Not in talks with Bharti Airtel for selling Dish TV – YES Bank

YES Bank, the single largest shareholder of DTH company Dish TV, today said it has not been approached by Bharti Airtel for buying the stake in Dish TV. Prashant Kumar, the MD & CEO of the bank, however indicated that bank is not averse to selling its nearly 26% stake in the company for the […]

TRAI Tariff Order to come into effect on Sunday, No stay from Bombay High Court

With the Bombay High Court giving no specific direction or stay on the implementation of the amended TRAI tariff order, the country is all set to see the introduction of the second version of the tariff order on Sunday. Over the past three days, the Bombay High Court had been holding a marathon hearing on […]

DTH operators to be restricted from offering retro-serials, catch-up channels

DTH operators, who offer various programs and services on their in-house channels, may soon be prevented from carrying popular serials, films and other licensed content, going by TRAI’s latest recommendations. TRAI also recommended that the ministry of information and broadcasting should stop the broadcasting of delayed feeds of existing channels, branded as +1 channels, on […]

Airtel Digital customers spend more in July-Sept

An average Airtel Digital customer spent 4.1% more money on their DTH service in July-September period compared to the previous three months, beating back the seasonal effect of the monsoons and indicating that customers may be gradually spending more on their cable and DTH bills. The monsoon season tends to see smaller recharges by prepaid […]

No More Free Calls on Jio, Customers To Pay 6p/min for non-Jio calls

Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator by revenue, said it has decided to charge 6 paise per minute for calls made to other operators like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea due to TRAI’s decision to possibly continue with the six-paise-per-minute termination charge. TRAI had, two years ago, announced that the ‘termination charge’, paid by one […]

Can Airtel Xstream’s open approach beat Jio’s walled garden?

When cellular telephony started in India, Bharti and Reliance took two divergent approaches towards launching cellular services — Airtel decided to focus on providing the services, leaving third party players to provide the hardware, while Reliance decided went with CDMA, a technology in which everything was more tightly controlled. Despite the obvious technological shortcomings of […]

Arasu Cable cuts NCF to ₹35/month vs ₹130 by Tata Sky, Airtel Digital etc

Arasu Cable, the government-owned cable feed provider in Tamil Nadu, has become the first big player to drastically reduce the monthly network charge under TRAI’s new tariff order, throwing a challenge to the likes of Tata Sky, Dish TV, Hathway and Sun Direct. Arasu Cable’s new base plan of Rs 130 contains six broadcaster packs […]

Airtel TV incorporates Editor Ji for election coverage

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel updated its TV app by adding a new section for election coverage and incorporating content from the ‘Editor Ji’ platform founded by former NDTV CEO Vikram Chandra. Airtel TV app users will now have access to exclusive election news bulletins from the video news app, Editor Ji, which is funded by […]

TRAI SCHEME: Tata Sky, Airtel, D2h launch new Multi TV plans

Three of the five paid DTH platforms in India — Tata Sky, Airtel Digital and D2h — have announced multi TV, or multiple connection, plans under the new TV channel tariff regime implemented by TRAI this month. The new schemes, which give discounts on a subscriber’s second, third and fourth connections at their home, were […]

TRAI gives OK to multi TV schemes, but price must be uniform

Media regulator TRAI clarified that nothing in the new tariff regime prevents cable and DTH operators from offering discounts on the network charges payable by customers. Accordingly, it said, some of the cable and DTH operators have restarted their discounted multi TV offers. The topic of ‘multi-connections’ — or multiple connections within the same household […]

TV BLACKOUT: TRAI issues show-cause notice to DTH operator

Media regulator TRAI said it has issued a show cause notice to a ‘large’ platform operator for showing black screens to its customers during the migration to the new TV channel tariff scheme. It did not give the name of the platform operator, merely noting that it was a large one. TRAI, keen to avoid […]

TRAI plan not activated? Try resubmitting the channel list

The rollout of the new TV channel pricing mechanism by the media regulator has led to many users facing a black out or being saddled with the wrong set of channels and packs by their cable and DTH operator. Even as the roll-out hits its fourth day, many continue to wait for their distributor to […]

TRAI PACKS: Channel selection page for Airtel Digital, Dish TV, D2h and Tata Sky

Many users of Airtel Digital, as well as rivals like Dish TV and D2h are facing issues with the activation of their new TRAI-compliant plans, with customer care officials not able to help in many cases. Unlike Dish TV and D2h, Airtel Digital users are facing more difficulties as the DTH provider does not have […]

TRAI PACK ACTIVATION: Dish TV, Tata Sky, D2h and Airtel Digital flooded with complaints on social media

Customers of DTH networks have been flooding social media, particularly Twitter, with messages of frustration as the implementation of the new TRAI rules on channel pricing hits its third day today. Among the DTH providers transitioning customers are Airtel Digital, Tata Sky, Dish TV, Videocon D2h and Sun Direct. Many customers are complaining of being […]

TDSAT refuses to intervene in TRAI’s channel pricing rules

Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, the appellate body for resolving industry disputes in the telecom and broadcasting sector, today refused to expeditiously direct the TRAI to implement the 85:100 rule to bring down the prices of individual television channels. TDSAT refused an early hearing in a case filed by cable operator Fastway Transmissions, which […]

Tata Sky vs TRAI: Delhi High Court issues no stay

The country seems to be all set for the implementation of a new pricing regime for cable and DTH services from Friday, with Delhi High Court posting the next date in the Tata Sky vs TRAI case without any stay order on the implementation of the 2017 tariff order. Tata Sky, Bharti Airtel and Discovery […]

TRAI TARIFF PLANS: How to deal with higher TV channel prices

With only 36 hours to go for TRAI’s deadline to implement new tariff plans for cable and DTH platforms in India, all DTH providers and most cable users are faced with the dilemma of how to choose the channels and packs they are going to watch in the new regime. The new system was supposed […]

TRAI RULE: Sun Direct beats Tata Sky, Airtel, D2h by offering all channels for Rs 153 network fee

Sun Direct, the smallest of the six DTH players in India, has bowled a googly at its rivals like Tata Sky and D2h by offering all its channels at a network charge of Rs 154 only. In comparison, other DTH and cable firms give only the first 100 channels for Rs 154. In other words, […]

TRAI Rules: D2h adds support for Star channel packs

D2h, the DTH service from Dish TV India Ltd, has added support for several channel packs from Star India, in an apparent deviation from its earlier stance. The DTH operator had, like rival Sun Direct, omitted all channel packs from Star India when it came out with its list of supported broadcaster packs. There have […]