Carriage Fee is nothing to do with channels being paid or free, it depends on popularity of channel or placement in bouquet ... A less popular FTA or paid channel would have to pay carriage fee to b available on platform but a very popular one may b added based on public demand similarly even a less popular channel part of popular bouquet will not have to pay carriage fee.
Right now be it popular news or music chs, they pay carriage fee too as i guess there is some understanding between operators and broadcasters to share revenue earned or may well b safe strategy for vast and continued reach
It's a different scenario for FTA channels. I don't recall any platform carrying any FTA channel for free basis based on demand.
Why channels like CNN News 18, CNBC TV18 are not free??? Also tell me bro why various dth brands are unable to provide paid English news channels in their starting packs? Like for example in d2h starting pack is Silver Bengali HD Combo Pack. Not a single paid English news channels are there. Are English news channels that premium??? Why can't be have Times Now, WION etc in lower base packs??? Why BBC World is not free????? Why CGTN lost license??? Why DD Free Dish not having any good private English news channels???? Bro let's demand English paid news channels in all packs of all dths. Be it paid dth service or free dth service. Even Zing Digital not having paid English news channels in their base packs. What about North East Live???? Most of the dths does not even care to carry this channel. This channel shows English news too. What about radio AIR News??? Except DD Free Dish no dth is carrying this FTA English news channel. Very bad scenario bro. What do you think bro???
CNN IBN and CNBC TV 18 comes with Viacom's bouquets. You cannot club FTA and paid channels under a bouquet. That's why News18 channels cost minimal of ₹0.10.
Why BBC is not free to air? Same reason CNN is also a paid channel. I said before. If they were free. They would have to pay carriage fee to the operator. Also BBC is a premium brand. If you recall they had and have other subscribtion based channels like Sony BBC Earth and CBeebies. I wish NHK had the same business model. We would have love to have it during the Tokyo Olympics.
CGTN's license was revoked because it is caught propagating Chinese propaganda. Ours wasn't the first country to revoke it's license. Ours wouldn't be the last.
DD Free Dish caters mostly caters to lower income audience. I don't think most viewers english is not their first language. I don't think it is worth for any private English channel to invest on DD Free Dish with limited audience. DD itself has DD India and Rajya Sabha TV for English news segment on DD Free Dish.
North East Live caters to Northeastern people. I don't even recall Assamese people who speaks Assamese watch this channel. They prefer it's sister channel News Live. It is meant to cater to Northeastern people of other smaller states. Here cable is way more popular than DTH because of affordability before NTO.
Sure there is some understanding. But I don't think it's feasible for pay English news channels to become FTA channels all of a sudden. This is a market for limited audience. They shouldn't give up a resource of making money by giving up subscription.
Like I said before DTH operators charging full ₹153.40 needs to offer basic ₹1-2 channels like Star Utsav, Zee Anmol, Star Sports First, Sony Pal, Sony Wah etc. along with all the news channels in their packs. ₹153.40 is too greedy and pushing viewers towards something like DD Free Dish. They can easily afford with discounts they get from broadcasters.
