Star India has for the seventh time since February extended the existing subscription license agreements for another period of 30 days until 31st August 2020, which were set to expire on July 31, 2020, or is expiring by efflux of time on August 30, 2020.
Star India in its letter stated, “This is to inform all distributor of television channels (“DPOs), whose subscription license agreement executed with Star India Private Limited and/or Disney Broadcasting India Limited has expired on July 31, 2020 or is expiring by efflux of time on August 30, 2020 (and have not signed the subscription license agreement version 3 dated 01.01.2020), is further extended for a period ending on August 31, 2020 as an interim measure by way of extension letters, on terms and condition detailed therein. Copies of the said letters have been sent through email.”
The 7th revision on a consecutive month to month basis started in February 2020 when the initial Reference Interconnect Offer signed under Tariff Order 2017 was to complete its 1 year period on January 31, 2020. With NTO 2.0 impasse between broadcasters and TRAI since then, the existing agreements have been extended on a monthly basis by most of the broadcasters.
TRAI in its directive dated 24th July noted that ad-hocism was prevailing in the industry wherein all interconnection and other agreements were getting renewed for one/two months thereby creating uncertainty in the sector affecting the healthy orderly growth of the sector. Few broadcasters had also started asking the distribution platform operators to accept the new bouquet prices which were notified in January 2020.
