(21 November 2006 8:25 pm)

MUMBAI: The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has proposed to direct-to-home (DTH) player Tata-Sky and Chennai-based broadcaster Sun TV Group that they resolve their dispute between themselves.

According to a tribunal official, the two parties are set to negotiate a potential settlement at a meeting in Chennai that is likely to take place by the end of week.

Nonetheless, the tribunal dispute forum has also drawn up the date for next hearing before adjourning the case to 29 November if the attempts to achieve a "lucid response" through the discussion fails.

Tata-Sky had moved the tribunal accusing the broadcaster of refusing supply of its bouquet of channels. The DTH player approached the disputes forum after repeated requests to provide the signals of the channels of Sun's bouquet of channels on "non-discriminatory terms" proved futile.

According to the norms laid down by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), all content should be made available to all delivery platforms on a nondiscriminatory basis.

Sun TV promoter Kalanithi Maran has set forth plans to enter the DTH space through the still to launch commercially Sun Direct TV. He runs a string of successful channels, which include SunTV, GeminiTV, SuryaTV, UdayaTV, KTV, TejaTV, UsheTV, KiranTV, AdithyaTV, Sun News, KiranTV, GeminiTV, TejaTV, Teja News, Udaya2 and Udaya News.