NEW DELHI: Top 14 cable/DTH service providers have cornered 25% subscribers in an otherwise fragmented pay TV market, a consultation paper floated by the broadcasting and telecom regulator shows.
Hinting at a possible market concentration situation, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) consultation paper notes that the emergence of joint venture or subsidiary model in the past few years, and following large multi- service operators (MSOs) acquiring local cable operators and smaller MSOs, there have been instances of dominant MSOs misusing their market power.
The consultation paper has been released with the intention of safeguarding the interest of smaller players.
According to the TRAI paper, there are estimated 184 million TV households which are being served by the cable TV services, DTH services, HITS services, IPTV services in addition to a terrestrial TV network of Doordarshan.
The pay TV universe consists of around 73 million cable TV subscribers, 70.99 million DTH subscribers and 2.15 million HITS subscribers.
In addition, there are 38 million subscribers of Free-to-Air DTH Service and terrestrial TV services provided by Doordarshan.
As per the data shared by the service providers with TRAI in May 2021, top 14 MSOs (multi-service operators) of the sector serve approximately 45.7 million customers.
The major MSOs are Siti Networks, GTPL Hathway, Hathway Digital and DEN Networks. The four major DTH operators at the end of June 2021 were Dish TV, TATA Sky, Sun Direct and Bharti Telemedia.
Through the consultation paper, TRAI has sought opinion on whether MSOs and their joint ventures (JV) should be treated as a single entity, while considering their strength in the relevant market.
Earlier, Trai had opined that, “any MSO which by itself contributes to more than 2,500 HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) in a relevant market should not be permitted to merge with or acquire the ‘control’ of any other MSO/LCO in that market.”
The consultation paper of TRAI