The Telecom Regulatory Authority of lndia (TRAI) has extended the deadline for submitting written comments on the Consultation Paper on "Transparency in Publishing of Tariff Offers" to February 7, 2020.

After the stakeholders sought a further extension of time for sending their comments on the Consultation Paper, TRAI decided to further extend the last date for submission of written comments to February 7, 2020, and for counter comments to February 21, 2020.

MUMBAI: In week 2 of BARC India ratings, Colors continues to lead the list again in the urban space on pay platform. In the rural space and free platform, there are some minor changes in the pecking order of the list. In the urban market Star Plus slipped down to the second position in week 2. Colors, Star Plus, SONY SAB, Sony Entertainment Television, Zee TV, Dangal, STAR Bharat, &TV, STAR Utsav and Big Magic are the top ten channels.

BENGALURU: The Sun TV Network’s flagship Tamil GEC Sun TV was ranked first in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly list of Top 10 Channels Across Genres on All Platforms in week 2 of 2020 (Saturday, 11 January 2020 to Friday, 17January 2020, week or period under consideration). This was the first time in 2020 and the first time since week 36 of 2019 that the channel regained what was its regular top spot during earlier periods before the implementation of Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) New Tariff Order (NTO).

MUMBAI: English Movies genre has become the top gainer in week 02, 2020 of Chrome Data Analytics and Media data. The genre grew by 0.92 per cent. In this genre, Romedy Now channel gained the highest OTS with 49.7 per cent in six metros market.

OTS is the actual census-based percentage connectivity of a channel spread across 81 million homes, as reported by Chrome DM, across analogue cable, digital cable, and DTH.

Full-service digital creative agency White Rivers Media is now the social media and digital marketing partner for Times Network’s English entertainment channels.

As per the mandate, White Rivers Media, founded in 2012, will curate social, creative and digital strategies for Movies Now, MN+, MNX and Romedy Now. The account will be handled from the agency’s head office in Mumbai.

With constant changes being introduced to channel pricings by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), both broadcasters and consumers feel the impact of instability.  Is unstable pricing mechanism adding chaos to the already chaotic broadcast industry?

In December 2018 TRAI put a cap on Rs 19 as the threshold for a channel for creating bouquets. The broadcasters changed their channel pricing accordingly.

Cut to December 2019. With the threshold being brought down by over 35 per cent, capping the MRP at Rs 12, channel prices are all set to change again.

Nickelodeon channels Nick and Sonic from Viacom18 are now present in eight languages — Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.

This step fortifies Nickelodeon’s category leadership, making Nick and Sonic the only two channels that are available in eight languages, making them the most-inclusive kids' television channels, entertaining kids across the country — be it north, south, east or west. 

Justifying the cap on bouquet formation in the New Tariff Order (NTO) 2.0, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said the top five broadcasters do not allow smaller players to be a part of the bouquets and they fill the limited network capacity by pushing their niche and second-rung channels along with their driver channels.

At a recently held press conference, TRAI Secretary Sunil Gupta and Chairman RS Sharma accused the 'top five broadcasters' of manipulating and twisting the rules in their favour, which was killing small broadcasters. During the conference, the TRAI officials mentioned 'Those five broadcasters' a number of times and projected them as a cartel.

MUMBAI: Odia media company Eastern Media Ltd (EML), which has a presence in print, TV, radio and cable distribution, plans to launch a new Odia general entertainment channel (GEC) in FY21.

The new channel launch will not entail any major CAPEX as the company has the entire set-up in place. Currently, EML owns a regional news channel named Kanak News.

The Odia GEC market is dominated by Zee Sarthak, Colors Odia, and Tarang TV.

EML has posted an operating profit of Rs 18.23 crore for the fiscal ended March 2019 compared to Rs 13.78 crore in the previous fiscal.

MUMBAI: In a major setback for Tata Sky, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed the direct to home (DTH) operator to provide a refund to all the subscribers who were affected during its tiff with Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) over the renewal of content deal.

The DTH operator has to issue refunds for the period from 1st October 2018 to 5th December 2018, for which the payment was taken from the subscribers.

TRAI has also directed Tata Sky to submit a list of subscribers, to whom refund has been made along with the amount of such refund. Further, the DTH operator has been asked to deposit any amount that could not be refunded to the subscribers into the Telecommunication Consumers Education and Protection Fund (TCEPF).