(16 May 2007 10:05 pm)

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today issued notices in two separate cases, to TataSky and Asianet, including the Zee TV appeal against the TDSAT order on TataSky being allowed to carry only 13, and not all 32 Zee channels; and the Asianet case in which parity had been established principle as the basis for subscription base.

The outcome of these two challenges in the apex court would lay down the principles of.

• Whether there is a "must carry" provision implicit in the Trai regulations and DTH payers must carry all the channels offered by a broadcaster;
• And whether parity must be the principle on which a broadcaster has to accept the subscription base of an MSO

The court also issued notice on the appeal for stay by Zee on the implementation of the TDSAT order, after Zee argued today at court that TataSky may be ordered to carry all 32 channels, for which Zee had a unique offer.

Zee held that in the interest of giving the consumers full choice, TataSky could carry all 32 channels till the pendency of the SC case.

If the court finally decided against Zee and ruled that the TDSAT order was correct, Zee offered that it would not charge any money that TataSky may have raised from the consumers for those additional 13 channels.

However, TataSky has been saying consistently that there was no "must carry" provision in the Trai regulations, and that it was severely short on transponder space, hence today too, TataSky refused to accept the Zee offer.

The court, issuing notice on the appeal for stay, has listed the case for July 15.

It also admitted the appeal on the issue of 32 channels being carried as a "must carry" provision, which Zee has held in the TDSAT as in the Trai regulation.

TataSky has been given five weeks to file the reply, upon which, Zee would have to file their rejoinder by the next two weeks after TataSky reply.

On the Asianet case, in a landmark judgement, TDSAT had earlier set "parity" as the principle for working out subscription base and monthly fees between MSOs and broadcasters, concluding the Asianet Vs Star TV case on the issue.

This means that any broadcaster cannot apply different standards while signing agreements based on subscription-base of competing MSOs and impose different charges on such discriminatory basis.

Asianet had won the case in TDSAT, proving that Star was applying different standards for calculating the its subscription base vis-à-vis those of competing MSOs in Kerala, where the former is a major player.

This TDSAT judgement, if upheld by the Supreme Court, would impact the industry as a whole and this principle would shape all future contracts between the players.