Due to the latest tariffs and tax patterns, there was a huge increase in tariffs introduced by the government has created a lot of fuss in the DTH segment as these changes shift a lot of the price burden on subscribers.
So finally there is good news for the subscribers of cable TV and DTH services.
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How Did This Happen?
Some time back, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), had introduced new tariffs which caused an increase in cable and DTH bills for millions of subscribers.
The Trail had introduced a new pricing pattern that incorporated the Network Capacity Fees (NCF) with additional content charges for the pay channels which was subscribed by the users.
The subscribers have been lifting this extra burden for some time while some have disconnected their DTH connections due to this increase.
After such a long time there is a piece of good news for DTH subscribers as one of the most popular DTH operators has decided to bring a price change for their subscribers.
Who Brought The Change?
Yes, we are talking about the largest DTH operator currently in the country – Tata Sky.
During the last week, the DTH and cable operators have worked on reducing the prices for channels and broadcasters have declared their new channel prices for the popular channels in the country.
The subscribers have been waiting and questioning about when these reduced prices will actually be applicable to subscribers.
But now the wait is over as Tata Sky already incorporated this new pricing in their channel selection plan.
The Tata Sky user can go through this channel selection to see this new pricing for the channels which are considered for price reduction.
Who Much Did It Got Affected?
The point worth noting here is that the pricing for the channels which was earlier Rs 19 per month is reduced to Rs 12 per month for all DS channels.
While they didn’t reduce prices for HD channels, it will remain the same for some time. Also, the subscribers can enjoy free channels on reduced prices.
Consider an example if subscribers opt for four channels than instead of paying Rs 76 they will have to pay Rs 48. They can have a gain of Rs 28 here.
Which can be considered a considerable amount. Many channels have reduced their prices, Star Plus from Star India, Colors and Colors Kannada from Viacom18, many channels from Zee Entertainment and Sony Pictures Networks India channels are also included in the list.
Why Would They Cut The Prices Now?
This price cut has been done just before the speculated move from Trai which was supposed to apply a discount cap on channel packs and buckets.
Trai was against giving any rampant discounts of the channel packs to the subscribers. Considering it pushes consumers to choose from the buckets instead of selecting each channel individually.
With the new rules in effect, the individual pricing of a channel can not exceed more than 15% of whatever be the price of the channel is in the channel pack.
To understand it let’s consider an example – suppose a channels cost is Rs 6 in the bucket then its individual price in a-la-Carta can not exceed Rs 6.9.
This would definitely reduce the burden on subscriber’s pocket as this change will make many channels cheaper and bring down monthly bills for subscribers and cable TV users.