CAS to be delayed in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata

About five million cable households in the three metros ""Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata "" will continue to pay higher cable bills as the extension of the Conditional Access System (CAS) in these cities has been delayed by at least six to eight months.

According to sources, CAS will not come into effect in the three metros before the first week of April 2008. Currently, CAS is operational in south Delhi, south Mumbai and south Kolkata since January 1 and it had to extend in the rest of the cities by the end of this year.

CAS is a technology platform for the delivery of cable television channels via a set-top box aimed at reducing the monthly cable bills of the consumers.

Under CAS, consumers pay for only the channels they watch. According to sources, the ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) is not convinced of the merits of extending CAS from south Delhi, south Mumbai and south Kolkata to rest of the cities. Therefore, it had asked the state governments of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Delhi to submit a status report, sources said. While the Delhi and West Bengal governments have sent their reports, the report from the Maharashtra government is still pending. Once all the reports are studied, the I&B ministry will come out with a notification for extension of CAS to rest of the city in the three metros, an industry source told Business Standard.

While CAS as a technology platform has been welcomed by all stakeholders, its implementation and the price caps on pay channels led to rifts between the broadcasters and the cable industry.

According to experts, there are many problems with CAS roll out in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata including shortage of set-top boxes, inferior quality of boxes, piracy, pricing of pay channels and consumers not opting for CAS.

Pay broadcasters like Star TV, Sony TV, ESPN, Star Sports among others have consistently opposed the Rs 5 cap per pay channel in CAS areas. "Costly content like sports can not be capped at Rs 5. The entire cable industry will be destroyed. Therefore, the government will have to remove the price cap and ensure the availability of set-top boxes before extending CAS to the rest of the three metros," a senior executive in ESPN, Star Sports said. "Extending CAS to the entire city without resolving some of the issues would lead to more problems," said a senior official in the I&B ministry. According to sources, the I&B ministry is expected to bring in a notification of the extension of CAS in rest of the three metro by end-September or early October. After notification, it will take six-months for the cable industry to roll out CAS in these cities.