Cable operators try their luck to get stay order

Vijayawada: Cable operators, who are afraid of losing sizable revenue following the order of the Supreme Court to collect from the consumers for the channels only they are asking for, appear to be knocking on the doors of the Supreme Court once again to get stay order to temporarily stall the implementation.

The cable operators hope that they would get a stay order on the implementation of the new guidelines of the Supreme Court to postpone it for at least three-four months. If they did not get the stay order, it would be a big blow to them. 

As per the judgment of the Supreme Court, the cable operators need to collect only the amount from the consumers for the channels they select from the long list of channels.

At present, the cable operators are collecting Rs 200 to Rs 300 per month depending upon the area of the distribution. They claim that they put 600 channels on the network for the customers to view, nobody would watch them. Apart from Telugu channels which broadcast soap operas and some prominent news channels, generally people would not go to the other channels.

Even if one wants to surf the 600 channels to see what is there and spend half-a-minute actually to understand what is showing, it takes at least 5 hours to complete one round.

The Supreme Court is right in one aspect. Nobody wants Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada channels in the Telugu states barring the language-specific groups. 

The Star group has already announced that its bouquet would cost Rs 37 and the ETV group has also announced similar package of course without mentioning the price. Even if all these are included, it would never cross Rs 100 whereas people are paying Rs 300.

The cable operators hope that they would get a stay order on the implementation of the new guidelines of the Supreme Court to postpone it for at least three-four months. If they did not get the stay order, it would be a big blow to them.