Advanced Television

India looks to regulate HD fees

March 8, 2016

By Chris Forrester

Local reports describe the fees charged to consumers by broadcasters for their HD channels as “exorbitant”, and it seems India’s broadcasting regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) agrees.

TRAI has issued a consultation paper to seek stakeholders’ opinions on whether the HD channel should be officially regulated.

TRAI’s latest consultation document (“Tariff issues related to TV services”) has invited comments (and with a closing date for counter comments of March 18th) as to whether the current freedom on pricing of HD channels should end. TRAI suggests that broadcasters do not have to incur extra costs to produce HD channels, other than the cost of bandwidth for uplinking.

It also seems that TRAI is concerned that HD channels which were once free of advertising are now seeing plenty of ads creeping into their transmissions.

Categories: Articles, Policy, Regulation