Trai Tariff Regime Dented the DTH Industry But Subscribers Are Starting to Come Back

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has made very rapid changes to the rules which govern the broadcasting and the DTH industry in India. This has not gone well with the broadcasters and the DTH service providers. Largely, the stakeholders have been reluctant for the new changes that Trai proposes. Although Trai pushes the stakeholders towards innovation and better consumer-centric practices, the move with the Trai tariff regime in 2019 backfired for the sector regulator. After realising some of the mistakes that Trai had committed in the first implementation of the National Tariff Order, Trai started working on the changes that it could bring to these new rules. The result of this ideation is the National Tariff Order 2.0, which seeks to make the NTO better for the consumers and is likely to reduce the prices of DTH and cable connections in the process. In the quarter following the rollout of the Trai tariff regime, the DTH industry lost close to 20 million subscribers, but thins might be looking different right now with a hint of improvement.

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Situation Better Since Implementation of New Imagery

To base our argument, it is imperative to look at two pieces of report one which was published in Apr-June quarter, and the one from Trai which has been recently published studying the quarter of July-Sep. To recall, in the previous report which was published right after the implementation of the new Trai tariff regime when the changes in the industry were fresh, we got to see some drastic numbers like the fall of the total DTH subscribers to 54.26 million down from 72.44 million. The prime reason for this was the poor education of the consumers towards the new Trai tariff regime, failure to migrate these consumers and the rising cost of the DTH and the cable TV bill which led to the disconnection of many DTH subscribers.