The government has advised the registered broadcasters to enter into fresh inter-connection or renewal agreements with only those Multi-System Operators (MSOs) whose status is “compliant”.
According to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting advisory, it has decided to mark as “non-compliant” all the operators which have failed to adhere to the terms and conditions of their registration. The violations include contravention of audit regulations, non-furnishing of information to the Ministry and non-intimation of change of director/shareholder.
If a broadcaster already has an agreement with any non-compliant MSO, it has been told to contact the operator, asking it to get the status changed. As per the inter-connection regulation issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), a broadcaster has to sign an agreement with the distributor of television channels for providing signals on a non-discriminatory basis.
In the advisory, the Ministry noted that the broadcasters had reported issues about “under-reporting” of subscriber base and non-compliance to the TRAI’s audit regulation by cable operators, leading to loss of revenue for them.
“The Interconnection Regulations, 2017, issued by the TRAI mandates that every distributor of television channels, once in a calendar year, shall cause audit of its subscriber management system, conditional access system and other related systems by an auditor to verify that the monthly subscription reports made available by the distributor to the broadcasters are complete, true and correct,” it said.
The regulations also provide an option to the broadcasters to get audited the systems used by the distributors of television channels, if they are not satisfied with the audit report. Compliance to these guidelines by the MSOs are mandated under the Cable Television Networks Rules.
In order to ensure adherence to the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act and the associated rules, the Ministry had earlier directed all the MSOs to furnish information through its Digital India portal such as head-end locations, conditional access system, transport stream or frequency, radio-frequency feed, platform service, and other relevant details.
“It has been observed that despite the above mechanisms being in place, the response of the majority of the MSOs has not been satisfactory. Despite providing ample opportunities, many of them failed to get registered on the Digital India portal and furnish the information on the portal,” said the Ministry.
Taking cognisance of the matter, the Ministry said such cable operators would be marked as “non-compliant. It has also published the list of registered MSOs along with their compliance status.
