[icernet] Deadline over, pay channels buy more time

[Arul Selvan]

   It was meant to be a day of declarations. But with pay channels Star, 
Sony and Zee pleading for more time to declare the price of their 
channels, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry relented by not 
insisting on the June 15 deadline set for them. Though a notification 
from the Ministry issued last week had set the deadline for cable 
operators to declare the price of their channels individually for the 
sake of consumers, broadcasters met I&B Secretary Pawan Chopra today to 
seek more time. In another significant rollback, Ministry officials did 
not seem to be averse to quantity discounts and tiering of pay channels 
on the basis of genres. So one could have all entertainenment channels 
as one pay band, movie channels as another and sports as yet another 
tier. Incidentally, the notification, while cautioning cable operators 
against bundling of channels, is silent on tiering. It is also learnt 
that the officials wanted the broadcasters to fix the entire pay tier 
around Rs 150  with the very basic tier at a subsidised rate of Rs 25.

Source:
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=25588