TRAI Decides, Deliberates And Now Delays Recommendations On Mobile TV

The TRAI has been forced to delay its recommendations on terrestrial spectrum for Mobile TV due to differences between the Ministry of I&B and Ministry of Communications, reports the Hindu. TRAI had earlier recommended an auction of spectrum and invited not only Telcos and Broadcasters, but DTH and IPTV players as well. In my opinion this is a scuffle not on an optimum policy strategy but an elaborate game of who will have the baptizing rights for the cash cow. Hefty carriage fee’s are commonplace in the TV sector, why should MobileTV be any different? This is particularly important when you consider that there can only be 12-15 channels on Mobile TV: the fewer the channels, the higher the stakes and possibly – higher carriage fees.

Additionally, appealing to both the I&B and the Ministry of Communication will require a different kind of beast, one who has experience in getting content passed and another who can get technology passed. Very few players, namely Reliance, Zee and possibly Network18 (in the future), have the ability to leverage that eclectic value chain mix. For a level playing field, content will have be separated from carriage, which was the earlier plan. Any word on how Doordarshan and the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) mobileTV trials launched in May 07 are doing?

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