The tiff between sports channel ESPN and Mumbai cable operators has reached a flashpoint with operators refusing to pay the higher subscription fee of Rs 7 per subscriber.
The city's other main network, IN Cablenet, refused to comment on the dispute. Sources at the network said they were letting their franchisees negotiate directly with ESPN.
Siti Cable, one of the cable networks partly owned by Subhash Chandra has termed the higher fee unreasonable. "It is too much, too soon," said a Siti Cable spokesperson.
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The fight between ESPN and the cable operators, now turning out to be an annual affair, began when the sports network upped the subscriber fee from Rs 5.70 to 7 from September 1.
"ESPN has switched off all decoders and is putting on only those which have been paid for at the rate of Rs 7," the spokesperson added.
Pay channels usually have an invitation price, which they raise depending on the elasticity of demand.
This is ESPN's second hike after it became a pay channel. First time it hiked it to Rs 5.70 from Rs 3.40.
Sources say this time ESPN gave a grace period of around three months to operators before it switched off its decoders.
"To the best of our knowledge, no cable operator is receiving signals in Mumbai," said the Siti spokesperson. ESPN officials were unavailable for comment. This is not the first time that there has been a stand-off between the channel and cable operators. Last year when ESPN hiked its rates operators in various parts of the country had refused to air the channel.
In March this year, a move by Star Sports,( which became a pay channel after ESPN) to charge a fee of Rs 3.30 had cable associations threatening legal action.
Currently, operators are airing Star Sports but not ESPN, as the former is beamed at a much cheaper rate of Rs 3.30. Siti says it is open to negotiations with ESPN.
"We have not had any complaints from our subscribers so far, so we don't need to make the first move," the ESPN spokesperson pointed out.
Siti considers the existing price as ideal and would like to continue with the present arrangement.
"We can arrive at some broad agreement with ESPN if they offer to negotiate," the spokesperson added.
Multi-systems operators can afford to negotiate on prices with pay channels as they have an advantage of volume which independent cable operators do not possess.