On receiving assent of the President of India on December 31, 2002 the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued a notification on January 14, 2003 mandating a staggered implementation of the Conditional Access Law brought in to the Cable Network Regulation Act 1995. By this only 4.5 million cable and satellite homes out of the total of 45 million were to be given the right of choice of selecting and paying for only those pay channels which they actually wanted to watch. For this purpose Government mandated compulsory addressibility for pay channels for the 4 metros with effect from 15 July 2003.

In the past six months there has been a vicious anti-CAS campaign launched by the Foreign TV Broadcasters lobby to safeguard their business interests and strategic desire to create a vertical monopoly over the information medium and subvert Indian society and polity. The campaign has succeeded in confusing the customer into thinking that he was better off without the right of choice as the cost of cable service would become higher and the quality of cable service would not improve.

In January 2003 itself Govt. set up an implementation taskforce consisting of all stakeholders including customer organizations. This taskforce recommended an attractive Free To Air rate of Rs 72/- for a minimum of 30 channels. The large Multi System Operators responded favourably and offered 70 Free To Air channels for Rs 72/-. Govt. slashed customs duty on imported set top boxes for a limited period to 5%. MSOs again responded by coming out with extremely attractive rental packages for STBs of refundable deposit of Rs 999 and rental of Re 1 a day. The MSOs also have each spent Rs 100 crores to bring in state of the art digital cable technology in association with the top technology majors which will enable customer in the near future to also take benefit of Value Added Services like Pay Per View, Broadband Internet and Content on Demand.

On the other hand broadcasters have continued to defy the Govt. and have not accepted the public desire of right of choice which is the essence of CAS and have in fact raised their Pay TV bouquet prices causing anger and confusion in the mind of the customers. After agreeing to an invitational pricing of Rs 72 till the revised zonal rollout of CAS was completed by 30th November, 2003 they went back on their solemn promise on the same night and have boldly proclaimed on electronic media that their business interests are more important than public interests.

Broadcasters have two more objectives in mind in derailing CAS. They want to create a vertical monopoly by expediting the introduction of Direct To Home technology eliminating over 70,000 cable operators who's private enterprise has created one of the worlds largest cable TV networks reaching out to 45 million homes. The entire Indian Cable TV industry has come up without any Government or Broadcaster support and is the finest example of small private entrepreneurship anywhere in the world.

Broadcasters also wish to control the entire information medium of electronic media in India, emasculate the national public broadcaster Doordarshan and control the minds and thoughts of 45 million viewers through motivated news programming which do not always keep national, political, strategic interests in mind or even cultural sensitivity of the Indian masses. The experience of foreign broadcasters abroad has been their clear desire to influence political parties and indeed elections to select Prime Ministerial candidates of their choice by subverting the democratic process of choice by the common man.

After detailed consultations with all the stakeholders Govt. decided to adopt a zonal rollout even for the 4 metro cities and postponed the introduction of CAS to September 1, 2003. Latest reports claim that even this date maybe rolled back due to alleged insufficiency of set top boxes and refusal of the broadcasters to bring in more customer friendly pay TV prices. As late as July 15, 2003 Govt. held a series of discussions with the major cable networks in the 4 metro cities and was given documentary evidence of the delivery of the set top box schedules. Even though not more than 20% of customers are expected to opt for pay TV services the large cable chains have pledged to the Govt. to bring in set top boxes for a minimum of 25% of the customer base.

While the broadcasters are still not in a mood to bring in customer friendly pay TV packages it must be remembered that millions of cable viewers in the 4 metros are eagerly awaiting the revised date of September 1, 2003 to first and foremost pay only Rs 72 + taxes for 70 FTA channels and exercise their right of choice to decide and pay for pay TV channels of their choice.

When rollback is being considered it must be kept in mind that the public anger at having to pay a minimum of Rs 450 for the present bouquet of pay TV channels without being able to exercise choice will lead to civil commotion and disturbance which may be difficult to control. A view has to now be taken by the Govt. whether public interest is paramount or business interests of Foreign Pay TV broadcasters.

Ashok Mansukhani is executive vice-president Hinduja TMT Ltd.

(The views expressed here are those of the author. www.indiantelevision.com need not necessarily subscribe to them).