The DTH industry was essentially predicated on regulation, intervening and creating a level playing field for those who are not paying the content producers and the government by way of taxes and those who did. We were obviously dependant on the regulation kicking in earlier but 2012 has really seen first phase of that in Delhi and Mumbai where digitization has happened. This has done two things, one it has given the government a confidence that it can be done and given cable operators writing on the wall that it is question of when and not where. We expect the second, third and fourth phases now to happen as per schedule. Once that happens there will be a level playing field. The government will get its taxes and the broadcasters who produce the content, will get their content fee.
As regards where wish list for the industry, there are three:
1. Regulation – It needs to make sure that the digitization program that is created happens as per the plan that they have made
2. Taxation of the industry is very high and I am not generally cribbing because we lose 32 percent to the taxman before we see the money. There is a 10 percent license fees which is there was recommendation by the TRAI as well as the MIB about four years ago to reduce it to 6 and it doesn’t seem like happening yet. We pay tax in the state by way of entertainment tax and tax as a centre by way of service tax despite entertainment being on the negative list, we are not on the negative list. We expect us to get out of the negative list
3. Capacity - With about India as size of Europe, it has languages more than European has therefore there are about 850 channels. Whereas none of the operators have satellite capacity which exceeds and being to cable to carry about 300 odd channels. With the advent of HD and propagation of HD, there is going to be further pressure on us. So we need access to fleets of international satellite operators without restriction and intervention of bureaucracy.
