A day after Tata Sky announced cut in its subscription charges on different packages, Dish TV today said "what is being positioned seemingly as a price reduction is not at all a reduction".
"A reduction of price can happen only if the value of the product does not decrease simultaneously, which is not the case here. Whilst a new lower price has been announced, it is at the cost of reduced content (as) 12 channels have been removed from the base pack," a Dish TV statement said.
Tata Sky had announced that its Family Pack would be available at Rs 200 per month instead of Rs 250 earlier. This pack offers around 90 leading Hindi, regional, kids, infotainment and news channels. Also, the top-end Super Saver pack, offering over 110 channels including English channels, was reduced to Rs 260 per month.
Dish TV said in actual terms it is a price increase by Tata Sky as now customers would have to pay extra for ESPN, Star Sports, Star Cricket, Ten Sports and BBC, which have not been included in the new packages. These channels were available within the earlier schemes.
When contacted, Tata Sky Chief Marketing Officer Vikram Mehra said the new pricing strategy was done to avoid customers paying for unwanted channels. "The whole philosophy is that people who do not want to pay for a niche channel should not be paying for something they do not want to watch," Mehra said.