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Trai: MSOs only have to build capacity for 500 channels
New Delhi: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday asserted that the Tariff Order for Digital Addressable Systems (DAS) had not ‘mandated‘ that multi-system operators (MSOs) must carry 500 television channels, but merely suggested they ‘create the physical capacity‘ to be able to do so.
Meet Malhotra, senior counsel for TRAI, stated before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) that it was also erroneous to say that there had been no application of mind or no study for fixing the ceilings or revenue sharing in the Tariff Order. ‘We do not need a detailed study to move from CAS to DAS‘, he added.
He reiterated during the hearing challenging the Tariff Order that no revenue share had been kept for broadcasters in the basic service tier of Rs 100 for 100 television channels as they were free to air and it was only the MSOs who had to download them and retransmit them to the local cable operators. The revenue share therefore was decided in the ratio of 55:45. In the case of the bouquet of a mix of pay and FTA channels, the maximum rate prescribed was Rs 150 with a revenue sharing of 65:35 between MSOs and LCOs. The MSO would work out his own terms with the broadcaster.
He also said that carriage and placement fee had a place in conditional access system because of bandwidth constraints and since channels sought placement in prime bands, but there is no such constraint in DAS as all channels will be arranged genre wise.
Since digitization uses compression, more channels can be carried, which he described as ‘optimal use of technology to bring a vast pool‘. Carriage fee is also been removed as it creates needless competition, he added.
When he sought to argue that the law did not say anywhere that carriage would not be payable if the MSO approached the broadcaster, Navin Chawla who had represented Delhi Distribution Company intervened to say that that the ‘must carry‘ made it mandatory for an MSO to get a channel that the subscriber asked for.
He added that the Statement of Objects and Reasons to the amendment of the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 itself had referred to creating a basic service tier and was not something that TRAI had thought of on its own.
Furthermore, he said that the law was clear that pay channels could be brought in by TRAI into its tiers if the Central Government was satisfied.
He also supported TRAI‘s stand in its defence of the 2010 Tariff Order, which TDSAT had struck down and against which TRAI‘s appeal was pending in the Supreme Court. He said that the wholesale price at which broadcasters and MSOs were now agreeing was in the range of Rs twenty.
Referring to constant comparisons to direct-to-home, he said the Cable Act did not cover DTH. There was therefore no logic in claims of similar revenue. Referring to the argument that there was no reference to broadcaster in the BST or the upper tier, he said even the licences given to DTH platforms did not have any mention to the broadcaster as the two worked out their own revenue sharing. In fact, he claimed that DTH was shaky in the face of DAS and the operators were therefore offering all kinds of incentives.
Malhotra said there appeared to be ‘too much transparency for the stakeholders to handle‘ in the Tariff Order. But he said that the Tariff should be allowed to work for some time and TRAI and the Government would themselves make changes if they are considered necessary.
When he claimed that some pan-Indian MSOs had already accepted the Tariff Order, counsel C S Vaidyanathan who had represented Digicable said these belonged to broadcasters.
Malhotra will conclude his arguments on 17 September.
Earlier, counsel Soumitra Ghose Chaudhuri on behalf of LCO Udaya Shankar Roy Chowdhury claimed that LCOs would also have to spend huge sums to upgrade their systems just as the MSOs had to do. This upgradation would work out to about Rs 1500 per subscriber, whereas the Tariff Order gave only Rs 45 in the BST.
In the higher tariff of Rs 150, the LCO and MSO stand to lose even more money if a subscriber chose to take only pay channels and no FTA channels.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
