With the deadline for cable and DTH players to publish their channel packs and prices only a few hours away, operators have published lists of free channels as well as pay channels available on their platforms.
Free channels, also called FTA or Free-to-Air, are the ones that any DTH or cable subscriber can activate without paying extra charges, as long as he or she has space for activating the same within the existing pack.
For example, if a user has subscribed to a base pack with a limit of 100 channels and has activated only 60 channels at present, he or she can add 30 or 40 FTA channels of his or her own choice
If, on the other hand, he already has 100 channels active out of the total capacity of 100, then he or she will have to pay extra ‘network’ charges.
Extra network charges come to Rs 29.5 per month for every 20 new channels added.
In other words, if a subscriber adds an extra 40 channels, he or she will have to pay extra network charges of up to Rs 59 per month, taking the total monthly bill to Rs 154+59, or Rs 213.
On the other hand, if the subscriber deletes existing channels when adding new FTA offerings, he does not have to pay any extra amount for the new line-up.
HINDI, TAMIL, TELUGU
The luckiest users, as far as the number of FTA channels is concerned, are Hindi speaking consumers, as there are around 200 Hindi FTA channels in India.
However, it should be noted that not all FTA channels are carried by all operator.
In other words, even if a channel is free, a subscriber may not be able to watch it if the channel is not present on the cable or DTH operator’s platform.
The highest number of Hindi FTA channels, for example, is offered by Dish TV and Tata Sky. But even they don’t offer more than half of all Hindi FTA channels registered in India.
The second language with a large selection of free channels is Tamil. There are an estimated 50 FTA channels in Tamil language.
Telugu is at No.3 with around 40 such free channels, while Malayalam has around 35.
Below, you can find a list of Free or FTA channels popularly carried by DTH and cable companies in India.
To see the full list of channels, including pay channels and their prices, please use this link.
