20-year-long DTH licence to provide certainty to industry: Tata Sky

Tata Sky said the government's decision to grant licences to the operators for a longer 20 years would provide certainty to the industry

Leading direct-to-home (DTH) player Tata Sky on Wednesday said the government's decision to grant licences to the operators for a longer 20 years would provide certainty to the industry.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a revision in the guidelines for providing DTH services in the country under which licences would be issued for 20 years.

Currently, the licence is valid for 10 years for DTH players.

"We are grateful to (Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash) Javadekar, for resolving the long-standing impasse on the DTH Licence policy which will provide certainty to the industry," Tata Sky Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Harit Nagpal told PTI.

However, he also said the DTH industry is looking at a level-playing field with the parity of licence fee with cable TV.

"We look forward to a level-playing field via parity of the licence fee with cable TV, which is also licensed by (the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) and follows the same prices and margins as regulated by Trai's NTO (new tariff order)," he said.

Changes have also been approved for 100 per cent foreign direct investment limit in the industry. Till now, the FDI was limited to 49 per cent, Javadekar said during a media briefing.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) was consulted in this regard, he added.

While the commerce ministry had spoken of 100 per cent FDI in the DTH industry, the guidelines of the ministry needed to be changed.

According to a report by sectoral regulator Trai, the DTH industry has an active subscriber base of 72.44 million paying customers in the quarter ended March 31.

This was in addition to free DTH services of public broadcaster Doordarshan.

Tata Sky with a share of 32.33 per cent was leading in the segment, followed by DishTV with 29.49 per cent. Bharti Telemedia has 23.65 per cent and Sun Direct TV has 14.53 per cent.