MIB to launch SMS campaign to educate cable TV consumers

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting plans to launch a SMS campaign in order to sensitise cable TV subscribers in Phase I and Phase II cities about the need to fill the Consumer Application Form (CAF).The consumers are required to fill the CAF in order to exercise their choice of channels and make the payment for the channels of their choice only.

The Ministry has been monitoring the availability of set top boxes with the Multi System Operators (MSOs). Broadcasters are already running scrolls on TV channels to inform the public about the importance of filling CAF forms. MSOs are also giving messages on their local TV channels. Analogue signals have already been switched off by almost all the MSOs and digital signals are generally being encrypted.

The Ministry has been consistently monitoring the progress made towards digitisation during Phase II of the process. As per data received from MSOs and DTH Operators, 22 cities have already achieved 100 per cent target of digitisation. Another 14 cities have shown considerable progress and only in Coimbatore and Vishakhapatanam, the achievement is less than 50 per cent.

As part of the process, over 80 fresh provisional registrations were issued to MSOs for operation in one or more cities of Phase II, with the condition that they would operationalise their digital head end before the cut-off date. The Ministry has carried out technical inspection of all the concerned MSOs and has observed that some of the MSOs had not operationalised their set-ups. Show Cause Notices were issued to such 48 defaulting MSOs and the provisional registration of 15 defaulting MSOs has already been cancelled.