More on dish TV now for less

Tata Sky gets Zee bouquet, not to charge extra.

Customers now have reason to cheer. A pair of verdicts will play out in keeping direct-to-home television (DTH) services cheaper than cable TV rates, at least for now.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement And Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) today directed Zee-Turner, part of the Zee group which distributes Zee and other channels, to provide its signals to Tata Sky, a DTH service provider, within 48 hours.

The broadcasting industry is governed by the telecommunications regulatory mechanism.

With this, Tata Sky will increase the number of channels it offers to customers on its DTH platform from 75 to around 107. This will mean taking its main competitor, Zee-owned Dish TV, head on.

Tata Sky has to fork out Rs 75 to Zee for the 32 new channels, which include the Zee bouquet, CNBC, HBO, CNN, Vh1 and Pogo.

But the good news for customers is that they do not have to pay extra, at least in the festive season. A Tata Sky executive pointed out: "We will continue with the existing price of Rs 199 per month for the time being. Of course, we are subsidising the service. We might review the price now that we have the Zee bouquet. But for those who buy quickly, this price is frozen for the next four months."

The company hopes to grow by 70-100 per cent in the next few months.

While accepting the verdict, Jawahar Goel, business head of Dish TV (which recently put the Star bouquet on its platform after a bitter fight in the TDSAT), said, "We will continue to maintain our prices for the next one year." Dish TV offers DTH at Rs 125-350 per month.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court, while declining to stay Star TV's petition against a Rs 5 ceiling on channel prices under the conditional access system (CAS) imposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai ), put the next hearing for November 15.

A Star spokesperson said, "In our writ, we had questioned Trai's authority to set channel prices."

The move is significant because at a cap of Rs 5, customers might have to pay more to watch cable TV than DTH.

Customers pay an average Rs 200-220 a month for cable TV for 60-70 channels on cable TV. With CAS coming into effect in the southern parts of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata by December 31, customers will have to pay Rs 227 for 60 channels (including Rs 77 for 30 free-to-air channels).

But for 100 channels, they will pay Rs 427 if the Trai recommendations are upheld. They will also have to pay for a set top box, just as in DTH.