New Delhi, Jan. 9: The government today announced that the telecom regulator will also act as the regulator for broadcasting and cable services.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will regulate terms and conditions of licence, revenue-sharing between stakeholders and pay-channel prices.

Trai will thus have to wrestle with all the contentious issues thrown up by the conditional access system, which will be dealt with within the parameters set for telecom services.

“In the absence of a regulator, many issues between various stakeholders in the broadcasting sector have remained undecided and this has, in turn, affected the interests of consumers and impeded the steady growth of the broadcasting sector,” said an official statement.

“After careful examination of the options available, the government has decided to entrust the regulatory function in respect of broadcasting and cable services to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India,” it said.

“The Trai Act was amended in 2000 to include the broadcasting and cable services. Hence, there is no need to further amend the Act to include these new responsibilities,” said communications secretary Vinod Vaish.

Sources in Trai said there were enough provisions in the Act to regulate the broadcasting and cable industry. With the convergence of technology, telecom and other services are difficult to define separately.

The regulator will recommend measures to facilitate competition and promote efficiency in the operation of broadcasting services to help growth in such services. It will also recommend technological improvements in services provided by service providers, ensure compliance of terms and conditions of licence and technical compatibility and effective inter-connection between different service providers.

Trai will also regulate arrangements among service providers for sharing revenue from providing broadcasting and cable services, lay down standards for quality of service to be provided by the service providers and ensure such quality of service, as well as conduct periodical surveys of such a service provided by the service providers so as to protect the interests of the consumers.

The regulator will also examine the terms and conditions on which “addressable systems such as set-top boxes” are to be provided to customers, the parameters for regulating maximum time for advertisements in pay channels and other channels and prescribe standard norms for and periodicity of revision of rates of pay channels, including interim measures.

“The whole issue (pricing of television channels for customers) has been a mess,” said a television channel official. “By tossing the ball into Trai’s court, the government is opening another can of worms.”

Trai would first have to start discussions with cable operators on bundled pricing of channels for customers, he said. Talks with the channels could begin only after that, he added.

“I reckon that the government now wants to toss the messy issue to Trai. But I expect no great movement on it, especially with elections round the corner,” said the television channel official.

Unlike the telecom sector, the only legislation that governs the cable television industry is the Cable Regulation Act, which is inadequate. The problem of pricing of channels is compounded by the under-reporting of subscribers by cable operators.

“We get paid for only 20 per cent of the cable operators’ actual subscriber base and Trai will have to wrestle with that,” he said.

Jawahar Goel, vice-chairman of Zee Telefilms said: “We welcome the idea (of providing Trai the regulatory powers) but now Trai’s hands are full. But definitely something good will happen. This will benefit the whole industry. Until now, the I&B ministry was taking actions but this had limitations. Now that the issues will be handled by the regulator, it will help the sector.”

Roop Sharma, president of Cable Operators Federation of India said: “We will now ask for cross-media restrictions, regulation of pay-channel rates and clubbing of channels. It is a very welcome move.”