The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today issued a show-cause notice to sports broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports threatening legal action and recommendation of revoking its downlinking licence to the Government for not providing signals to direct-to-home (DTH) operators as per its earlier directive on pricing of channels. Trai in a directive a few weeks ago had asked all pay channel broadcasters that they have to give their channels or bouquets to all DTH operators at half the price charged in the non-addressable cable area or homes which do not get their channels through a set top box but directly from cable operators. There are about 7 million addressable homes (who get channels through a set top box only)in the country out of a total of 80 million cable homes. However, ESPN India, comprising of ESPN, STAR Sports and STAR Cricket, has not complied to the Trai directive sighting several reasons including higher input costs of sports channels (after all they have to pay huge amounts for getting tlecast rights for cricket or football) when compared to other genre of channels. ESPN has to reply within the next three-days else Trai will initiate the legal action, the Trai notice said. When contacted, an ESPN executive declined to comment in the matter. If ESPN complies, then it will benefit all the existing and new DTH operators who have sought the three ESPN STAR Sports channels (for the first time or renewal of existing contract) for their DTH platforms but were unable to reach any commercial agreement due the sportc channel's demand for a higher bouquet price than what is directed by TRAI. Currently, DTH operators--Tata Sky, and the new DTH entrants like BIG TV, Bharti and Videocon are said to be in talks with ESPN for sourcing its channels on their platforms. Also, currently, Tata Sky, the second largest private DTH operator, and ESPN are involved in a legal battle over related issue of pricing of these channels and their placement in the general bouquet. According to Trai officials, most of the other pay channel brodcasters have already complied to the Trai's earlier directive on pricing for DTH platforms except ESPN. On June 24, Trai issued a directive to the sports broadcaster asking it to comply with the pricing of its channels on the DTH platform. In response, ESPN submitted the new commercial terms for DTH but with a condition that only those DTH operators will get its channels at Trai-mandated rates which can put its channels in the basic bouquet (that is subscribed by most DTH subscribers). "This condition is unacceptable to Trai and therefore it has issued a show-cause notice to ESPN," a legal expert dealing with DTH issues said.
