Good News TRAI wins the tariff order case against Star in Supreme Court

[suanlian]

NCF Should be Abolished Completely. Because in the name of NCF they are providing channels which are free and maximum channels we are not even watching. So why we should pay for that? Secondly due to NCF total pay is increasing directly by 153 (130+GST) which is too costly.

So I Want to Ask TRAI Committee :-
1. If one side you are telling that "Only Pay the Channel You Watch" OR "Pay Per Channel" than why should I Pay NCF over and above per channel price?
2. Secondly You also telling it is for Customer Interest than why in New Tariff Plan my monthly subscription cost goes high by 150+ and still many channels I need to compromise?

I also request the members of this forum to Please Raise the Voice against this NCF Policy.

Why are you so against NCF? Without NCF, from where your service provider will get money to buy equipment, pay salaries and produce Local News/Channels? Bulk of Pay Channel Price goes to Broadcasters. Also you don't completely understand what the ₹ 130 NCF means. You are wrong when you say "Because in the name of NCF they are providing channels which are free and maximum channels we are not even watching." After paying the ₹ 130 NCF, you get 25 DD Channels and you may choose upto 75 Pay Channels of your choice without paying any extra NCF. It doesn't have to be 100 FTA Channels. And I agree when TRAI Chairman says very few people will watch more than 75 pay channels in India. Just make sure you don't choose "free and maximum channels you are not even watching."

Also you said NCF should be abolished completely. Suppose NCF is abolished and priced ₹ 0 and you choose to watch only 100 FTA. Then you have to pay ₹ 0 to your Cable/DTH operator. Do you think you can provide 100 FTA CHANNELS FOR FREE if you are the Cable/DTH operator?

 

[suanlian]

Huge difference in alacarte channel price and bouquet price is only only due to the abolishment of 15% discount cap.so it has impact on subscription plan of individuals

I agree with you. It's the same as before. Huge difference in price between ala-carte and bouquet price. And bouquets are designed in such a way that you end up subscribing more of what you don't want to watch because a few channels you liked are among them, and it's cheaper to take the whole bouquet then taking only the few channels you are trying to subscribe in the first place. Cunningly and craftily designed by broadcasters.

 

[KuLpreet Singh]

Now I selected these channels only. Many Bros told in DDF . If we deselect the pay channels, automatically the broadcasters reduce the rate. I avoid the all stars sports channels. And we watch after 3 months.

Zee Tamil HD.

There is Sony Bouquet for Sports. U should have opted for that.

 

[ramesh skyPLAY]

I deselected these Sony tens also bro, @KuLpreet Singh . Bcz see the picture.

 

[Rajeshgopal]

Why are you so against NCF? Without NCF, from where your service provider will get money to buy equipment, pay salaries and produce Local News/Channels? Bulk of Pay Channel Price goes to Broadcasters. Also you don't completely understand what the ₹ 130 NCF means. You are wrong when you say "Because in the name of NCF they are providing channels which are free and maximum channels we are not even watching." After paying the ₹ 130 NCF, you get 25 DD Channels and you may choose upto 75 Pay Channels of your choice without paying any extra NCF. It doesn't have to be 100 FTA Channels. And I agree when TRAI Chairman says very few people will watch more than 75 pay channels in India. Just make sure you don't choose "free and maximum channels you are not even watching."

Also you said NCF should be abolished completely. Suppose NCF is abolished and priced ₹ 0 and you choose to watch only 100 FTA. Then you have to pay ₹ 0 to your Cable/DTH operator. Do you think you can provide 100 FTA CHANNELS FOR FREE if you are the Cable/DTH operator?

Well Siad!!! You Have Supremely Nice Point Bro, But Why Don't They Reduce NCF as Rs 50-70 Instead Rs 153 Which Is Considerably Expensive Whereas I Got Only Non-Favourite Channels Only Then Why The Hell I Should Give Huge Some Money Without a Justifiable Reason???

 

[web2019]

Watching TV just got more expensive. lol

 

[suanlian]

Well Siad!!! You Have Supremely Nice Point Bro, But Why Don't They Reduce NCF as Rs 50-70 Instead Rs 153 Which Is Considerably Expensive Whereas I Got Only Non-Favourite Channels Only Then Why The Hell I Should Give Huge Some Money Without a Justifiable Reason???

Don't worry about the NCF too much. Many providers already waived or discounted the NCF already.

You said you get "Only Non-Favourite Channels". Please talk to your provider about this and demand your favorite channels.

So how can subscription price come down? Instead of raising our voice against NCF only, we should raise our voice against extremely high pay channel prices. Broadcasters are already getting huge amounts from commercial ads especially on popular channels. But even after getting those amounts, they still priced their channels at the maximum rate of ₹ 19+tax on those very popular channels because they know we want to watch them. The people who are robbing us are actually the broadcasters. And very few people are aware of that or shout their voice against them.

Since I'm from the North, I want to watch the following 20 popular pay channels of MRP ₹ 19 each:
Star Plus HD, Star Bharat HD, Star Movies HD, Star Sports HD 1, Star Sports HD 2, Star Sports Select HD 1, Colors HD, SET HD, SIX HD, Ten 1 HD, Zee Cinema HD, Zee TV HD, Zee Cafe HD, &Flix HD, &Pictures HD, &Prive HD, Sab HD, Zee Talkies HD, Star Jalsha HD, Zee Bangla HD

So ₹ 19 x 20 = ₹ 380 + ₹ 68.40 (GST) = ₹ 448.40 with ZERO NCF. I could add more ₹ 17, ₹ 15, ₹ 12, ₹ 10 channels and the price would skyrocket.

If max channel price were capped at say, ₹ 5, then the story would be much different:
₹ 5 x 20 = ₹ 100 + ₹ 18 (GST) = ₹ 118. Even if you add full NCF to this, it would cost ₹ 118 + ₹ 153.40 = ₹ 271.40 only, and you still have many free slots left until it reach the 100 channel cap before additional NCF will be added. The NCF will be same upto 100 channels.

So it was not TRAI. It was not the NCF. It was the Broadcasters who makes our TV viewing much much costlier. Broadcasters fight tooth and nail against original TRAI order and won some of it, so ala-carte price can cost upto ₹ 19 and can cost lesser than 15% in packs/bouquets bundled with channels we don't watch. If they have their way, it would even cost more than ₹ 19 per channel ala-carte. This is not what TRAI wants. This is not what TRAI tries to implement. Broadcasters spends huge amounts in courts to that they can have their way - all in their interest and messed up with TRAI's plans. The last thing broadcasters have in their mind is you - the consumers. And we are happily paying them. Buying bouquets. And throwing stones at our benefactor. That's us.

 

[Sarkar]

Don't worry about the NCF too much. Many providers already waived or discounted the NCF already.

You said you get "Only Non-Favourite Channels". Please talk to your provider about this and demand your favorite channels.

So how can subscription price come down? Instead of raising our voice against NCF only, we should raise our voice against extremely high pay channel prices. Broadcasters are already getting huge amounts from commercial ads especially on popular channels. But even after getting those amounts, they still priced their channels at the maximum rate of ₹ 19+tax on those very popular channels because they know we want to watch them. The people who are robbing us are actually the broadcasters. And very few people are aware of that or shout their voice against them.

Since I'm from the North, I want to watch the following 20 popular pay channels of MRP ₹ 19 each:
Star Plus HD, Star Bharat HD, Star Movies HD, Star Sports HD 1, Star Sports HD 2, Star Sports Select HD 1, Colors HD, SET HD, SIX HD, Ten 1 HD, Zee Cinema HD, Zee TV HD, Zee Cafe HD, &Flix HD, &Pictures HD, &Prive HD, Sab HD, Zee Talkies HD, Star Jalsha HD, Zee Bangla HD

So ₹ 19 x 20 = ₹ 380 + ₹ 68.40 (GST) = ₹ 448.40 with ZERO NCF. I could add more ₹ 17, ₹ 15, ₹ 12, ₹ 10 channels and the price would skyrocket.

If max channel price were capped at say, ₹ 5, then the story would be much different:
₹ 5 x 20 = ₹ 100 + ₹ 18 (GST) = ₹ 118. Even if you add full NCF to this, it would cost ₹ 118 + ₹ 153.40 = ₹ 271.40 only, and you still have many free slots left until it reach the 100 channel cap before additional NCF will be added. The NCF will be same upto 100 channels.

So it was not TRAI. It was not the NCF. It was the Broadcasters who makes our TV viewing much much costlier. Broadcasters fight tooth and nail against original TRAI order and won some of it, so ala-carte price can cost upto ₹ 19 and can cost lesser than 15% in packs/bouquets bundled with channels we don't watch. If they have their way, it would even cost more than ₹ 19 per channel ala-carte. This is not what TRAI wants. This is not what TRAI tries to implement. Broadcasters spends huge amounts in courts to that they can have their way - all in their interest and messed up with TRAI's plans. The last thing broadcasters have in their mind is you - the consumers. And we are happily paying them. Buying bouquets. And throwing stones at our benefactor. That's us.

In earlier era Max price of a channel was Rs 15 which was set a decade ago. So how can you reduce a channel price when cost of everything has gone up in this 10 years ?

 

[suanlian]

In earlier era Max price of a channel was Rs 15 which was set a decade ago. So how can you reduce a channel price when cost of everything has gone up in this 10 years ?

Tell me how, in earlier era, broadcasters can give their channels at less than 50% of what it costs now to big operators and higher to small operators. Meaning channel price more than doubled now and cost the same to both big and small operators. Pricing is transparent now. In earlier era, you don't know how much your cable or DTH operator is paying the broadcasters (content charges) and how much they are keeping for themselves. This is one of the goal of TRAI's New Tariff Order.

 

[Sarkar]

Tell me how, in earlier era, broadcasters can give their channels at less than 50% of what it costs now to big operators and higher to small operators. Meaning channel price more than doubled now and cost the same to both big and small operators. Pricing is transparent now. In earlier era, you don't know how much your cable or DTH operator is paying the broadcasters (content charges) and how much they are keeping for themselves. This is one of the goal of TRAI's New Tariff Order.

Because these are initial days so now they are trying to maximising their revenue share from consumers monthly bill. so kept their pricing on higher side to see the market response. If we goes by largest MSO here, Siti cable packages then at Rs 250 pm we see except Zee no other broadcaster's popular pay chs so they are missing a large chunk of subscribers. So it will reflect in their BARC data and ad revenue.

Consumers are not stupid that one who was paying 250 will suddenly pay 350. That means broadcasters will have to lower their pricing to be able to fit into consumers budget