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Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India - Section
Section 66 in Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Eighth) (Addressable Systems) Tariff Order, 2017
66. Some stakeholders are of the opinion that limiting the discount to subscribers while forming bouquets is anti subscriber. In this regard, while the Authority wants to facilitate the availability of a-la-carte choice to customers/ subscribers, it does not intend to encroach upon the freedom of broadcasters and distributors to do business. During the discussions in the Parliament on the motion for consideration of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2011, the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting emphasised the need to establish a system for subscribers to choose a-la-carte channels of choice. The Authority has also made several attempts in this regard, but for one or the other reason could not succeed. Here it is important to understand that the Authority has not been able to do pricing of channels in the absence of pricing of content. Present trends indicate that majority of channels are priced much below the prevailing ceiling, but higher ceilings were prescribed to give flexibility to broadcasters to monetise their channels and freedom to do business. Further, different channels even in the same genre may have varying cost of production and potential to monetise, but within the framework. A broadcaster may price even non-driver channels at a much higher value that they can command. Non-discovery of reasonable price of a channel in a market is one of the constraints that can be manipulated and misused to price a channel in a-la-carte from which is illusionary. Such high a-la-carte prices permits broadcasters/distributors to provide high discounts to push non-drivers channels in form of bouquets to the subscribers while reducing the probability of choosing the a-la-carte channels of choice as required by the lawmakers in the Parliament. The possibility to forcing bouquets over a-la-carte choice by using higher discounts can be further understood by following example, where a broadcaster has a total of 35 pay channels out of which only 5 are driver channels :
Table 1: a-la-carte vs. Bouquet prices| Channel | Discount 75% | Discount 60% | Discount 45% | Discount 30% | Discount 15% |
| Channel 1 a-la-carte price | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| Channel 2 a-la-carte price | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Channel 3 a-la-carte price | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Channel 4 a-la-carte price | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Channel 5 a-la-carte price | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Sum of a-la-carte prices of 5 driver paychannels | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| Sum of a-la-carte prices of 30 nondriver paychannels (@ Re 1) | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 |
| Total price of 35 a-la-carte pay channels | 80 | 80 | 80 | 80 | 80 |
| Price of bouquet of 35 pay channels (with discount on sum of a-la-carte prices ) | 20 | 32 | 44 | 56 | 68 |