CAG to conduct special audit for DTH service providers on I&B min's orders

The audit will be conducted to ensure that the amount to be submitted to the Centre in the form of the licence fee is "correctly assessed"

Direct-to-home (DTH) TV service providers will be subjected to a special audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) over their long-running dispute over licence fees, a report in Economic Times (ET) said. 

The office of the CAG has been asked to conduct the audit by the Ministry of Information and broadcasting. According to the report, an "intensive" audit of the service providers like Airtel Digital TV, Tata Play, Dish TV and Sun Direct will be conducted going back to a year of these companies' inception or grant of licence by the government. 

The audit will also be conducted to ensure that the amount to be submitted to the centre in the form of the licence fee is "correctly assessed". 

In May, DTH service providers sought a licence fee waiver owing to a decline in the number of subscribers. Between 2003 and 2007, the centre granted DTH licences to 6 providers. But currently, there are only four in the market. The audit, however, will be conducted for all six. 

The two players that are no longer in the market are Videocon's D2H TV and Big TV/ Independent TV. 

Generally, DTH service providers need to submit 8 per cent of their gross revenue to the government in the form of licence fees. For the four players, the number of subscribers, according to ET, stands at 68 million. 

However, according to ET, there are concerns among government officials that the revenue calculations as recorded by different operators have been dropping and aren't along expected levels.

In 2020, DishTV received a notice from the I&B ministry to pay Rs 4,164 crore in the form of the licence fees and the interest due since the company's inception in 2003.

Revenues from the DTH licence fee, along with those from commercial TV services, FM radio, etc., are expected to exceed Rs 1,000 crore in FY23.