The standoff continues between Media Pro Enterprise India, the joint venture company that distributes all the channels of Zee Network, Star India, NDTV and Turner and cable operators association in Kerala, depriving over 400,000 cable TV homes in the state of the TV channels since over a week now.
Media Pro had last week discontinued the signals off all its channels on cable after issuing a one-month notice, claiming that it has been facing severe issues from a certain group of local cable operators in the state.
“A group of cable operators are creating unwarranted problems for Media Pro that has hampered the smooth telecast of channels across the state. These cable operators have not paid their subscription fee for the bouquet of channels distributed by Media Pro more than a year now,” the company stated.
It said that it was forced to take this decision of deactivating all the channels after numerous reminders and notices failed to evoke any response from these operators.
The Kerala Cable Operators Association, which has over 3000 cable operators, however, said they have stopped broadcasting Asianet, Asianet Plus and Asianet Movies from the Asianet Group from November 11, claiming that Media Pro is asking operators to pay unreasonable old dues.
Media Pro said that the group of operators are spreading rumours on ground by telling the consumers that they have to pay a very high amount if they want Media Pro channels. “However, in reality, these operators are catering to millions of households across the state and are paying only a miniscule amount of subscription fee collected per household to Media Pro,” Media Pro said.
A senior official of Media Pro stated, “Few operators are spreading rumours that are misleading the viewers that they will have to pay higher subscription fees if they wish to view our channels which are absolutely not true. These operators retain a lion’s share of all the subscription fees that they collect from the viewers and do not pay what is rightfully due to us. Despite repeated reminders and meetings to resolve the issue, we have received no response from these operators which has in turn forced us to take this tough decision of disconnecting the channels.”