Direct to Home (DTH) operator Airtel Digital TV has started deducting balance upfront on a-la-carte activation. The change has been done to fix the leakage in revenue and took place earlier this month.
Airtel Digital TV and Tata Sky are the only distribution platform operators (DPO) in India that provide a one day lock-in period. While Tata Sky’s system didn’t allow leakage in revenue, Airtel’s system had an exploit that let revenue leakage.
Airtel customers could activate a channel during the day and deactivate it before midnight and pay nothing for the channel. They would have only had to pay the daily burn rate for Network Capacity Fee. The flaw has now been fixed to instantly deduct the a-la-carte MRP upfront at activation.
An Airtel Digital TV customer who conversed with Airtel Digital customer care was told that customers were doing misuse of activating channels in the morning and removing before midnight so the company has decided to instantly deduct 1-day DBR of that particular channel which you activate.
Tata Sky has been following the same procedure from the start. While packs, channels, and bouquets can be added and dropped on the same day, Tata Sky deducts the daily burn rate at activation.
The DTH operator’s move came after the implementation of the New Tariff Order 2.0 which has reduced the Network Capacity Fee revenue for DTH operators. Airtel curated packs are also reportedly no longer offering any discount. The move is aimed at maximizing the revenue generation to cope up with the loss in NCF revenue.
