According to TRAI's channel selector application, you would end up paying Rs 6,137 if you were to subscribe to each and every channel.

[HOUSE-MD]

In case you were wondering how expensive could your TV viewing become, here’s an answer. According to TRAI’s channel selector application, you would end up paying Rs 6,137 if you were to subscribe to each and every channel offered by DTH and cable operators. However, after optimising all the available channels for bundles, the amount would reduce to Rs 5,023 according to the TRAI channel selector app. This includes 25 mandatory DD channels, 559 free-to-air channels and 330 pay channels.

For more details: Financial Express | The Indian Express

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Till yesterday i can pay Rs 5,999 for 1 full year subscription to all SD & HD channels from all genre and all languages. But now seems the happy seasons are over for DTH subscribers, the TRAI surprise simply puts people back into the stone age times.

TRAI says just pay for what you watch, is it something like a mobile connection where you just pay buy second or a minute, but we spend per month whether we watch the channel or not so looks like its a tough choice.

Mostly morning i watch WWE Live or Soccer,
then family switches to Tamil GEC for some astrological shows,
then goes for tamil news,
then i watch some English news and later some business news.
Then comes Tamil Music channels.

All these within 5-9 AM. So i need min 5 different types of channels from 6 different genre.

Then comes afternoon, again news, then business news or LokSabha or RajyaSahba or some Tamil Music.

Then during evening family watches Tamil GEC Sops ( 7 - 8 PM), then English movies (8 - 10 PM).

So based on my selected i need to shell out atleast Rs 1,600 for min 2 connections which comes to over Rs 19,000 per year whereas im currently paying just Rs 9,000. Huh, what a great help. Thanks so much TRAI.

 

[HOUSE-MD]

So, under the present regime where the customer can watch 350 channels at a minimum of Rs 250, once the NTO comes into place, the customer will have to shell out close to Rs 400, only to watch a maximum of 100 channels.
If a customer opts to select channels on an a-la-carte basis, the rates are double as the value packs are provided to the customers under discounted rates.
Keeping the above figures in mind, the TRAI order, which was pitched under the affordability aspect, does not meet its objective as customers have to pay almost the same or more compared to the current pricing, that too, for a much lesser number of channels.

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For more details: The News Minute

 

[Sarkar]

How much we were paying earlier when each sports ch was priced at Rs 75 and some premium chs like CNBC prime was priced at Rs 100, even all FTA DD chs were priced at Rs 5 ? I guess it was more than Rs 10,000 per month

At least now we can save Rs 4000 per month. Also no to forget NHK Pemium is itself priced at Rs 1,800+ Gst in new era

 

[TJ_DJ]

Pricing Ala Carte premium channels as Rs 75 or Rs 100 was done by DTH since earlier TRAI had made it mandatory to have an "Ala Carte" pack. The DTH Operators played foul that time, such that Ala Carte packages always prove to be costlier than their "recommended" packages, thus forcing us to shell out more but effectively settle for less per channel cost.

It is this foul play that caught TRAI's eye and they decided to shift the pricing to broadcaster level, rather than DTH operator level. Good move, but we lost the huge discounts we got when choosing higher packs (Like Infinity Sports in ADTV).

It is all a huge debate. A battle and fight between Broadcasters and DTH Operators, eventually, the customer suffers. This is observed in most industries in India.

 

[HOUSE-MD]

I believe the target is not DTH, atleast not initially but Local Cable who will be massively hit as they had way cheaper subscription costs.

Once fibernet connects televisions then Cable might no longer exist atleast at metro's & other large cities where fibernet is immediately available and many DTH users might switch to Fibernet as its way cheaper than DTH and also weather issues wont affect it as much as it does to DTH.

What all i can see is "All Roads Lead to JIO". Once JIO Fibernet gets on war footing then we can visualise the same play we saw with mobile networks. I have no idea if all these changes are made for JIO or fortunately JIO makes use of all these changes. But whatever, "All Roads Does Seem to Lead to JIO".

 

[bkonline9]

Once 85:100 rule is implemented the channel prices has to come down

 

[Sarkar]

I believe the target is not DTH, atleast not initially but Local Cable who will be massively hit as they had way cheaper subscription costs.

Once fibernet connects televisions then Cable might no longer exist atleast at metro's & other large cities where fibernet is immediately available and many DTH users might switch to Fibernet as its way cheaper than DTH and also weather issues wont affect it as much as it does to DTH.

What all i can see is "All Roads Lead to JIO". Once JIO Fibernet gets on war footing then we can visualise the same play we saw with mobile networks. I have no idea if all these changes are made for JIO or fortunately JIO makes use of all these changes. But whatever, "All Roads Does Seem to Lead to JIO".

It's not easy task for Jio, BSNL has 3 times more optical Fiber than Jio, more than 7 lakh km total optical fiber still hard reach any home as a result very few FTTH subscribers also cost is not cheap. Only cities elite people can afford it, so these poor who you are talking about should not dream about owning a BWM.

 

[Saurav Ghosh]

Every time I hear about the TRAI, and imagine its chairman's face, can't help but to think of the first 5-10 mins of the Kubrick flick 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Darn! I'm badly insulting them by this comparison right, the animals I mean?

LMAO.

 

[Sarkar]

Every time I hear about the TRAI, and imagine its chairman's face, can't help but to think of the first 5-10 mins of the Kubrick flick 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Darn! I'm badly insulting them by this comparison right, the animals I mean?

LMAO.

He deserves much better treatment from us because he is the one who allowed jio's free service and we got 1 year free subscription. Technically no operator can do that so that credit goes to him

 

[HOUSE-MD]

1: My current pack is Rs 275. It clearly states "Infinity HD Standard" where i get almost every SD & HD channels at just Rs 275.
2: Here 2 packs are suggested.

• Pack 1: TN Value Sports SD Pack at Rs 340 &
• Pack 2 TN My Family SD Pack at Rs 450.
• Pack 1 & Pack 2 both are SD packs so absolutely no HD Channels.
• Both Pack 1 & Pack 2 specifically mentions "TN" meaning these packs are for Tamil Nadu Audience.

3: Pack 1 has 125 Channels out of which atleast 24 Channels from North Indian languages which most south indians would understand, atleast from TN. Pack 2 has even more such useless channels.
4: Pack 1 has absolutely zero Eng entertainment, Movies and International Channels. Whereas Pack 2 has just a sample of 4 Channels each.

Now why would i subscribe to such a pack which has nothing from my requirements or does Airtel think im a total id*ot to accept what ever they offer? Which id*ot will pay Rs 450 for just a very few SD channels? If they want to take me to stone age then sorry, im not the right person for them.

Huh. So this is what the huge benefit TRAI has announced? Kudos. Demonetisation, GST and now this. Donno what else is on the pipeline.

Now all i will do is to wait till Airtel changes my pack to something costlier and call them up and downgrade to base pack with just 1 or two soccer channels & few FTA english & tamil news channels well within Rs 200 and when my ARP completes by April/May will discontinue everything and search for better options.

Who knows, soon DTH might be dunked and Airtel Fiberoptic would bring cable as its already bringing both upload and download at 300 Mbps seamlessly so delivering cable shouldnt be a big task except DTH had fewer issues from local cable whereas Fiberoptics have more as it crosses the street which anyone can mess with.