Trai Deadline for Furnishing New Channel Prices Skipped by Broadcasters

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) put forth a very intriguing announcement on the first day of the year, which was not liked by the broadcasters in India. Since the start of the year, the broadcasters and channel owners in India have been resentful of the National Tariff Order 2.0 or the changes which have been made to the Trai tariff regime by Trai. These changes, as per the broadcasters, will change the way that broadcasters do business and will deeply impact their working. As such, Trai in its notification on January 1, had defined the January 15 deadline for the broadcasters. Under this deadline, these stakeholders were to publish their revised channel pricing. Although the actual implementation of the new rules is supposed to happen on March 1, the pricing of the channels was to happen on Wednesday, but it seems that the broadcasters in India have decided to let go of the date and have defied the instructions of Trai.

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Legal Approach Against Trai’s New DTH Rule Changes

The broadcasters in India, which include big groups like the broadcasters guild, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) which includes all the big groups like Star India, Zee Entertainment Limited have decided to give the January 15 deadline, a cold pass. This is a rare thing to happen in the telecom and the broadcasting industry given that Trai’s word is the absolute last resort being the regulatory, but the negative sentiment around the new rules is so high that the broadcasters are ready to defy the rules which have been given by Trai. Now Trai might also send out show-cause notices to these broadcasters, asking them to abide by the new rules and publish channel pricing within 7 days, but it seems that the pass on the deadline seems more of an act of defiance and less of a delay.