The high court will take up the federation’s appeal against disconnection notices issued by the broadcasters at 3 pm on Monday. Last Friday, the court adjourned the matter without passing any order.
In a statement issued late evening on Saturday, the federation accused the three broadcasters of arm-twisting multi-system operators (MSOs) to sign content deals as per the new tariff order (NTO) 3.0 despite the matter being sub judice.
The AIDCF, which is the apex body of MSOs in India, also claimed that the three broadcasters had deactivated signals to various independent MSOs since most of them refused to sign fresh agreements. The AIDCF said its members have a combined market share of more than 60% in the cable TV Industry.
It also accused the sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) of not intervening on behalf of the consumers, “Further, Trai being aware of this disconnection notices has not taken any steps to ensure that cable TV subscribers are not inconvenienced,” said the AIDCF.
The federation’s secretary general Manoj Chhangani said the MSOs have not executed fresh contracts as a mark of protest against the unreasonable price hike by these broadcasters.
“After giving a mere 48-hour notice to the platforms and in spite of the matter being sub-judice in various courts, and some of the platforms requesting the broadcasters not to disconnect their channels in light of such proceedings, the broadcasters, Disney Star, Sony, and Zee have gone ahead and disconnected their channels on the cable TV platforms of the members of AIDCF,” said Chhangani. “This action has resulted in depriving around 45,000,000 cable TV families across the country of being able to watch channels transmitted by these broadcasters.”The Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation (IBDF) defended the decision of its members to disconnect signals, stating that the operators were provided 48 hours to sign the revised agreement in order to continue receiving TV signals without interruption.
“While some operators have signed the agreement, AIDCF members have chosen to ignore it and deliberately refused to sign the revised interconnect offer. The broadcasters, therefore, had no legal recourse but to disconnect TV services from the DPOs that refused to comply with the regulatory framework,” said the IBDF.
The three broadcasters had issued disconnection notices on February 15 to AIDCF-aligned MSOs. The MSOs were asked to either sign fresh agreements or face disconnection of channel signals.
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