Jehil Thakkar, partner at management consulting firm Deloitte India says: “This will definitely have an adverse impact on broadcasters who were driving the reach of some of their smaller channels through the heft of more popular shows and channels by clubbing them into a bouquet.” This may slow down new channel launches and may impact revenues of some of the less popular channels as the consumer is now being asked to pay for whatever he watches. Every consumer gets a basic package of 100 standard definition channels for ₹130.
However, Colors’ CEO Raj Nayak is optimistic. He feels the decision that will benefit all stakeholders in the long run. “Broadcasters will, for the first time, have complete transparency in the number of subscribers and also get their fair value of subscription revenues, which hasn’t happened so far. This could also mean less dependency on advertising revenue and more investment in content,” he says.