Digital addressable System in India Evolution Status and Way Forward

Abstract

Cable TV in India has historically been analogue in nature. Public Broadcaster Doordarshan newlinestarted from two channels in the 1970s. At present there are almost 800 TV channels in India, newlinewhich makes it one of the most vibrant communication economies across the globe. Analogue newlinetransmission resulted in numerous challenges for the sector, primarily due to capacity limitation newlineand non addressable nature of subscribers. In analogue transmission, it was very difficult to newlinedetermine how many households (HHs) have subscribed to cable services. The actual number of newlinesubscribers was unknown (non addressability) to the Broadcasters and Multi System Operators newline(MSOs). Accurate information about the number of subscribers was available only to the local newlinecable operators (LCOs). LCOs used to work as fees collection agents. As per TRAI guidelines, newlinerevenues drawn together by stakeholders must be shared. But local cable operators very often newlineunder declared the sum gathered. As a result there was significant revenue loss for broadcasters newlineand also MSOs in some cases. Further, the Government had to incur huge losses on account of newlinelax tax compliance resulting in significantly lower payment of Service Tax and Entertainment newlineTax. Stakeholders involved in analogue television distribution are Broadcasters, Multi System newlineOperators (MSOs), LCOs, Government and Consumers. Broadcasters contribute Content in the newlineform of bunch of channels to Multi System Operators. MSOs aggregate the channels from newlinevarious broadcasters and after repackaging, give them to the LCOs for onward distribution to the newlinesubscriber (consumer). MSOs and LCOs get content by way of bouquets of analogue channels newlinebelonging to different broadcasters (TRAI, 2010). newline