Tata Sky, which came out with one of the most complicated Multi TV plans in the wake of the introduction of new tariff order by TRAI, has decided to withdraw its multi-TV plans from Jun 15.
The reason for the move is not clear, but may have something to do with complying fully with the new tariff order of TRAI.
A Tata Sky representative confirmed the move and said all connections will be billed independently from June 15, even if they are currently under a multi-TV scheme.
“If you do not change your packs of secondary boxes, then post 15th June your prices of each box will be same as that of primary box price.
“So to have the prices of all the boxes in your budget we recommend you to change the pack of each box and control your budget.
“By this way you would be able to select whatever you want to watch on each TV and pay for that content only rather than paying higher for default primary content on secondary boxes,” a Tata Sky representative said.
In effect, this means that Tata Sky would not have its Multi TV scheme from June 15.
Other companies, like D2h and Airtel Digital, continue to provide Multi TV benefits. D2h, for example, gives a flat network fee (NCF) of Rs 50 on all subsequent connections, while Airtel Digital gives a discount of Rs 50 on the NCF of subsequent connections.
No such plan has been disclosed by Tata Sky so far.
TRAI LAW
TRAI had made it clear in its new tariff order that multi-TV benefits were to be provided on the Network Charge or NCF and not on pay channel prices.
However, Tata Sky had come up with a scheme in which it was not clear whether the provider was giving a discount on the NCF or on the pay channel costs or both (see top).
It was also not clear how much the consumer was paying in terms of content costs and NCF for secondary connections. The new TRAI rules require all DTH and cable operators to provide a break-up of consumers’ monthly charges in their bill/recharge platform.
On top of all this, Tata Sky’s multi-TV system was extremely complicated, and required the subscriber to activate the same set of channels on all the different connections under the same multi TV account.
This too was considered a departure from TRAI’s promise that customers will need to activate only those channels that they need to, under the new tariff plan.
The Tata Sky representative pointed out that from June 15, Tata Sky subscribers will be able to activate only those channels that they need on each of their connections, irrespective of whether they were taken under a multi-TV scheme or not.
“Till now if you were having secondary connections, you were watching the same content as that of primary on all the other TVs as well. You were paying a fixed amount and you couldn’t choose the content of your choice on different TVs. But now we have a solution which enables you to select the content of your choice on the second,” the representative pointed out.