's consultation paper is problematic at many levels. The NBDA stated that the notion of perverse pricing is a misconception as the discounting of bouquet rates that used to hover around 80-90% have fallen drastically post the implementation of NTO-1.

"This itself shows that market forces of demand and supply are influencing the pricing of services, and consequently, no regulatory intervention or prescription is required," the NBDA said.

It further stated that the formation of bouquets of TV channels, or bundling of channels, is neither unique nor limited to the Indian TV industry or to TV channel distribution as an industry and it is beneficial to the subscribers.

"Bundling becomes an issue from the perspective of competition policy only when one entity has strong market power or a monopoly on at least one component of the bundle. Given that the number of broadcasters and channels as well as the level of competition in the Indian TV, cable and satellite market, which itself is high, bundling does not require any ex-ante or blanket regulation," it stated.

According to NBDA, bundling not only allows broadcasters to experiment by introducing new and niche content/channels but also, allows subscribers to sample such content/channels.

TRAI’s assumption that choosing channels on an à-la-carte basis is the subscriber’s preferred route does not appear to be backed by any data since ground realities appear to indicate quite the opposite, and the subscribers themselves prefer bouquets of channels, the NBDA argued.

Terming the imposition of the price ceiling as an extremely restrictive measure, NBDA said the capping of prices at such a low rate may result in the closure of channels or degrade the quality of content as some channels may not be able to afford higher production costs to maintain themselves

NBDA's submission to TRAI

The following are some of NBDA’s submissions to TRAI:

• There should be no ceiling on MRP of pay channels
• TRAI has not provided any formula or reasonable justification to arrive at the figure of Rs 12 per month as the price ceiling for TV channels
• TRAI ought to exercise its powers to allow forbearance and permit the broadcasting sector to at least freely price and bundle the TV channels
• There should be no categorization of TV channels as “popular” for the reasons since there is no universally accepted or applicable category of a “popular” or “unpopular” channel
• The higher uptake of bouquets by viewers cannot be termed as perverse pricing of bouquets.