Forty-eight hours since a surprise midnight coup saw the control over Calcutta?s cable turf change hands, the trade is just waking up to the impact of the largest multi-system operator (MSO) in the city, being bought over by its rival.

Among broadcasters, the one with a bagful of worries is STAR, which, by its own admission, has dues of ?around Rs 10 crore? with Indian Cable Net, its distributor till recently.

STAR has even issued a public notice threatening to switch off signal on June 9 if the payments are not made by then. Indian Cable Net tried to settle the claims for around Rs 6.5 crore, but failed to reach an agreement.

The matter is being heard by the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal but the largest cable share would give Indian Cable Net, a company under rival Zee since the SitiCable takeover, the upper hand in negotiations.

?The handover has just taken place and it?s too early to comment,? says a STAR spokesperson. ?But we will continue to recover our dues in the same way as we were so long.? STAR is also backing operators planning to move out of Indian Cable Net and set up control rooms of their own.

As far as the other MSOs go, the industry insists that both CableComm and Manthan have cause for concern, but the players themselves refuse to admit it. ?The only change is that from four MSOs, it?s down to three now,? says Gurmeet Singh, a director of Manthan. Singh also squashes rumours of Manthan being up for sale: ?There have been no buyout offers.?

CableComm feels that competition will only help. ?The field is big enough for everyone to survive,? offers D.S. Mehta of CableComm. ?But we need to find out why SitiCable decided to expand in Calcutta when it has exited the MSO business in places like Jaipur and Indore.?

Wait-and-watch is the mantra for some master control rooms under Indian Cable Net serving large sections of city cable households.

?We are working on a separate control room and keeping an eye on the situation,? says Mrinal Chatterjee of Akash Sutra, which caters to areas like Bangur, Dum Dum and Nagerbazar.

?The new company has to share its policy for the future. Then we will decide whether we will stay or leave,? says Rana Das of Linkman, which covers the whole of Salt Lake.

?We already have a separate set-up offering free-to-air channels at a lower price to consumers who cannot afford pay channels. That can be used as a full-fledged control room, if required,? Das adds.