Zee wins round one in Star war

Regulator asks Star TV to share its channels with Zee's DTH service.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today directed broadcasters to share content with all distribution networks, bringing out the sharp differences between rivals Star and Zee over the issue.

The Trai verdict follows complaints made to the government by the Zee Group that Star had refused to give its channels to Dish TV, its DTH service.

The government had then entrusted Trai to come up with directives on the issue. After today's decision, broadcasting companies like Star cannot hold back exclusive premium content for distribution networks they control and deny the same to rival networks.

The Star Group, which has been opposing the 'must-provide' condition, is clearly unhappy. "We have been opposing the 'must-provide' conditions as such a situation does not exist anywhere in the world. This will destroy content and creativity as there will be no premium for exclusive content," a Star India spokesperson said.

Welcoming the move, Jawahar Goel, vice-chairman of the Essel Group, said: "We are happy that Trai has recognised the need for a 'must-provide' regime and this regulation shall provide a genuine choice to the consumers. The consumer shall have access to popular content through various distribution platforms deploying latest technologies, which would surely add value to the services."

He also hoped that Star and Sony would fall in line with the Trai decision. Goel said: "DISH TV has already approached Star and Sony for providing their content/channels on its DTH platform. We sincerely hope that in the spirit of regulations, they will positively respond within the period as provided in the notification itself vide clause 3.6 of the regulation."

According to broadcasting industry sources, the Trai order would not mean an end to the differences between the TV channels over the issue. In fact, they felt, today's move by the regulator could kick off a fresh round of court cases with a section of the broadcasting community expected to challenge this move in a court of law.

As per the Trai order, this directive should come into effect within the next 90 days and broadcasters and distribution networks would have to rework their agreements accordingly.

This will be an uphill task for the broadcasters as they have contracts with a large number of cable operators.

For example, a braodcaster like Zee has about 6, 000 such contracts. "Making new contracts with the existing cable operators and new cable operators will be tough. I wish the regulator had given us more time," said a senior executive with a broadcasting company.

Besides, Trai has also made it mandatory for broadcasters to give cable operators or distribution service providers a month's notice before disconnecting signals to them for any reason.

However, in the case of unauthorised re-transmission of TV channels, the signals may be disconnected by giving a notice of two working days.