Currently, the base price (Rs 5) is also the maximum retail price for pay channels in CAS areas. The biggest impact of price revision will be on the forthcoming 55-city roll out of CAS, as proposed by Trai, and also the extension of CAS in rest of the three metros.
The cost of acquiring direct-to-home subscribers could be 70-80 per cent higher for new players like Sun Direct, Bharti and Reliance Bluemagic than the existing players like Dish TV and Tata Sky due to superior technology and expensive set top boxes
The move is significant as the ministry has announced its intention to set up another committee to evaluate the success of CAS in areas where it has been implemented. The committee is likely to submit its report by December.
Telecom firms like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and MTNL have shown interest to start IPTV services, where television signal is carried to homes through telecom lines and broadband.
Under the new provisions, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has made it mandatory for the broadcasters to offer their channels on a-la-carte basis (individual channels) and bouquets.
Indian cable companies may lose close to $200 million (about Rs 800 crore) in foreign investments this year as companies like Macquarie, Carlyle, Providence and Liberty Global
Rupert Murdoch-promoted Star Group will take at least four years to cross the $120-million-mark in operating income that it commanded till 2006
Railways to introduce touch-screen TVs for individual seats.
To add to the worries of the cable operators and broadcasters, the government is set to launch a 24-hour "must carry" health channel called DD-Health at an annual outlay of Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.8 billion).
Still drinks, nectars and packaged water sales are maturing quickly to grab a major share of the Indian beverages market, according to "The 2007 India Soft Drinks Report" by Canadean, the global beverages research company.
About five million cable households in the three metros - Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata - will continue to pay higher cable bills as the extension of the Conditional Access System in these cities has been delayed by at least six to eight months.
The Group of Ministers constituted to review the new civil aviation policy will take up among other things, allowing of private Indian carriers, with three-years experience in the domestic sector, to fly abroad.
Dire warnings that the future wars will be fought over water may come true sooner than anticipated, albeit with a flavour. At least four behemoths, three of them multinationals, will soon mount an assault on the flavoured water market.
With over 70 new TV channels expected to be launched in the next three to six months, consumers will get more choice of television content.
The cable industry has asked the government to quickly address the policy issues related to the Internet Protocol TV. Otherwise, over 3,000 unauthorised television channels, which include pornography, will enter Indian homes.
Having failed to receive even a lukewarm response to the open tender for marketing India as a tourist destination overseas, the ministry of tourism has decided to extend the deadline by over a fortnight to mid-August.
DTH in cars will work with the help of a special auto-tracking antenna that will be mounted on the roof of the car.
Sources close to the development said this could happen at a meeting of the company's board of directors on Thursday.
Viewers are coming back to cricket, and Star Cricket plans to cash in on the renewed interest.
Concerned that they will not be able to comply with downlinking guidelines and cable laws, broadcasters and the cable industry have strongly opposed any move to govern Internet Protocol TV services through the Unified Access Service Licence agreement
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