ITV

Category: DAS

  • IBF board to discuss CAS on 5 April

    IBF board to discuss CAS on 5 April

    NEW DELHI: Even as Siti Cable today made a presentation on conditional access system to stakeholders during a government-sponsored meeting, the broadcasters said the issue of rollout would be discussed at a board meeting before they finalise their stand.

    The Siti Cable presentation basically dwelt on various aspects of CAS, but hinged on the fact that between 180-200 days would be needed as preparation time for final rollout of addressability in Indian cable homes in the metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

    Siti Cable is also in favour of standardization of all contractual agreements that are entered between a broadcaster and MSO; an MSO and a cable operator and a local operator and a consumer.

    Though the six-hour long meeting took up various viewpoints and modalities that could be followed before the government notifies a date for rollout of CAS, representatives from most major pay broadcasters did not attend today’s meeting.

    Those who could be said to be representing the broadcasting community included a senior official from the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), an apex body of all broadcasters active in India, and Zee Telefilms’ Jawahar Goel.

    Broadcasters haven’t yet given a formal submission to the government on CAS, which is expected to come through on 7 April when the government will hold another round of meeting with industry stakeholders.

    Meanwhile, Indiantelevision.com learns that the board of IBF will discuss addressability in a meeting on Wednesday (5 April).

    Some of the issues relating to CAS implementation, which have been informally raised by broadcasters with the government, include piracy, quality of service and parameters to decide standardized agreements amongst industry stakeholders.

    It is also learnt that the broadcasters are averse to supplying maximum retail price for a TV channel for the end consumer.

    The pay broadcasters, yet to articulate their final stand on this issue, feel a mechanism could be evolved whereby wholesale price of individual channels and bouquets could be supplied to MSOs who then could decide what a channel should cost to the consumer after including their margins for providing a service.

    After today’s meeting, an independent cable operator of Delhi, Dr. AK Rastogi, said, “We have been discussing CAS for few days now. But to me, it seems, final implementation, as directed by the Delhi High Court, will take more time than what had been envisaged.”

  • CAS: Gloves off as IBF, cable frat hurl charges

    CAS: Gloves off as IBF, cable frat hurl charges

    NEW DELHI: The game of ping-pong being played in the name of Conditional Access System (CAS) took another turn today with the broadcasters and cable fraternity hitting out against each other as the government reserved its verdict on the issue of rollout of addressability.

    The Indian Broadcasting Foundation today made it clear in a submission to the information and broadcasting ministry that all addressable systems should be mandated like CAS and providing a la carte pricing of channels would not be in the interest of consumers. Indiantelevision.com had reported on Wednesday that this was the stand the IBF would be taking on the CAS imbroglio.

    While the government is yet to firm up its stand from the wide-ranging industry feedback, which, if taken into account, would push CAS rollout to fourth quarter of 2006, the Hinduja-owned IndusInd Media Communication Ltd has said that the government should honour the court verdict in the light of CAS being operational in Chennai since 2003 without any objections being raised by stakeholders.

    The Delhi High Court on 10 March had directed the government to implement CAS in Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi within one month’s time, which is about to get over technically this month. But it needs to be seen when the government received a certified copy of the court order.

    Interestingly, at a meeting that the government had with industry stakeholders today on CAS, the issue of registering of CAS operators with the government and the whole process of doing it, is likely to add to the delay.

    A new sequencing of CAS rollout submitted by Siti Cable at the meeting, according to government sources, states the date of implementation should 14 November 2006 with the time in between used for getting ready for a CAS-enabled regime.

    The IBF’s submission has not only created more confusion, but has enraged a certain section of the cable industry too.

    At one place in its letter to the I&B ministry, the IBF has said that the government should stop the cable industry from charging huge amount of carriage fees, which raised the hackles of cable ops present during today’s meeting.

    In a separate submission to the ministry, the Delhi-based National Cable & Telecommunications Association has, in turn, requested the government to direct the pay broadcasters not to play tough.

    “If the pay channels demand more time for the implementation of conditional access system in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, then it is imperative that they must be directed to immediately stop collecting monthly subscription from the cable service providers till CAS comes into force,” NCTA has said.

    Though the NCTA letter exhorts the government to “exercise its powers” and direct the pay channels to declare rates of their individual channels and fix an upper limit for pricing of individual; channels and bouquets, the I&B ministry representatives at the meeting today did not utter any word on these issues.