Never has so much noise been generated over a little box. It was around the same time last year, when the Information and Broadcasting Ministry pledged to end the misery of countless viewers by promising them a little box — supposed to revolutionise television viewing habits in India by giving the viewers the choice of what they want to see. Its all about empowering 38 million hapless viewers Government officials added a tad generously and even set the deadline of July 14 in four metros to begin with, by which time the choice would have been made by the consumers. For the record, the box is for those who can afford to pay. The price of the box is anybody’s guess — the cheapest is around Rs (with the present duty structure of 51 per cent and 15 per cent sales tax) 3, 500 with the expensive ones pegged around Rs 8,000. Post-box Scenario • Cable operators can control channel at their head-ends. The equipment there will encoded signals to a viewers’ home for decoding by a set-top box. But before that they have to invest in installing subscriber management systems. Big operators may nudge the small ones out. • Broadcasters like Star, Sony and Zee — might lose out on viewership as they bundle weak channels with strong ones. May revert to free-to-air or split their popular channels into basic and premium pay channels. • Consumers may have the choice of getting attractive schemes on the box (as promised by MSOs like IN) • Win-win situation for the Government as it stand to make more money on entertainment tax on cable as real figures are declared As for the rest, the Government has decided that they could do without the box — whether that means foregoing Kyunki, Kkhusum, Kahani etc — is not clear. Cable operators, the most maligned in the broadcast industry, too wanted the box — Pata chal jayega kaun kya dekh raha hai (we will soon find out who is watching what). But with the deadline approaching neither the Government, nor the broadcasters, not even the cable operators who wanted the box in the first place — are sure now. So, who wants the box? As of now, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, representing the interests of broadcasters is a divided house. Some of the members like Star and Sony would like the deadline to be deferred by another year. If not that, then introduce the box and see its performance in one metro. More important, will the boxes be in place by the deadline?, they ask. The number of boxes required in the four metropolitan cities is estimated to be around six million, that is six million viewers would have chosen in favour of the box. But then again, broadcasters are not sure about the exact size of the market and they are not willing to foot the bill for the box. Not until the operators both independent and Multi-System Operators (Hathway, Siti, IN cable) furnish a minimum guarantee of subscribers. But cable operators are not willing to commit. Their dreams of making more money on the basic tier (i.e free-to-air channels not requiring a box) evaporated when Finance Ministry fixed the price of 30 -odd channels at Rs 72 per subscriber. Add to that another Rs 20 as entertainment tax and one gets gets about 30 channels for less than Rs 100. If that sounds too good to be true for the consumer — the operators are not willing to play ball. They are eyeing a figure of Rs 195. Add at least 200 for the pay channel and the subscriber will be shelling out nearly Rs 350 for watching less. Is the Government interested in sorting out the mess? ‘‘They have to sort this matter out themselves,’’ say officials. As for the consumer, he is as clueless as this writer. In the intervening period, the neighbourhood cable guy has just hiked his fee by another Rs 40. Out in the neighbourhood, the cable operator is still king.
