Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Tuesday extended the deadline for customers to select TV channels under the new tariff regime for the broadcasting sector.
Subscribers now have time till March 31 for exercising the option.
According to TRAI, about 65% of the subscribers of the cable services and 35% of the DTH services have exercised the option till now. There are about 100 million cable service TV homes and 67 million DTH TV homes in the country.
“It was brought to the notice of the Authority that as the system of selecting channels/bouquet by the subscribers had been introduced for first time in the country, some subscribers were facing difficulties in selecting the channels/bouquet of their choice,” TRAI said in a statement.
In some cases, local cable operators have not been able to reach out to subscriber.
Also, some subscribers may be required to go to nearest point of sale (PoS) for exercising their option as they do not have access to IT facility or are not comfortable using an IT system.
The Authority has asked all distribution platform owners (DPOs) to create ‘Best Fit Plan’ for its subscribers, who have not exercised their options yet.
The plan will be designed based on consumers’ usage pattern, language spoken and popularity of channels.
‘Best Fit Plan’
“It should preferably be a blended combination of various genre… while making ‘Best Fit Plan’ for a subscriber, DPOs should ensure that payout per month of the ‘Best Fit Plan’ generally does not exceed the payout per month of existing tariff plan of the subscriber,” the authority said.
Additionally, TRAI has directed all DPOs to migrate subscribers who do not exercise their options to the ‘Best Fit Plan’. “The subscribers’ old plan shall continue till either subscriber exercise his/her option, or he/she is migrated to the ‘Best Fit Plan’,” it added. Subscribers will be free to change this before March 31, 2019.
