The information and broadcasting ministry today rejected Zee Telefilms' plea for bundling its channels instead of offering them on an a la carte basis.
Zee on Saturday had asked the government to allow it to offer its channels as a bouquet and not on an a la carte basis, as per the regulations under the conditional access system (CAS).
"There is a notification that does not allow bundling of channels. It should be taken seriously and not treated as trivial," an information and broadcasting ministry official said.
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The government also said as per the regulations, broadcasters were required to offer a la carte prices of channels as well as prices of bouquets so that consumers could choose the channels they wanted to view.
Zee had said consumers would be benefited only if the channels were offered as a bundle. "Zee cannot be an exception to this. The rules will be the same for all," the official said.
Zee had announced that its bouquet of 14 channels would be offered to consumers at Rs 1.80 per day and said it was not in a position to price its channels on an a la carte basis.
The ministry has also said it will give some more time to the broadcasters to work out the individual pricing of channels.
"The channels require some more time to work out their prices. We are ready to offer them more time," the official said.
"The cable operators will not be able to provide consumers with set-top boxes in a single day. They will need some time to roll out, but we do not want the consumers to suffer. We want the cable operators to continue to offer all the channels to consumers who do not have set-top boxes during the rollout," he said.
The official also said the government was studying laws in other countries to work out ways to regulate the pay channels.
"There have been some recommendations with us to look into issues like cap on advertisements on pay channels. We are looking at such recommendations," he said.
Jawahar Goel, additional vice-president, Zee Telefilms, said the company was working with local cable operators and multi-system operators to work out a la carte pricing of channels.